Understanding the dysphoria crash

Here I am again and I recognise the symptoms now. 

I felt some gender euphoria over the weekend when tucking gave me the illusion of having a female body for a couple of days. 

This gave me hope, and clarity and certainty that this is right for me. I need a female body for me, myself and nobody else. 

Now back to “normal” mode and I feel hopeless. I have the opportunity to go out presenting female next week. Except now dysphoria strikes and I can’t see the point. Why take the risk when I can never transition for real? Don’t do it. 

There is a noticeable pattern in my brain where euphoria is followed by a dysphoria crash. 

I am interested in why this happens, because it feels counterintuitive. My assumption is that if gender euphoria is a high, then the brain would crave more of it and push me towards the behaviours that bring euphoria, but instead, it seems to want to avoid repeating them. 

An explanation offered by asking AI is that there are a number of mechanisms at play:

That living with dysphoria day-to-day I am used to it and don’t notice it.  Presenting female gives me a period of relief from this, but then when I return to male presentation I suddenly become more aware of the feelings I can usually ignore, so they feel much worse. Sounds plausible. I am generally not that aware of dysphoria and able to repress it most of the time, so maybe that is why bringing it into focus for a brief period when I get that sense of loss from reverting to male presentation makes it feel bad for a while but it goes away again when my coping mechanisms override it. 

Second theory is that an avoidance response comes from associating risk with pain. Presenting female feels risky, and it is, and is making myself vulnerable, both physically and emotionally through expressing my true self without my usual mask. The pain comes from the dysphoria crash that follows, and the brain then connects the two as risk causes pain therefore avoid taking the risk again. Also plausible I suppose. Fact is though, that taking the risk of presenting female has never gone badly. I can rationally argue, based on my experiences, that the risk is quite low. Not that one can rationally argue with the irrational part of the brain and if the association my brain is making is with the post-event dysphoria rather than the actual event, then it is rational to conclude that the risk brings pain. 

If I understand what is going on in my brain, can I therefore resolve it?  I can just ignore the voice in my head and do it anyway. If I keep making myself override the risk aversion will I become immune to it, through giving my brain more data showing that it turned out fine each time? However, if the theory is correct that it is the dysphoria crash rather than the risk event that my brain is trying to protect me from, then this would not work, and I may reinforce it by giving my brain more data points showing that the pain of the crash always follows. It would be harder to defeat that.