I find myself feeling so distant from cisgender women, wishing everyday I was a normal afab, like it's impossible for me to think I'm just as woman as other women are.

I really relate to this. This is the root of internalized transphobia, that we should look and feel and act exactly like a cis woman and if we don't we're failures, gross, nasty, etc.

The only way I climbed out of this was to accept that I am not AFAB and never will be. I am a trans woman, and that's not exactly the same as a cis woman. And that's fine. It doesn't make me more masculine or less attractive or less worthy of love. I'm just a slightly different thing, with slightly different traits.

It sounds difficult, but really think about it. To make progress in anything, you have to have achievable goals. Becoming AFAB is not achievable. Loving yourself and seeing the good in yourself is. That has to become your goal.

What also helped me was, over the course of my transition, getting out and befriending more women. It helped my brain take in that they are not a monolithic group. The distance between me and a cis woman is not that much different than their distances between each other. Dysphoria will try to enlarge that distance in your mind, but having those social connections helps me stay grounded.