Chuck is my asshole, coach, drill sergeant and he resides comfortably in my head. I’ve spent the last 6-ish weeks making decisions and taking actions that are opposite to what Chuck, the eating disorder, wants. Some days are easier than others. When I got to residential, I was certain that I wasn’t sick enough and definitely didn’t belong here. I have a socially acceptable eating disorder. I do it all for health. I’m not skinny. I don’t purge. I have no bad health effects from my eating disorder. As a result, I was shocked and surprised how painful the refeed process actually was. Funny me – I thought the amount of food I was being “forced” to eat at the beginning of this adventure was too much. You can imagine things have continued to increase over time and I am now at 42 exchanges per day! (I was barely eating 17 before treatment.) This is painful in an entirely different way.
I knew eventually my body would change. In fact it has been changing the whole time. I could feel the muscles receding into the background. Enough so that my son when he came to visit was sure to point it out. “You seem to be getting thinner. Your muscles are more flexible…” Oh how diet culture has seeped even into my young six year old’s world. Damn it – you did that. Well, not entirely alone. Change one was body composition. Change two is now adding mass. Not the “good” kind of mass that diet culture promotes. As much as I want to keep my own fatphobia in check, it is hard for me not to feel awful about my growing body. (Yet, I still get to experience thin privilege during this whole thing.) Regardless, I have to deal with myself and sit in the feelings.
I have literally spent 90% of my life trying to run from these feelings – I feel gross and disgusting….I feel like a failure. I feel like a monster. There is something inherently wrong with me. I don’t fit in anywhere. I don’t deserve love. I’m lazy and incapable of caring for myself. My body is my temple and I’m letting it go. I’m going to stand out for looking too much like a guy — not enough like a guy. I don’t fit into the social constructs of gender. My boobs are too big, and not big enough. As I grow, they grow — which triggers another set of terrible, destructive thoughts. Gender dysphoria.
Last night I met a good friend of mine in Raleigh. We had dinner at her favorite vegan restaurant. After, we meandered to her hotel where these two, in my humble opinion, toxically masculine men started asking my friend about the brewery represented on her sweatshirt. The thoughts I had each time they looked at me were, “Will they be able to figure out that I’m a female? Will they reject me because I look like a guy or because I’m gay? Will they bully me and make snide comments about how I look? Will they find me attractive?” Whew — that’s a lot of thoughts about two guys I’ve never met before. I have to say that similar thoughts have fueled Chuck. Fueled Chuck to take action and make sure that I fit squarely in a category where at least people will know that I’m of the female persuasion. The smaller I am, for some reason, the easier that is for people. It has become confused over time. The comfort of not having to explain myself or be looked at in a way that implies my presence is an affront to females around the world. I used to want to yell to others in bathrooms that “I too bleed like you do. I have small tits, but I too wear a fucking bra.” Over time, either society changed enough that butch women could exist and not be seen as a threat to masculinity or I morphed into a more feminine version of myself, that of a middle aged woman.
All this to say that I’m struggling. I’m struggling with Chuck and body changes. These body changes are two fold because we are also talking about the changes associated with taking testosterone. The hips are bonier. The belly is flabbier. The neck is thicker. The hair on my chin is growing. My voice is cracking. I wish I had the ability to experience these changes in a celebratory way. I feel confronted though as the changes make a more public presentation. I am confronted because I am about to return to my regular life. I’m going to be going back to work in a bigger body to start. If I also go back with hair on my chin, am I a monster, another gender fuck, confusing? Will people even notice? It has been my secret so far. If I stop at this point, I can recover all – well, except for my cracking voice.
Each morning I wake up with the thought that I’ll stop taking testosterone. I’ve convinced myself that the bigger “fuck you!” to the world is to stay presenting more in a female body (which wouldn’t really change with T anyway) and then dressing as fucking masculine as I possibly can. There is a therapist here with that masculine of center vibe. She is an absolute gender “fuck you!” Yet, she still claims her femininity and doesn’t need to transition to express her gender fluidity. I don’t either. Not that I was really thinking that I would fully transition – though perhaps it would be easier. So in the end, when I think about stopping testosterone – the anxiety eases a bit aaaand increases. What if stopping triggers Chuck to rev back up? What if the changes result in more weight gain given the exchanges I’m eating right now? Would stopping T at this point mean I’m at the end of my gender exploration (for now)? It is possible that I am. It is possible that I am not ready for more substantial changes or that these are the only changes I’m comfortable with at this point in my life. That would fucking be ok. I have so much on my plate right now and it feels fucking overwhelming to tackle everything at once.
Perhaps there is a middle ground. Perhaps I could reduce my dose and buy more time. Which is what I asked my doctor. I am truly worried that if I stop now, the reintroduction of the female physique – hips, boobs, etc. will light up the “fix it” scream in my brain. It is just so hard for me to figure out what I really want in all of this. Is it that I just want to fit in? Is it that I want to continue to live an invisible life?
Chuck has occupied my life for so long that I haven’t given myself the freedom to ask these questions. Frankly, there are still many moments where I feel it would be easier to use Chuck than to confront who I am. It would be easier to confine myself in an eating disorder than to realize my full potential.
Today, I am asking for one morsel of motivation as to why recovery is worth it. Anything. Right now as I’m once again feeling full and overly uncomfortable in my body, all recovery oriented decisions seem disappointing and essentially make me feel dead inside.
Chuck – you’re an asshole.
