As I reintegrate myself into the world after another 8 weeks of residential treatment, I’m reflecting on something I wrote last year. My therapist in treatment said the key to recovery from anything, is to have and maintain hope. I wrote this “letter of hope” as I was discovering language to describe my experience with gender and eating disorder recovery. I was so scared of letting myself be seen.
I have come so far. I am now out to my family, social media and work. It is fantastic not having to present a different version of myself for every situation. That said, I still have fear. Fear triggered by the past experiences of bullying, societal and familial rejection. I try to remember that my hypervigilance isn’t serving me…except given the current state of the world, I’m not so sure. In any case, below is a letter I wrote as I was gaining strength in my circumstances. It was meant to be for my mother, and perhaps one day I will actually send the whole thing to her. For now, I will share it with you.
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Dear Person Who Means So Much To Me and Who I Am So Afraid Will Reject Me if They Find Out,
Thank you for noticing that I’m going through something and wanting to connect. Being far away and talking to you about hard things over the phone is challenging. I want to share with you a bigger piece of the puzzle as I’m learning many things about myself through eating disorder (ED) treatment and recovery. One very important discovery and resulting exploration is about my gender identity. I have to be honest, I have been hesitant to share this with you, yet it seems so core to being able to move forward. I know you are generally supportive, as there was a
time not long ago when you expressed positive feelings about parents accepting and supporting their trans kids. Yet, in the next breath, you turned to me with a pained look and aggressive tone and said, “you’ll tell me if that is you, won’t you?!” I felt the need to defend myself but instead, I retreated. In response, I affirmed that it was not me, and that I was secure in my gender assigned at birth. That was not the truth, though, then or today.
The questioning has been around for the majority of my life, but I haven’t always had the words or expressions to understand or explain it. At the age of 45, I am just now allowing myself to explore, though I don’t yet know where I fit on the gender spectrum. I don’t identify with either binary, so instead I find myself in the middle somewhere. This is different than when I was little and just wanted to be a boy. That was the only option other than girl, back then. I am so grateful the black and white language has shifted to include the rainbow of self that lives in between. Moving out of black and white thinking is very much a part of my eating disorder recovery.
Over the years, I have tried to shove myself into female standards; well, enough that I could fade away and pass unnoticed. I may have pushed the gender boundaries in my youth, back when society hadn’t yet shown acceptance or provided space for the queers, butch dykes, and femme boys. When the world pushed back at me through harassment, bullying, and physical harm, I internalized a great deal of fear and decided to navigate the world through the lens of safety. Safety is really important to me. I mostly maintained my short hair, with a few attempts at long hair along the way, but adopted aggressive dieting, strict food rules, and self hatred as a way to fit in and fade from scrutiny. My eating disorder has provided me safety over the years—keeping me smaller at times, stronger and more fit at others– all feeding perceptions of good health and body confidence. Society sees overexercising and dieting as “normal” and ways to “connect” with others. I call it “connection through mutual suffering.” It does not truly connect people to real selves.
Not fitting clearly into a binary feels dangerous and scary, and yet, as I dive deeper and deeper into understanding my ED, I see it as part of the path to recovery.
Let me share some of my current struggles with ED recovery and how medically aligning my mind and body might help.
I have shaped my body with the primary purpose to go unnoticed. I am not too small for people to worry, and not too big to be harrassed by doctors and society into losing weight. I don’t fit the typical phenotypic mold of someone who battles with ED. One doctor told me recently, “your BMI is great and you look like a million bucks.” You might wonder about it, too, because I have also been bigger than I am now — but there was always purpose. Then, my focus was to build muscle, make weight as a weightlifter, and get a better back squat. Protein was my focus and carbohydrates had to be managed. My worth was wrapped into how much iron I could move, how many pull ups or thrusters I could do, and how fast I could complete repetitions. Competition and athletics are a core part of my identity, though as I age, my body is not able to keep up with the demands of my “should” dialogue and eating disordered thoughts. If only you knew the effort it takes to keep myself in this place. The obsession. The planning. The execution. The suffering. Yet, it is difficult for me to let it go. Why is it so hard? There is another layer.
Part of eating disorder recovery is to heal my relationship with food and exercise, which involves challenging food rules, counting, and numbers. It means letting go of control and allowing myself the freedom to eat whatever and whenever. Eating more will result in weight gain, which will cause my period to return and my chest, thighs, and hips to grow. These areas of my body and my monthly cycle trigger dysphoria and angst. Looking back, I can see that they always have. Without truly understanding why, I used diet and exercise to control their presentations, and as my eating disorder likes to say “FIX IT!” (By the way, ED has already told me to “fix it” 10 times since 8 AM.)
The truth is that I am scared shitless. The eating disorder has served me well over the years and has kept me safe. Still, my life has felt small, incomplete, and unfulfilled. I’ve blamed it on the place or the job, and have tried jumping around into different positions hoping that might resolve some of my discomfort. But, as the saying goes, “wherever you go, there you are.” So I am here, now, taking baby steps forward and putting trust into my treatment team.
Today, I begin microdosing testosterone in an effort to better align my body and mind. I will also continue to explore top surgery as a way to bring even more joy to my life.
Other things I have already gained while on this journey are the following:
- A recognition of the moments of gender euphoria, such as living my life, wearing neutral clothing, and not being misgendered.
- A re-energized love of music and its importance to my internal vibration.
- A renewed writing practice, where by documenting my journey, I am getting stronger with my words and self.
If I haven’t expressed it enough – living with an eating disorder is all consuming, exhausting, and isolating. Despite that, the most important thing I’ve gained on this journey is an unexpected connection to others. I’ve found that the more I expose and share about myself, the more connected I feel to others and others feel to me. Allowing myself to be raw and vulnerable has opened me up to a group of people who have embraced, validated, and accepted me for exactly who and where I am. They have agreed to be there as I take steps forward, and to hold my hand when I need it. There is safety in that, for me.
The world is so full of judgment, doubt, danger, and people who will not understand — yet, we only have this one life. To both recover from my eating disorder and continue to take steps forward in my gender exploration, I have discovered what I need most is the safety of a supportive community. As such, I will continue to develop allies and connect with others. It is important for me to feel a sense of belonging and to be seen and heard. I can only do that by being vulnerable and open. I’m obsessed with Brené Brown, and her writings on vulnerability and authenticity speak volumes to me. Though simple, these words of hers help me remember my purpose as I try to muscle my way through life.
“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
and
“We don’t have to do all of it alone. We were never meant to.”
The bottom line is that I love you. You mean a great deal to me, and I am hopeful you will be part of my community as I finally become my authentic self.
Love,
Me
