3/24/22 - It's Been Awhile

 Trigger Warning: disordered eating, depression, self-harm (mentioned), dysphoria(sorta?), panic attacks, suicide (mentioned)

To start off, I want to say sorry it's been a while (though probably nobody reads my blog honestly). I've been dealing with a lot of personal issues and I just haven't really sat down to write down or type out my feelings about anything. So I decided to give an update and explain everything that's been going on.

My eating disorders have been a bit of an issue, but not too huge a part. Currently I'm trying to eat a healthy amount of food - not too much, not too little. And my girlfriend (who has finally accepted that I overeat and binge) has been trying to help me with it. I keep track of what I eat, and how much, but I don't focus on the calories. And I don't obsess over how much I eat - I'm just trying to be mindful of it. I'm planning to start exercising, but only for a small amount of time each day. And it's been working out pretty well so far.

Sometimes my anorexia rises and tries to get me to fall back into my disordered habits of starving, calorie tracking, puking food, and over-exercising. And there are times when a part of me wishes I could be like that again, and that part makes me sad. For years, I willingly threw myself into dangerous and deadly eating habits. I'm lucky I never had any major health issues (except for the liver thing, but that was just a close call) while there are some who gives with permeant health issues from their anorexia. Some people have actually invalidated my eating disorder by saying "well since you're healthy and recovering, it must not have been too serious in the first place!" and all I can say is that is a really shitty thing to say. All eating disorders are serious, whether it's anorexia, atypical anorexia, atypical bulimia, binge-eating disorder, etc. They are deadly disorders that poison your mind before destroying your body. Even if you never lose weight, even if you're never underweight, even if you have no permeant health problems - your anorexia (or any other ED) is still valid.

I don't want to go back into my ED. I don't want to go back to being tired all day, being overly irritated, being freezing cold in 70 degree weather. I don't want to go back to destroying my relationships and my health. I want to live a good life, a happy life, and a healthy life. And I can't live that life with anorexia in it. So even though recovery is still really hard most days, it's 100% worth it in the end.

Lately I've been having days where I just get super depressed (and even suicidal) out of nowhere. It really sucks. There's nothing really that even triggers it usually, it's just something that... happens. I'll be fine, and acting normally, but then suddenly I feel strange and depressed. And I have panic attacks really easily these days, over nothing. They happen usually when I feel overwhelmed (which happens too easily these days). Panic attacks in general are horrible, but when I have them I have the urge to hit things, and usually it's myself. I hit myself in the head a lot, hard, with my fits, and sometimes it results in me feeling dizzy or getting headaches after. I asked a friend what I can do and literally all they said was "well, just stop it" but the thing is - I can't really seem to control it? I tell myself "okay, next time I have a panic attack, I won't hurt myself like that". But then when I get a panic attack, my fists beat my head without me really meaning to do it. And I think "I need to stop, I can't hit myself" during it, but I can't stop it. It's really strange. But at least I don't really cut anymore during the attacks.

Sometimes I get the urge to commit suicide during this. It's a really strong urge, but it's more controllable. I can see all the reasons why it'd be a bad idea to kill myself, and I also am able to text my girlfriend and talk to her about it, and she can talk me down and keep me calm. I probably need a therapist, but since my parents literally don't care for my health (mental or physical) apparently, my girlfriend does a good job of calming me down and helping me work through things.

I'll go more in depth about how fucked up my family is in another blog post.

Okay so now we're onto the part that's been the main source of all my stress and been my biggest issue. I'm not sure if it's exactly gender dysphoria? I've just been questioning some things about my gender.

I've always felt like a girl. I was confident that I had the mind of a girl. I never doubted that I was fully CIS. Whenever someone asked me my gender, I would say "CIS woman" and never think twice about it. People always used she/her pronouns to refer to me, and I never minded. Even when I picked up she/they pronouns (which was around New Year's) I didn't really mind too much when nobody referred to me as they/them. I knew that they just knew me as a CIS girl, so that's the pronouns they used for me.

But lately something has felt off about me. For the past month or two, I've been questioning is I'm fully a girl. Like, if I'm fully CIS. Everything felt wrong suddenly. Some days I don't feel like a girl at all. Some days I feel like less of a girl, but still feel feminine. Some days I feel stuck between feeling like a girl and feeling like nothing at all. But I've never felt like I was a boy at all. I know I'm not genderfluid, but non-binary didn't seem to fit me either. I still felt like I had a gender, so agender wasn't an option either. Demigirl seemed to fit me a little bit, but the thing was that I seemed to fluctuate between feeling fully like a girl and feeling like... not one. People don't need to apply a label to gender, but I was searching for one because I had no idea what I was or how I felt and I wanted some type of title for it. I wanted to make some sort of sense of things. But I couldn't find anything that fit.

I'm a girl, but sometimes I'm not fully. It felt like there was a percentage bar. I felt 70% like a girl one day, 50% another day, and some days it felt like I was 0% a girl. People using she/her pronouns to describe me felt strange to me on some days. Sometimes I wanted to be referred to as they/them, but I said nothing. I told no-one how I felt, because I was confused on how I felt as well. For 17 years I never questioned or doubted myself. How could I just tell people I suddenly did doubt myself? I was worried about the reaction from my friends and my girlfriend, so I hid my feelings, trying to figure out my identity by myself. I thought that, since they knew me as a CIS girl the whole time they've known me, they wouldn't want to accept me if I changed. I didn't know how to explain my feelings to them, and it resulted in me pushing them away at times. I felt lonely and so fucking confused.

But yesterday I finally opened up to someone and explained how I felt to them. I told them everything - my doubts about everything, how I couldn't find a term that fit me, how confused I was because I never doubted myself before. They were so sweet and understanding and even started helping me search for a gender term that fit me. It took a bit of searching and even more explaining my feelings before they told me about girlflux. I'll include the definition they sent me :

"A genderflux person who's female gender identity intensity fluctuates. So one day they might feel 100% like a girl, the next only 50%, then maybe 80%, then the next day feel non-binary or 0%."

I was honestly shocked when my friend told me about this one because it basically described how I felt. I decided to try out the term, because I felt it fit me and honestly it made me feel comfortable to say I was a girlflux. The main issue I had was the fear and panic of telling my girlfriend. I told my other friends, who didn't have the reaction I expected - they were so supportive and kind to me - but I was scared to tell my girlfriend about it. I was trying to start the conversation, but she just wanted me to say it outright, but I couldn't then and I started just acting all weird and secretive instead. Which in turn made her get upset and it was a whole mess. If I had just started talking about how I felt and how I wanted to identify at the start, it would've been less of a mess, but I was too scared to confess directly.

But when I told her how I felt, she was supportive of me and this morning even asked me how I identify (what pronouns I wanted used) today. She's so amazing.

Moral of the story: Don't be scared to be yourself. If people aren't supportive, screw them, identify how you want to.

That's all for my blog post today. If you read this, thank you for reading. I just needed to get my feelings out, even if it's to an imaginary audience lol.