epic titties

09/16/2024

(content warning: eating disorder, some transition negativity)

we went over epictetus in philosophy last week. his name kinda sounds like epic titties. hee hee

anyway, we were talking about stoicism. one of the ideas being that everything that isn’t your own mind is out of your control, and thus happiness cannot be derived from it, including your own body. my professor said people have trouble grappling with the ‘your body isn’t really yours’ thing, but i got it. not because i’m special (i am) but just because i’ve lived it

my entire life has been spent vying for control over my body, both as an object and in how other people perceive it. i have wasted the last five years of my life on an eating disorder that barely gave me anything i wanted from it, and in a way, i guess transition falls into this category as well. obviously these are different things (one will kill me, the other will not) but i still feel a little dissatisfied with both.

one of my goals when starting T was to ‘pass’, since i grew up in the transmedicalist-dominated hellscape of late 2010s online trans communities. i never subscribed to their beliefs, thank fucking god, but it impacted me. even if i disagree, i’m a sensitive person and i care way too much about what other people think. i would rather die than be invalidated.

so i made myself miserable and tried starving myself to prevent HRT weight gain + also lose a bunch of weight because it’d make people concerned. didn’t really work out that way. i only hit my goal weight last year, after nearly half a decade of trying endlessly. it wasn’t as magical as i’d hoped.

so yeah, i can get behind the idea that my body isn’t ‘mine’ pretty easily.

the first essay for my comp class was sooo boring. prompt was to write about a learning experience that i found important, with a thesis about learning and growing. honestly, my first thought when i heard learning experience was when i taught myself to purge. i didn’t go with that, i just vomited 1.4k words of pure drivel about the time i learned to crochet. it felt empty.

i do want to write an essay about my ED. i don’t know if i can make it coherent or give it a thesis, and i’m definitely not submitting it for a class unless i want to get the fucking care team called on me. but i think it’d help... something, i don’t know.

last two therapy sessions have just been unpacking the tangled mess of feelings i have about bulimia. sometimes i feel like my therapist is pushing me a bit too close to recovery, but she made it clear today that i’m welcome to redirect her if we’re going in a direction i don’t want, which i appreciate. i was really afraid i wouldn’t be able to start therapy without committing to recovery fully; i know i’ll be challenged on my bullshit, but i can’t give it up altogether. maybe that’s stupid. i’m probably dying, but i don’t want to change. maybe i am an addict.

i turn 20 in less than a month. i’ve lost my teenage years to this, and i still refuse to stop. ughhh

i’m procrastinating again. i’m going to finish my stupid writing assignment so i can go exercise. haven’t been doing enough of that lately, too damn tired.

one day i’ll share something ‘creative’ on this blog. not today. probably not tomorrow either. sorry

~april