Unbecoming Everything I Wasn't Meant To Be

I was born with this body. I don't love it, but it's the one I have. But this body isn't me.

This body is fat. I enjoy food, and I'm not interested in giving up my pleasure to be thinner.

This body hurts all the time. I'm a bad-ass bitch who takes that pain and laughs at it.

This body is soft and weak. I will take it to the limits of what it can handle.

This body is curvy and feminine. I reject that label as an identity.

I've never liked my body. I have a lot of health issues - and they don't all boil down to 'lose some weight'. If I struggled myself down to a good weight, I'd still be hurting and unhealthy, I just wouldn't have anything else in my focus other than 'must lose weight', and then I'd be worse off mentally, as well.

> But I can change this body in other ways. 

Hair is the easiest change to make. My hair is extremely thin and fine and limp. Perms and hair dye will help a little, but then that requires upkeep and effort I don't enjoy. Before I was even an adult, I started shaving my head - just part of it at first, then more and more, until I realized I love having just a little fuzz on the top and nothing more. When my head is shaved, it feels uncomplicated; it feels stronger. I feel stronger, more in control.

> If this body is a temple, why not decorate the walls?

Then I started getting tattoos. I currently have eight - three on my right shoulder, one on my left. My right wrist, where I see it all the time. Each thigh. Spread across my lower back. With each tattoo, I took more control of what people see when they look at me. At what I see when I look in the mirror. Like painting a room and loving it, I'm decorating my body; I'm changing how it's defined. I'm in charge here. There will be more tattoos.

> I'm not trapped in my body. I'm trapped in other people's perceptions of my body.

I was raised to be a woman. But I came to realize that is about other people's expectations, and I don't have to accommodate them. I chose a gender-neutral name instead of my legal name. I adopted plural pronouns. I started taking testosterone. My voice dropped, I feel stronger. I'm growing hair where I didn't before. I can tell that I walk differently, with more confidence. I've quit trying to integrate, accommodate, assimilate. I may not be a man, but I am definitely not-a-woman.

> If you want to change your body, you first have to change your mind.

When I was in college, one of my friends said he was thinking about dropping out. I asked what college he was going to change to, and he said no, he was just going to quit college. I was raised in a world where college wasn't optional, and so it took a moment for me to recognize... some people don't go to college.

I've had the same sort of epiphany about my body. I was born with this soft curvy feminine body - but it doesn't have to be. I've always disliked my breasts. 'Hate' is too strong a word - I find them annoying and unnecessary, but I've lived with them, because it's not like I had a choice. Except... I  DO have a choice. I can change it. I don't have to have these lumps of uselessness attached to me. So I'm about to have a double mastectomy ('top surgery'). 

And it's not really quite about Gender Dsyphoria - having breasts doesn't give me stress or unease about my gender. It's not quite Body Dysmorphia, either - I'm not obsessing over the breasts as the only problem. Let's call it Body Dysphoria - I am sometimes deeply unhappy with my body. BUT IT CAN BE CHANGED. Those lumpy things on my chest don't have to be there! Realizing that the option existed changed something in my brain. And it was exciting.

> "Unbecoming everything I wasn't meant to be, was the best decision I ever made." - tboy61915 IG

I don't know where this will end, or if it will ever end. But I'm not stuck with the body I was given. I can decorate it, remove parts I don't like, add on where I need to. I can't do it immediately, and I have to work from where I'm at. But this is MY body, and it will be made to accommodate me, not the other way around.