The Poopstick Diaries

on bodies and loneliness

I had hoped that at some point I would have something to say in this newsletter about my experience with top surgery a few months ago.  Originally, I thought there would be a good story to tell or perhaps a journal-style daily entry of my little funnies and sads before, during, and after.  I haven’t been able to write a single word about it, and I guess that has a lot to do with the fact that I haven’t been able to write a single word about anything in a while.  I don’t have writer’s block in the same way my therapist says I don’t have a drinking problem: I have a life problem that is affecting my ability to choose water and words.  We must treat the root–not the symptoms.  I don’t have writer’s block; I just haven’t written a poem since last September.  I don’t have a drinking problem; I just like beer.  Days of words and water will come, but for now they might be fewer and further between. 

Not being able to write about surgery yet has much to do with its very stubborn linkedness to other topics.  And there is one thing I’ve been wanting to return to writing about, but I just haven’t been able to lately: eating disorder.  I cannot write about my top surgery without also writing about some of my experience with eating disorder.  And it seems like now is a good time to do that.  

I wrote about my experience with eating disorder once before in a much more extensive way: I published a short memoir about my life and times cooking, starving, and throwing up–three inextricable themes–nearly two years ago, in 2022.  My main goal for the story was to bring an oft-hidden and inconvenient conversation to the surface.  To un-awkward the sharing of similar experiences so that others could find healing, but more importantly, to encourage society to stop creating such a difficult set of aesthetic values for young people.

In the beginning, I thought my story could be a part of re-shaping our future as a body-conscious society.  But pretty quickly, problems with a dysfunctional publisher meant it was nearly impossible for stores to stock my book or for folks organizing readings or events around my book to obtain copies for sale.  I won’t go into detail right now, but suffice it to say that my publisher largely prevented me and many other authors from distributing our work and completely ghosted us when it came time to pay us our royalties.

Even though this situation prevented my work from having its intended reach, I still sometimes hear from writers who want to cover stories about chefs with histories of eating disorders for various newspapers or magazines.  Usually, these writers have had their own personal struggles with disordered eating and want to shed some light on the crossover between cooking and self-starving. 

Even though these pieces bring this sort of taboo topic to the surface, I never really find that they capture what an eating disorder is, how it actually affects a person’s life, or why talking about eating disorders is important.  Typically, they feel a bit more like brief coming out pieces, where writers share a few quotes and anecdotes from others, skimming from outside experiences, and then reveal that they, too, have struggled in the past and have since figured out how to create some balance in their lives.  I know some of these journalists are probably not allowed the word count they need in order to do more, but I never really understand why there needs to be an ending of hope rather than the more appropriate cry of despair.

I am not saying any of this to criticize the hard things that other people are doing.  It is scary to open up about personal struggle, and sometimes what we are able to say is not that much.  The mantra, ‘representation matters’ is true.  But I am always curious why eating disorder is such an optional point of focus in our conversations about mental health.  I have a few ideas about why people don’t discuss it.  Maybe all of them are true, and more likely, there are many more reasons:

• Eating disorders often can’t be seen: mostly people who look emaciated are points of concern, and it’s hard to notice disordered eating in bodies who don’t present that way.  So much of our health conversations center on aesthetic presentation.

• Our culture places emphasis on physical proximity to death over mental proximity to death.

• Our culture still normalizes weight loss as a universal component of “wellness.”

• There is too much shame and responsibility to be taken for people to address their eating disorders or those of others.

• We have shifted away from the skinny jeans of the early aughts and culturally have begun to accept larger bodies–I always wonder how much this and representation of more variety of bodies on social media has helped young people or whether little has changed. Have things gotten better?  Worse?

Something I tried to express in my book, which is a concept many people do not seem to understand and which few writers have described in any of the articles for which I’ve been interviewed, is that eating disorder is not just about food, and being skinny when having an eating disorder is not just about being skinny.  Thinness and starvation are, I guess, respectively, the advertised lifestyle goalpost and associated price of eating disorder in the same way that having a relaxed, sociable life and being hungover are those of drinking habit.  We all set out in pursuit of socially glamorized ideals and pay our little tolls to have some sliver of those things.  But when habits give way to overwhelming obsession–that’s when the real stuff starts.   

I think eating disorder is just as much an addiction as any other type of substance abuse.  Whenever I think about the things I did during the hardest years of my eating disorder, I am blown away by the lengths I went to in order to service my urgent need to shrink.  And that’s where I think folks don’t get it–that’s where I think we miss a lot of what the landscape of a brain with an eating disorder looks like.  It’s not just hungry.  It’s obsessive, scheming, math-ing, shady, secretive, angry, elated, and isolated.  It’s the loneliest thing you can ever think of.  

It was painful and difficult to write about my experiences for my book and even harder to watch them go into the world in a public way when the book came out.  It was hard to do readings, because sometimes I felt so sad about what I went through as I relived my experiences to a room full of people.  In time, I was able to let go of a lot I was holding onto because I had chosen to share my story.  I wasn’t expecting that to be a part of the experience.  But two years later, with the book all but cold in the ground, I’ve started wondering what will happen now that I’m not keeping that pain to myself anymore.  I’ve often wondered whether it’s not my problem anymore.  Whether the fact that I’ve processed a small part of my pain from that era in my life will make my desire to help others who might need help right now less urgent .

_____

Three months ago, I had top surgery.  I had been thinking about getting it for years, as I struggled to come to terms with my own gender identity, both in my own mind and in the context of having to share my identity with others.  It takes a lot for me to make big decisions for myself, and sometimes I struggle to justify things I want unless I feel like I absolutely, unequivocally need them.  I’m used to being uncomfortable.  With things like gender affirming surgery and related care, I’ve had no way of gauging necessity aside from self reflection.  Having been raised in a world where other people’s expectations tend to be so homogenous, security in breaking them has been very hard to cultivate.  Even when I’ve already broken expectations so many times before.

I was so relieved when I got my surgery date.  It wasn’t even about knowing the surgery was soon–it was just knowing I could stop asking myself if I deserved to have it.  I could stop thinking about whether I could actually take any steps to feel like my body was mine.  But in my own traditional fashion, I did not allow myself to get too excited for the surgery.  Though I knew people who were so bold as to be psyched about getting top surgery, I only let myself get excited for the things that were set in stone: I counted down days until I could stop wearing a binder.  I got excited to spend January in Florida, where the surgery was.  I couldn’t imagine that my actual results would make me happy.

I would have nightmares about having botched surgeries (and apparently, as of the other night, I still do)–in them, I would look down and find that I still had boobs after waking up from anesthesia.  I would look in the mirror and see that my nipples were four inches wide.  I would look in the mirror and see that one of my nipples was tiny and in the middle of my chest and the other was giant and in the middle of my belly.  In each dream, I would reason with myself that I would be ok–that I would find a way to live like this.  That I would just adjust again to a body that felt not right.

One night during dinner at my house, one of my friends, who was scheduled to have their top surgery a couple months after me, was like, ‘dude!  I’m so psyched for you.  What do you think your cooking is going to be like after top surgery??’  I sort of laughed inside.  I didn’t think my cooking would change.  I didn’t really have any notions of changing much at all.  I told them I wasn’t sure.  

Leading up to the surgery, I tried not to think about it too much.  I was a little afraid of going under anesthesia, and, of course, I was afraid I might unexpectedly die during the procedure.  I always think I might die.  I had been having recurring dreams where I would get into an accident and suddenly realize I was dying, and I would always feel so disappointed because I wasn’t expecting to die yet.  So when people asked about whether I was excited for my surgery, I mostly talked about how fun it was that I would be getting plastic surgery in Miami.  I would joke about how the doctors probably save all the castrated boobs for BBL filler.  That maybe there was a physical boob to butt pipeline in the Miami plastic surgery hospitals.  All this made me feel better.  I could not imagine having a successful surgery with happy results.  

I could not imagine having a body I wanted, because I hadn’t truly felt confident in my body since the last time I passed one hundred pounds, and I hadn’t actually felt comfortable in my body since I was probably six.  I did not want to promise myself something that I couldn’t even remember feeling for the last time.  It was too big.

____

I saw a lot of family before the surgery, just because we were doing some traveling while the restaurant was closed during the holidays.  It was a little awkward, because some people knew and some people didn’t.  At Christmas, even though my older sister got me a maternity pillow to cradle my body during recovery, my mom had suggested that we not mention the surgery to my grandmother lest she feel “devastated” about it.  I didn’t really think anyone would be devastated, but the suggestion was enough to put any ideas I had about being open to rest.  Even though the idea of being completely open with family often has its romantic draw, I am tired of coming out, goddamnit.  Being gay was enough for me, even in a mostly supportive family.  I am sensitive to feeling like people might be judging me, and I am tired of even having to make my identity a thing. So if somebody else thinks my gender identity is too much to mention, I don’t need a lot more convincing to skip over the topic.

When I went to Florida, where we would first stop to see my cousin, her husband, her kid, and my dad’s sisters and mom, I was not looking to talk to anyone about the surgery or my pronouns or anything related.  I was just too afraid to bother and was concerned that if I tried to explain non-binary to anyone, they might just be too afraid about getting it wrong—and it might make the rest of our time together too awkward.  Before we arrived, I told my sister and partner not to say anything, reminding them that if recycling was too complicated for Florida, there was no way we were coming in here with trans.  

It had already been hard enough to explain to my supportive parents and mother-in-law.  Grey area seems particularly confusing to the generation of our parents.  I get that nonbinary gender is something that hasn’t been discussed in mainstream culture so much until more recently, but it’s always quite curious to hear some of the questions that come up in response to its explanation.  My partner had a similar experience trying to explain bisexuality and pansexuality to her mom.  It isn’t necessarily that these concepts are inherently unpalatable to this generation–it seems more like what’s happening is a glitching around expansiveness.  A sort of, well if you feel part of you is aligned with your gender assigned at birth, then why can’t you find a way to represent that fully or all the time?  Or in the conversation of sexuality–if you’re a woman who is pansexual, then why can’t you just stay in line and choose a cis man just like we were all supposed to do?  If a small part of you can play the game, then just do it. It’s not malicious.  It’s just sort of the expectation to not cause trouble or make a scene or need different treatment or experience.   

I realize that I am incredibly lucky in comparison to a lot of other folks who deal with much more rejection around their identities than I do, but I also experience a lot of confusion from inconsistent messaging. Why did my mom’s suggestion that my grandma might be devastated about my surgery feel like a random projection?  Why do my parents sometimes use my preferred they/them pronouns but other times just seem to revert to she/her because they know I’m too nice to correct them and they’re…tired of playing?  Nostalgic for easier times?  Though they be few, these small implications that I’m too much to deal with makes it that much harder to want to be open with anyone.  It even feels cringey to write about this here.

One of the last nights we were in Orlando with my cousin, she got me.  We were watching TV on the couch after her kid had gone to bed, and when we had paused the Real Housewives of New York for a moment, she struck up a conversation that I could tell–before words came out–was not one I’d intended to have.  I should have known something was up earlier when my cousin’s husband told my wife and sister that they looked beautiful today and then turned to me, paused, and said, “ello, govnah!”  

I should not have left my sister alone with them while my wife and I went to Magic Kingdom to try out the Seven Dwarves’ mine cart thing.  This had all the markings of oldest sibling intervention.  But here we were.  It was simultaneously terrible and beautiful to hear someone I love tell me that they wanted to know me even if she didn’t understand everything.  She was so open and honest about her lack of knowledge around nonbinary gender and her willingness to learn, and I was so caught off guard by the sincerity that I didn’t know what to do.  I was embarrassed by how much I had underestimated her and ultimately how important it had felt to maintain emotional distance from a cousin I loved so much while living under her roof for five days.  

I stammered something about how it had just been so long since we’d last seen each other that it felt too weird to bring up.  I couldn’t really say much, because I didn’t want to cry.  One of my greatest strengths is ending conversations before they can get off the ground, but she was relentless.  She kept saying more, and I kept trying to cut it off.  But I heard her, and we got through it, and it was OK.

_____

When we got to Miami, I had only a few days before the surgery.  I had a pre-op appointment scheduled, but other than that, we only had plans to hang out with my wife’s family and find some good Cuban food.  

We were staying with my wife’s mom in her Aventura apartment for a week and a half during that time.  Although I was already close with my mother-in-law, I was a little worried about recovering in her space.  She’s the type of person who lives to care for others, but I didn’t want to burden her, and I was afraid I might get overwhelmed by not having enough privacy.  But she had been generous enough to offer, knowing we couldn’t really afford to stay elsewhere, and we figured it would probably be helpful to be with family both emotionally and logistically.

She was ready for anything when we got there–possibly ready for too much.  My siblings and my parents sent some packages to her place with odds and ends to make the first week of recovery easier.  My younger sister, aware that my greatest fear was the possibility of not being able to reach to wipe my own ass, sent me an ass-wiping stick.  It looked like a two-foot-long dildo and was designed to hold on to the toilet paper until you were done wiping.  Afterward, you could push a button and release the poopy tissue into the toilet.  My wife’s mom was surprised when I unpacked it and paraded it around.  “Oh!” she had said.  “We would have wiped your tushy!”  When she said we, she was very mistaken.  My wife and I were hoping to save that page in the book for much later or never.  But fortunately, none of us had to consider such a thing, because the poop stick was here to save the day.

My mother-in-law would remain more anxious about my bowel movements than anyone, including me, for the rest of our stay with her.  She warned me that the drugs from the surgery would make me constipated.  As someone this rarely effects, I was not that concerned.  But each day after the surgery, she would insist I drink prune juice and suggest I consider taking laxatives.  I felt I was good with water, but she wouldn’t let it go.  Sometimes, I would wake up at night from the discomfort of my bandages.  On one particular night, I woke up around four AM to movement in the room.  As my eyes adjusted, I could make out her figure at my bedside.  I watched, motionless and sleepy, as I realized she was leaving a cup of prunes soaking in warm water on my nightstand.  

I am not from a family who historically talks about our poop.  We all poop (probably), but it has been, for as long as I can remember, each of our respective little secrets.  The only person who farts out loud is my little sister, and I think it’s just because she’s the youngest.  So it is quite different to have someone concerned about your poop.  But we take these things in stride.

____

When I arrived at my pre-op appointment, I entered a room of assorted transmasc cuties filling out thick stacks of paperwork with their partners and guardians in tow.  We were all quite awkward.  I wondered to myself whether it was just an introverted group or if our future booblessness would also give us the ability to talk to strangers.  But it was sweet.  There was something sort of special abut having our own little corner of the universe, superficially protected by a glass door, decorated heavily with paint-by-numbers-esque artwork, next to a Waffle House in Miami.

The day of surgery, I had to wait for someone else to go first, which I wasn’t expecting.  This put me in a hospital bed, alone, listening to the people on either side of my curtains, trying to figure out who was there for what, for my own entertainment and distraction.  I was playing Spelling Bee and texting my wife, who was telling me there was a family praying in the waiting room for the girl to my right.  She was there for a nose job, and she was a minor, which meant that she got to have her parents in the room until she was wheeled away. 

I know there are a lot of cultural pockets in which plastic surgery is very normalized, but I was fascinated by how much family support she had in the hospital for her nose job (of course, as a nosy outsider, I am only assuming the procedure was an aesthetic choice).  I lay in the hospital bed, waiting to go into surgery while most of my extended family didn’t even know I was there.  Meanwhile, her family huddled around a prayer book in the waiting room.  At the time, I thought the prayer circle was a comical overreaction.  But in later reflection, I considered (for the first time ever) that facing body image issues with shame and in secret from the people who are meant to support us is not a requirement.

When it was my turn to go under, I was a little scared.  The doctor had asked me if two centimeters was good with me for a nipple size.  I was flummoxed, explaining to him that I had no idea what was normal.  In all those months of living with a boyfriend in college, I had never thought to take out the ruler.  He had drawn a nipple on his surgical glove, saying, “something like this.”  This felt a lot like a walk-in tattoo situation, and while I know from experience that I should advocate for my own vision, I had literally nothing to go on.  So I just told him I was down for whatever he thought, even though my nightmares for the last two months had been filled with terror from the Nipple Wild West.

I fell asleep when they were buckling my wrists to the bed, which was good, because I don’t think I could have stomached being restrained in an operating room while conscious.  I woke up slowly a couple hours later, and I was eventually discharged.  

The rest of the week was a blur of eating and sleeping and trying percocet and fearing that percocet was way too easy to enjoy and so trying not to take percocet.  There was a lot of Spelling Bee and watching the godforsaken Miss Rachel with our nephews and eventually gaining immense respect for Miss Rachel either because of or in spite of the fact that she presents like the perfect murderer.  My mother-in-law gave me space and prune juice and the best food anyone could ever have when recovering (or not recovering).  The day we left, I couldn’t stop crying even though I was so embarrassed.  It somehow felt less awkward, I think, because my mother-in-law had been so invasive with the poop questions.  

_____

Upon returning home, I had a pretty quick turnaround going back to the restaurant.  I was lucky to have a squad of people there to do everything physical while I instructed with just words and tried to keep my arms at my sides.  That first month went quickly, even though I had to sleep on my back and got so tired of re-doing the ace bandage every time I got out of the shower.  

I had been afraid to look at my results at the post-op appointment.  The doctor had asked if I was squeamish. “No,” I had told him.  But I didn’t want to say I was afraid it wouldn’t look good.  So many of his other patients take pictures with him for their social media.  He’s a famous surgeon in the top surgery field–THE top surgery guy, really–and it seems it’s become almost a status symbol to get that pic.  I guess I’m not really into stuff like that, but more than anything, I was too afraid to jinx anything by looking at my chest in the mirror or by taking a celebratory photo, even though it was already done.

I hadn’t seen my body in the mirror in a way I felt happy with for as long as I can remember.  It took me a few days to look down in the shower after the surgery, and it took me a week or so to sheepishly glance at my whole chest in the mirror.  It was so strange, but I knew the results were good based on other photos I had seen online of top surgery recoveries.  It was bizarre, though–teeny tiny nipples.  And nearly in my armpits, they were!  I didn’t know what to make of it all, but I waited and was careful and put on my little scar cream each night and continued to sleep on my back.  Eventually, I got happily used to the feeling of not wearing tight binding garments.  I started to feel more relaxed.  

Either because of the vast mental space I’d cleared up no longer thinking about the idea of maybe getting surgery one day or because of not being constantly constricted by a binder, I started to feel less physically and mentally anxious about my size. 

I’ve gained some weight this year, and I’ve also mostly stopped weighing myself, which is a habit that has taken a lot of strength to let go.  Since my surgery and my month of recovery afterward, I have been struggling to find work/life balance again, and my eating and drinking habits are all over the place.  Since the weeks of doctor-ordered avoidance of cardio–even walking more than a short distance–I haven’t gotten back in the habit of exercising either.  

Usually, around this time of year, when the sun comes out again, I have some sort of size-related freak-out and feel humiliated about how I have grown over the holidays and winter months.  Normally, by now, I would be holed up in the gym five days a week and considering whether it’s mentally safe for me to try a cleanse or some sort of weird diet leading up to spring.  These thoughts are totally in opposition to the way I lead my life and what I believe is right for anyone, but they remain rooted in me from years when I held onto such things for safety and stability. 

Last year, I did try a cleanse in springtime.  I am not here to say that all cleanses are bad, but because my experience with cleansing is tied up with goals of drastic and sudden weight loss, it is a fraught concept for me.  I started a cleanse that eliminated a lot of things from my diet (it’s called the CLEAN program, and members of my family started doing it nearly 15 years ago).  I had done it at least once before; it lasts three weeks and mandates two out of three liquid meals per day.  No gluten, dairy, low sugar, only certain meats and fish, no caffeine, no alcohol.  Last spring, I did the cleanse for a total of four weeks and quickly let things get out of hand.  I switched from smoothies to chia water at breakfast and dinner and later on ate little more than puffed rice and some nuts throughout the day instead of the allotted main meal.  

I had an unexpectedly emotionally triggering experience during those four weeks.  It might sound silly that I didn’t anticipate the toll it would take, but I didn’t.  I quickly felt obsessive and frustrated and secretive about what I was eating.  I didn’t want my partner to think I was doing something self destructive, so I stuck to acting like no one could know what was best for my health aside from myself, which was very much the vibe I had with my parents when I was a teen.  It was not just painful to be on the cleanse because it was a drastic change for my body based on my current lifestyle but also because it brought me right back to feelings of frustration and isolation and obsession I hadn’t experienced in so long.  

Coincidentally, during that cleanse, I was interviewed for an article about people who have struggled with eating disorders while working in food for the San Francisco Chronicle.  I was emotionally on edge during my interview and felt sad and distraught and mired in the irony of my situation.  This writer was asking me about the experiences I had written about in my book in past tense–but at the same time, a year after publication, I felt nearly as deep in the woods.  I told her about the cleanse.  I wanted to be real with her.  I told her it felt like we don’t get to get out of it.  I told her I didn’t even feel like I could have kids because it felt so messed up to be a kid and deal with the expectations of society.  I told her it still feels impossible.  

I felt so sad during that interview.  And, with respect for the story that was written, I didn’t really see any of my fear or disillusionment or anger come through.  Why don’t we ever truly feel the essence of desperation in any of these pieces?  Are folks afraid to present the reality of pain, or are these media outlets asking for something more palatable?  

_____

Right now, I feel comfortable in my body for the first time since childhood, and I don’t wake up with the ambient burden of shrinking.  It feels like now is a perfectly convenient time to forget the memories of when I didn’t feel this way.  Or when I felt confident about my physical appearance simply because I was presenting a version of what a teenage girl was supposed to look like.  And killing myself to be that.  When I was only able to relax because I knew I was thinner than everybody else.  That I had done my hair better than everybody else.  That my grades were better than everybody else’s.  That no one could ask me to do more to be better.

The reason I am writing about eating disorder through the lens of my top surgery (or visa versa) is because I wonder what is supposed to happen to all the people who never get access to the beyond of their body struggles.  What happens if the majority of society remains apologetic and shrinky?  I have been silent on the eating disorder issue ever since I got my own story out into the world and then it flopped.  It felt enough for me to cathart my own trauma.  And with the book all but dead in the water, it felt even easier to let go.  I haven’t gone on, since then, to say, “I really wonder if there are still young people in college who hide zip lock bags of puke under their desks in their dorm rooms.”  Or “what can I do to help change the expectations that exist for children who are alive right now even if they aren’t my children?”  No.  

I have not thought about it much at all, because I don’t seem to really know anyone.  I work nearly every day, in my boobless body, and it feels alright.  In my day to day, I exist.  And though I be pained, I am also fine.  And I have no problems.  Or perhaps not no problems, but I do not want to kill myself because I have gained weight.  I want to kill myself because the world is a cruel place and I am constantly embarrassed and ashamed of myself even when I don’t do anything wrong, and then that shame prevents me from expressing myself and then I don’t express myself, and so I feel I have no reason to go on, and that makes me even more disgusted, and so I imagine being tied to the back of a truck and dragged down a paved road very fast in order to calm down.  But I am under the impression that that is the common human experience in the world right now.  And if it isn’t, don’t let me know.

____

I was right that not much would change after surgery, but I was also wrong.  In one of the millions of recent articles about Love Lies Bleeding, [our lord and savior] Kristen Stewart described feeling relieved to be in a queer movie that did not center its conflict around the idea of being queer.  I am similarly relieved to be depressed and disgusted with being alive but this time in a body that feels safe, comfortable, and mine.  All of the emotional space I used to use up thinking about my size, my chest, and my body freaking me out can now be used for anything.  It is my right to use it to feel horrified by most things and the behavior of many people.  It is my pleasure to find it is sometimes used to enjoy a steak on a random night of the week without self judgment.  It is correct that I can wake up and get dressed without rolling my eyes at my reflection in the mirror.

The question I come back to is what would all of this have been like without the social imperative of becoming a cisgendered, heterosexual woman?  And what would it look like to live in a world where even if these expectations didn’t dissolve overnight, kids were socialized to be comfortable disappointing people more often?  Or adults listened to not just the things that kids screamed and cried about but rather what they celebrated and embodied without being forced to justify those behaviors?  

I have spent such a great majority of my life struggling with being in my own body.  Even after I had come to terms with and tried to move away from my disordered eating, so much of my brain was consumed by bodily anxiety.  So often when I think about the hardest years I experienced with eating disorder (from about age fourteen to twenty-two), I recall feeling like the order I created for myself was my best friend.  For all the pain it caused me, it made me feel safe and happy.  And I spent such a great majority of my time caring for it.  

It’s only after my surgery that I realized the high degree to which my struggles with other body issues, like chest dysphoria, consumed me.  I expected to feel a sense of quiet in my mind after saying goodbye to my titties, but I didn’t expect my newfound peace to bring me loneliness.  It’s so profoundly different to feel normal in my body right now–to not live with the weird, squirmy feeling I used to, which was sort of like always feeling like I might have something on my face anytime I talked to anyone.  But without all that mental chaos, the quiet is almost eerie.  

I see more clearly now how much I withdrew in service of my body issues.  When I was younger, it was more concrete–I would stop hanging out with friends because I didn’t want to be around food or away from my safe foods, which were, of course, at my house.  I was too tired to keep playing sports, and a lot of my interests waned with my energy levels.  It was easiest to be alone, where I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone.  Where I didn’t have to tell lies about my well being to make others happy.

But later on, even when I began to socialize more and get more comfortable eating in groups, my brain was often stuck in its own chatter, causing me to show up as a bit of a space cadet.  In my endless pursuit of self-soothing, drinks with friends often felt more like drinks (with friends).  I don’t think either of these things is inherently terrible.  It’s ok to be introspective.  It’s alright to seek comfort.  But it’s clearer to me now that I lack deeper connection with others after years of prioritizing–or being trapped with–my tumultuous relationship with my body image.

It has been that much more convenient that my line of work implies long hours spent at an arm’s length from most people–serving them and entertaining them but not having to actually commune with them.  Knowing that because of what I do, people theoretically like me–without the requirement of extracurricular bonding–has been easiest over the years.  It is like Diet Friendship.  

There’s a chance I might figure it out at some point, and until I do, I have corners of my life that feel satisfying.  I really do love cooking, which is something I have been remembering more and more lately.  Working with food is perhaps the most secure dynamic I have and have always had.  If I do my very best, I will get the best back.  If I do a shitty job, the food will be shitty right back at me.  The closer I am to my ingredients, the better I will show them.  The attention I give to what I am doing comes back to me in equal measure on the plate.  A fish in a pan does not just swim away.  And, ideally, with the fire turned all the way up, I do not walk away from it.

I do not mind so much having a pretty fucked up feeling about everything.  It is not the most fun, but I am used to it.  It also seems honest and fair to know that life is painful.  What bothers me more is wondering who I would be instead, had I not spent the majority of my life kneeling at the altar of my own demise.  Or what I would have been able to experience as a kid if I had not withdrawn from myself and others so early on. 

This past week, I found myself consuming media about kids’ experiences with brainwashing in two different capacities: I started watching The Program on Netflix about kids who survived a torture facility that posed as a correctional school for troubled teens, and I listened to a podcast, Dear Alana, about a gay teen who killed herself after a tumultuous relationship with Catholicism.  While the kids in the show were abducted and forced to attend the “school” and the girl in the podcast, Alana, turned to Catholicism on her own, the undercurrent of how much spirit was extinguished in both of these cases by trying to conform was both astonishing and all too familiar.  

It really hurt me to see the home videos of the kids from before their stay at the “school.”  They were funny.  Exuberant.  Creative.  Happy.  It hurt me to hear stories from Alana’s friends and family about her artistic and funny side.  Why is it so easy to ruin people at their most vulnerable?  Why is it so hard for us as a society to teach young people that there are infinite ways to be in the world?  

Even though I still see good in the world in small things every day, I don’t see enough evidence of hope to fill the end of this newsletter with something positive.  I am tired of reading fake happy endings.  At a time when so many of my peers are starting to have babies, I constantly find myself wondering whether it’s possible for a kid to grow up.  To reach adulthood without completely losing touch with themselves based on the random whims and priorities of media and adults in positions of power.  What would our world be like without the suck-it-up-and-conform to (self-)medication pipeline?  

I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished in my life so far.  On paper, I did it.  If I told my sixteen-year-old self what I was doing and what I had made for myself now, that kid would be over the moon.  But I often don’t feel it.  I can’t see myself.  I’m still waiting to see myself.  And I am not sure I ever will.  I see a lot of people in the same boat all around me all the time.  

What will happen to us all?

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