NNNOOOOOO INVINCIBLE TWITTER STYOP GIIGVING US SNEAKPEAKS OF THE SKRUNKLE NOOOO👹👹😡😡😡 GRRR STOP OT (this is reverse psychology) STOP

Hey. Hi. Big fan. I don't watch half of the shows that you reblog, but your enthusiasm is quality. Um.. this is super personal, so I totally understand if you don't answer, but how did you realise you were nb?

omg im so sorry you have sat through my tags for this long, buddy you deserve better lmao. but no this is super okay to talk about, and ya its personal but im alright with it bc sometimes its nice to talk about?? like its a lot easier to explain over here rather than to my family (rip) but yeah i can get into it. um, itll be under the cut tho bc its a long answer, so if my other followers (or people who may get triggered) dont wanna read like ya theres that

the short answer: i realised last year, bc of everything that piled up and me finally finding the time to sit down and Think About It.

(tl;dr: at the bottom if youre not here for the Super Long answer)

the long answer: gender had never come easily to me as a kid, like i understood that girls played with dolls and that boys played with trucks. but i also was raised in a family where girls could play with trucks too, as long as they still looked like girls. so from the get go i had a v “tomboyish” look about me, and how i presented myself. i found i was v comfy with the tomboy label growing up, bc it meant i could play with the boys but still be sensitive and emotional while the boys werent allowed to feel like that

my biggest stepping stone tbh was (is) my mother. now if youve followed me for a while you probably know that while my mother loves me, and i suppose i love her (still up in the air), our relationship is v v v v Tense. this is due mostly to the fact that she has this preconceived notion of what the world looks like, and how people should act and present themselves. for her, to have me as a child saying “i wanna dress like a boy” “i wanna be a boy” was no biggie bc i was Just A Kid and would grow up to flourish into a beautiful young woman. which, for the most part, i did. but that doesnt mean i enjoyed it. from the age i was allowed to dress myself, my mother and i would fight about my clothing choices (and i literally mean fight. she would refuse to take me somewhere if i didnt dress the way she wanted. would throw my own clothes at me or on the road outside our house etc) and she would dub my clothes “too casual” and tell me to “dress up” and ���look a bit more girly, please?” which i now know is totally Gross and not v nice, but at the time i didnt know any better, i hadnt grown into myself. this, alongside many years of condemnation in regards to my interests and hobbies and things i just enjoyed and wanted to talk about, just Didnt Add Up to my mother. she loved having two pretty daughters, pretty daughters who could wear dresses and live out the life she couldnt bc she fell pregnant with my older sister at 19, and thus had to grow up v quickly (no blame on my sister tho, shes my favourite person in the world and shes trying v hard to understand me and loves me v much)

fast forward a couple years: i was 15 when i first developed my eating disorder. quite frankly, it was only upon realising that im nb as to how i figured out what my ed was Actually About. i didnt like my curves. i didnt like being “girly”. i did constant misguided ab workouts and ate three rice cakes for lunch, followed by nothing but a banana until dinner. my sleep patterns were hit and miss bc i would either write away the pain or stay up wondering what this Thing i was feeling was (spoiler: it was dysphoria). i tried super hard to love my curves, to own myself and how i looked, but it never felt Right. i never understood. i would see my psychologist and ramble about my ed and she would pinpoint it and say it was curves and i would always just say “but its not”. bc it wasnt Just Curves, it was the idea as a whole. and it was v confusing and scary, so much like my exploration into my sexuality, i just put it off.

it was combating my ed that helped me most, i think. it was getting over it, and forcing myself back into a natural sleep pattern (so i could actually do year 12 without wrecking myself). i didnt get over it until around april 2016, which was when i fell in love with the idea of self love, and decided to give it a go. i listened to my psychologist, and she was v patient with me, and was cautious with where i placed my blame (”yes its your mothers fault for making you react and feel this way, her words hurt you. but youre the one that decides what to do with that negativity”) and it was so so so helpful. she taught me that i was deserving of love, and positivity, and that loving youself is a process, and it doesnt always work the way you want it to, but you need to find what makes you happy and keep doing that. for me, that tied into my food, my talents, my friends, and my actions. im not going to sit here and claim that fitness is key to happiness, but its part of whats key to mine (to the point that i have been inspired to become a personal trainer and teach other people that being “healthy” isnt just about food and exercise). each person has their own individual things that keep them balanced, and if yours is painting your nails instead of doing sit ups fucking go for it - just make sure you find that thing, because it gives you clarity.

my clarity hit me in the beginning of year 12, when i Sat Down and really had a think. i thought back to how i wanted to look growing up, how i wanted to act, i remembered the day i first had a proper bra bought for me instead of a crop top and the way i cried for hours that night without knowing why. i remember not wearing shirts to bed and then suddenly feeling awful when i started having to. i remembered trying to wear boxer shorts and nothing else around the house and being yelled at. i remembered telling my dad i wanted to look how he did when he was 18, and yelling at him when he said “but dont you want to be pretty like your mum”. i remembered my sister cutting my hair in the dead of night in her bedroom, bc i didnt want to look the way i did. i remembered wearing all these oversized clothes to hide my chest. being uncomfortable when anyone (family or stranger) would say “lady”, “girl”, “miss”, “female”. shrinking into myself when someone pointed out my curves. looking in thw mirror and only smiling when my hands were covering and pushing my chest. looking at the scale and not seeing anything other than a number that meant i was stuck being curved. refusing to go swimming bc it meant having to wear a bikini instead of just board shorts. wanting to play on the mens basketball team, wearing mens clothes, being mad when i suddenly couldnt wear them anymore. overcompensating by wearing midriffs and muscle shirts and short shorts and lacy underwear to impress my boyfriend(s) bc i was their GIRLfriend and this is what I Needed To Do. wearing clothes around my first girlfriend that i was really comfortable in, and her telling me that im still nb even if i have to wear a bra for now, and that she wouldnt ever take my shirt off or act as if my chest ever existed if thats what would keep me comfortable, and me nearly crying bc of how validating and overwhelming it was.

it all hit me at once, and i was struck with the blatant honesty of what this had been all along. id ignored it and shoved it down bc i didnt want to upset my mother, disappoint her. i didnt want to be what she never wanted. but then i remembered that i am deserving of love, even if its only ever from myself. 

so i told my best friend, and she was so wonderful with it, and she asked what pronouns i wanted to use from now on, and she helped me ease into shopping for clothes. and i bought a binder, and it fits v well and i fucking love it. and i told my other friends, and all the ones who matter are v supportive and beautiful (one even offered to make me a suit). and i told my two favourite cousins, and my sister, and they make sure to text me that i should stretch when i wear my binder, or to take deep breaths in case i forget to and its v homey and nice and they want me to be happy. and i blurted it out to my mother and she fucking hates it, and shes threatened to “burn” my binder if she ever sees it, to “rip it off [my] body” if i ever wear it in front of her, that she wants “nothing to do with It” and that “its a fucked up idea” someone has “put into my head”. but you know what? thats okay, bc i Know who i am now. and sometimes things dont always go how you want, and sometimes the people who love you most cant love all of you, and i want you guys to know that if that ever happens, youre not obligated to love them back, okay? love yourself, love those who love All Of You.

tl;dr: years of dysphoria piled onto me when i had a hot ten minutes to fully think about it in between classes.