Dear Food,

We've had a rough ride. The past 5 years have been a constant flux of hating you, loving you, wanting you, needing you, abandoning you, and re-discovering you, all the while changing the body in which relates to you. Though it really didn't change a lot at all; in fact it's stayed relatively the same, but this un-changing body can just looks so different. On different days, in different mirrors, in different rooms, at different times, with different people, after different meals, it looks so different and I'm not sure which to believe anymore. I've come to accept this changing perception and try my best to give way to the kinder ones and not give much room to the less friendly ones. This has helped me come to a much better stage in my recovery and my relation to you (Food).

 

But there's something I feel pulling me back into unhealthy thought patterns and coping strategies.I'm a non-binary trans people who has not been through any physical transition processes yet and, although I've managed to accept many parts of my body that I have felt hatred towards previously, I find it impossible too accept it as a whole. Because there are parts that I unequivocally don't want, for example breasts, and so I don't feel I can experience my body as a whole. At least not as long as I still experience this kind of dysphoria.

 

The thing is, Food, I don't feel like I can resolve my relationship with you and move forward in my recovery while I can't resolve my relationship with my body and my gender dysphoria. The part that I struggle with the most is that there is a distinct lack of resources and inclusion of trans people and bodies in rhetoric about eating disorders. Often, when I'm seeking help, I find myself confronted with invalidation of my gender identity and a sense of loneliness in my struggles. In fact, I tried to access counseling and they required everyone to take a nutritional information course first, in which they proceeded to mis-gender me and almost exclusively talked about anorexia and female body ideals as though that were the only issue in the room.

 

Now I know I'm not the only non-binary trans person to experience an eating disorder and/or gender dysphoria but I feel quite lost at sea in this struggle and don't know where I'm suppose to swim to next.

 

Yours sincerely,

Drowning in Gender-norms