Weekly Thoughts 9/23/23

I had a screen flicker problem come back again this week. After determining that it likely related to how long I tend to leave my computer in sleep mode, I had to keep it turned off for a few days to rest, and so couldn’t continue my book. I’ll be back on it this weekend. In the meantime, I was able to play some Teal Mask, and it’s great! I’ve completed the main story and now have to finish collecting new Pokémon, find out what Perrin’s side quest is, and build a new team. I decided that I wanted to use a different team in the Indigo Disk, because my current team was consistently over level and has multiple legendaries on it. I’m going to go back to basics and make a team of more common Pokémon; there’s so much in Paldea I haven’t used yet, after all.

This week, I want to talk about something that’s been on my mind since I had these computer troubles. I’ve been having mixed feelings about this book I’m making because it feels self-indulgent in a way that I’m not comfortable with. Like, I knew going in it would be; the premise of the book is a game of spin-the-bottle with a character based on me, because I’ve never gotten to play and I’d really, really, really love to. It’s not the “character that looks like me kissing people” part that feels self-indulgent. It’s the “they all like it and me” part. Fantasizing that is fine, because it’s just in my head; putting it on paper makes me self-conscious about being self-centered, arrogant, and needy.

I’ve talked before about how I don’t feel attractive because I don’t know what I want from my body, let alone other people. The fantasy of this comic I’m making is that they already like me right now. That’s an uncomfortable idea to put down because it feels so out of reach; I might as well be telling someone I want to meet the real Santa Claus. I’d rather not be so hard on myself, but it’s hard. I guess part of it is a trust issue. Whatever someone else finds attractive about me, I know we won’t be in agreement; if I can’t see it, then how do I know it’s there?

I’m not always conscious of my body, but when I am, I usually feel either incomplete or excessive. The incomplete part is anchored to my gender. It’s hard to tell if I could ever find a way for my body to be that I would be satisfied with in that regard. I’d like to have both of the two predominant genitals, preferably fully functional. I sometimes want breasts, but other times I’m happy to not deal with them. I’ve also had my fair share of experiences with nonbinary dysmorphia. There are times primarily when I’ve been looking at my hands, and I either think that it looks like such an alien appendage that my body can’t be human since I am, or that I can’t be human because I’m trapped in this weird human body. And then there’s the recurring lycanthropy, aka having facial and body hair. Literal monster vibes to have my skin attacked from beneath on a daily basis.

The excessive bit is another kind of body dysmorphia. Growing up, I was one of those kids who could eat like a monster and still be skinny as a rail. All the way until I started college, no matter what I did, I was so thin you could see my ribs if I stood straight. And I miss that. It’s been over a decade since I last looked like that, and I still have it in my head that I’m supposed to. I realize that today, most people would call me average size, because I am. Being average size means I have a small belly, enough of one that it affects how clothes fit on me. If I reach for my toes, I can feel my stomach get squished and form a barrier to my movement. I feel a lot bigger than I really am, and I really don’t like it. That’s why I want to lose weight; I’ll never be as skinny as I once was, and I wouldn’t want to be that overly thin, but I do want to be definitively skinny. I think it’s the “war on obesity” messaging that’s gotten to me. I’ve become a lot more aware of how unhealthy my diet is, and how I don’t exercise much outside of having a physical job, so the development of any level of belly feels like a sign of poor health. I remember thinking as a kid that I was pretty healthy because I exercised more and was skinny, even though I ate a lot worse and wasn’t in very good shape.

That’s another issue I have with my body. I grew up exercising a lot and moving between slow and intense exercises during karate class, which I went to a few days a week over a two-decade period. Today, I don’t exercise for its own sake, but I spend a lot of time on my feet for work. I have about the same amount of stamina today as I did when I was a kid, which is to say none. I’ve never had stamina. I can walk and talk for a few minutes and breathe heavily. I pant as soon as I start running. I know I’m not comparing the same sorts of exercise as I had attuned my body, but like, I also didn’t have stamina for that. One assumes I should have some level of stamina from that – not as much as an athlete, maybe – and I seem to have less stamina than the average person. Beyond energy levels, I get sore easily due to various stress injuries I’ve given to my joints. At my most energetic, I feel “normal,” not “hyped.” I’m so, so tired all of the time, and no amount of rest or sleep is enough. All of which is to say, it’s hard to feel sexy when you can’t keep up with most physical activities.

To paint a picture, I had a whole cheesecake on my 29^th birthday. For the next two days, for the first time in my life, I had acid reflux, because apparently, I can’t eat more than a slice of cheesecake at a time now. That delayed starting to jump rope. I knew I wasn’t going to last more than a few minutes, but what I didn’t expect was to immediately injure my back because I held my elbow like an inch too far away from my side. That injury persisted for a long time after. I really don’t like how fast it feels like my body is falling apart. It’s so undesirable and pathetic. It’s hard to imagine anyone would want to be with me and my terrible, dilapidated body.

On all these fronts, there’s only so much I can do. I haven’t been drinking sugary sodas for years now, so cutting back on fast food consumption is my main way to clean up my diet. I want to get serious about jump roping and hopefully see some stamina come from that so I can jump for more than five minutes at a time. That’s about it, I guess; I can try to lose a few pounds and eat healthier, neither of which would help with the gender dysmorphia. It feels like a clock is ticking, you know? I’m not getting any younger or closer to my goals, and every year I can’t develop new confidence or strategies to get close to people, the more it feels like I’ll be alone forever. I’m almost thirty, and, to my mind miraculously, I’ve had one brief relationship and a handful of sexual experiences, years ago. I want to be able to express myself to others, to have at least one person in my life I can be affectionate with. I feel so unwanted that asking a friend what music they like or if they’ve seen a movie feels like an invasion of their personal space. I don’t even think I’d make it as far as stumbling through hitting on someone, with the stress headache I can feel from typing this sentence. And that sentence was me rethinking what “stumbling through the deep end” should look like, at my level, which I apparently envision as “paying someone a compliment.”

I do try to remind myself of the positive things I see in life. People that I usually think don’t like me much will talk to me and we can laugh together. I do have a few work friends, even if I don’t have the guts to ask them to hang out otherwise. I’m on good terms with most people, really. People think I’m funny and smart, which are probably the two most important things for people to think about me. I get compliments on my clothes every now and then. The fog of fear is very thick, so it’s hard for these things to penetrate. Like, one time, I may have heard a coworker I really like say, “You’re so cute,” and I can’t bring myself to accept that as anything more than me mishearing them. I can’t imagine that a pretty person would say something like that to me, so even though I’m pretty sure that’s what my ears took in, I don’t believe those could have been the words I heard. And it wasn’t even saying that I look cute, it was about me getting a little excited about a cute product.

The fear extends beyond what I think I’m capable of socially. Based on my limited experience, I’m not sure if sex will ever feel the way I want or need it to. When I’m masturbating, I can imagine the experience from anyone’s perspective, and I often get into more than one headspace over the course of a fantasy. Sex is just me and my incomplete body, and another person whose sensations I can’t perceive. It can feel off-putting, very out-of-body. Part of that is likely inexperience, and as I become more familiar with sex, the more I’ll be able to orient myself in the experience. But that’s unproven at the moment. What would happen if getting the amount of physical intimacy I want doesn’t change anything? What if not being alone doesn’t put a dent in my loneliness?

I saw a video of a woman who started filming herself giving daily affirmations to build her confidence in how she looks. You could tell how much she struggled with it at the beginning. The fact that she did any of it, and got better over time, is really heroic to me. I can’t imagine saying anything nice about myself out loud in the comfort of my own home. Maybe one day I can try daily affirmations, too. The first one would probably make me cry.