Some Recent Little Victories

Last week, I had my first appointment with a dietitian in over a year.

A few years ago I was admitted to a partial hospitalization program for disordered eating, and when I was released they still had me talking with a dietitian at least once a week to make sure I wasn't relapsing. I stopped seeing this dietitian after I lost my old insurance. Recently, I was able to get connected with a dietitian who more or less works pro bono.

She asked me about my eating habits and I answered honestly. It wasn't until I actually said everything out loud that I realized how much had changed for me since I'd been discharged from the hospital. I rarely engage in disordered eating anymore. I have a system in place to make sure I'm eating regularly and my weight has stopped fluctuating. It's not easy, and I'm still not perfectly healthy, but I'm doing everything you could reasonably except someone in my position to be doing.

My 3 year HRT anniversary is coming up. I feel conflicted about it.

I've spent the last few years on and off of low-dose testosterone, which is roughly equivalent to a year of consistent, full-dose testosterone.

On one hand, I feel like sticking with microdosing for so long was something of a compromise. I feel like a coward for taking so long to pursue full dosing, and for having to go off of it so many times. There's so many transition timelines online of people who've been on T for about as long as I have, and they have very obvious changes, meanwhile I'm still getting called ma'am in public. I feel like if I was able to stick with it more consistently or at a higher dosage, I'd be in a much better place today.

On the other hand, I'm just glad I started it at all. I'm glad I'm still on it. I'm glad that even after all the times I stopped taking it, I was able to get back on it and didn't give up completely. My relationship with my body has really improved since starting HRT. Even on a lower dose you still get a lower voice and facial hair, even if it's subtle, that's not nothing.

A couple weeks ago I started rewatching Bojack Horseman.

For years I haven't been able to watch it because I associated it with a shitty person I knew when I was younger. I guess enough time has passed now that those wounds just aren't as fresh anymore. I originally stopped watching before season 4 came out, because that's when I cut contact with this person, so I never got to see any of the episodes past that.

There's something very weird about watching a show that you have some level of nostalgia for but also never properly finished. You watch the earlier episodes and everything's just as you remember, and then you get to the later episodes and everything's still a decade old and very of it's time (jokes about Buzzfeed, etc.), but it's still new to you. You might have stopped watching, but the world and characters kept moving without you. Like the show says; Time's arrow neither stands still nor reverses. It merely marches forward.

A part of me feels like my teenage self would have really liked some of these "new" characters, especially Hollyhock, but a part of me is kind of glad I waited. I feel like I relate to and understand the show a lot more as an adult. Why the fuck was teenaged me watching such a sad and adult show anyway?

I don't know. I guess I just realized that I was letting someone who I haven't talked to in nearly a decade (and probably barely even remembers me) control my life. Things aren't like the way they were. I'm an adult now. It's silly to let someone you don't even know anymore stop you from watching shows you used to like.

I guess the thing that connects all of these anecdotes is that they're little victories. Sometimes I feel really bad because I see people my age who're more successful than I'll ever be. I think sometimes it can be hard to give yourself grace and celebrate the little victories.

I think sometimes when you compare today to yesterday, and yesterday to the day before, and so on, it can feel like nothing is really changing and that can be very frustrating and discouraging. Real change doesn't happen suddenly, it's gradual. You might not even notice it's happened until someone else points it out to you.

When I think back to where I was this time a few years ago, it's undeniable that I'm in a much better place now than I was back then. Am I completely happy, in a general sense? I don't know, to be honest. But I'm not completely miserable all the time anymore, so that's a good step in the right direction.

Honestly, even making this post feels like a victory. Not only because I never have the energy to write, but because just a couple years ago I would have never dreamed of being open about my disordered eating or being on HRT online.