A different kind of story

My eating disorder came about from hating the way I looked. I am 15.

You see I was born female but I don’t recognise that. I am transitioning as best as I can within the legal limitations of this country to identify as male as that is who I truly feel I have always been. In order to redirect certain fat displacements on certain parts of my female body I began dieting.

Yes I have gender dysphoria. Yes I have other co morbid conditions but I had never had an issues with eating until I was so distressed about learning that the older I get the more fat I would put in areas of my body that would make me be more female. Not what I wanted. Dieting worked. I saw results and I liked it. So of course I continued until it became my whole world. I was restrictive. I was obsessed and I honestly at the time didn’t think I had a problem because I was losing fat and weight and I was happy. But my moods changed. My restrictive eating, exercising and calorie counting became more and more, and I noticed I was getting tired and no energy but I didn’t care.

I know those around me who loved me were seeing the red flags and warning signs and I know they couldn’t reach me. The ED had completely taken over my rational thought patterns. But the professionals were focused on other reasons for this and I know at the time my mum was tearing her hair out for help and support and I know she found it hard to get it.

I remember the professionals telling me to do this and eat that and stop doing this and that, but by then I wasn’t able to be reached. I remember my mum holding some sort of family intervention and they were all trying to beg with me to eat. But I was unreachable. It took going to hospital from dehydration and being in starvation mode, for people to finally realise what we were dealing with. I didn’t even know what I was dealing with. I just knew I couldn’t stop or control it anymore.

I am in recovery now and doing ok. But when I came out of hospital I was not prepared for the effects of what I had done to myself, hitting me so hard. The severe exhaustion, the stomach cramps, the extreme hunger and eating so much just so my body could return to normal, but not knowing what was happening to me, why, what to expect because I had not been formally diagnosed and yet we all kinda new it was Anorexia Nervosa.

But until I could get that formal diagnosis I couldn’t access help.

I wish we had known about this much earlier. They say eating disorders within the transgender community is very high.
Why did they not warn me about this, why do they not prevent this?
Why do law makers make it so difficult for people to try to be who they want to be?
Why don’t you listen to us, walk in our shoes, live our lives for a day?