#as a record and testement to how much my life has improved since I started wearing it

[freckleslikestars]

Something I’ve been trying to put into words since I started wearing a binder a couple of months ago is how much it’s reduced my disphoria, even when I’m not wearing it. It’s like it helps me see past my breasts, if that makes sense. Like, before, I’d trained myself not to see myself in mirrors.

For context, I’m a dancer. I grew up in mirrored dance studios. My degree was spent in rooms with unavoidable mirrors for upwards of 8 hours a day. And as soon as I hit puberty, I realised that I wasn’t going to be able to avoid mirrors, and the image I saw disgusted me, so I just started erasing myself from them. I got really good at completely blanking out my image in mirrors. I only got better when I worked a series of jobs in bars and hotels that really, really liked mirrored surfaces: mirrored walls, mirrored tables, mirrored bar tops, you name it, and my job always ended up being to polish every surface. So I got really, really good at not noticing my reflection.

Now, for me, coming out actually helped. I stopped hating my image so much, and stopped erasing myself from mirrors so often - particularly mirrors that where high enough that I could only see shoulders and up. I think it’s because I started openly admitting that my body is not what I want it to be, and started loving it for having got me this far. But I still wasn’t…happy, I guess.

And then, a couple months ago, I decide to get a binder. I finally had a GP that acknowledged my gender, and we worked to find a binder that would work with my asthma. And whilst it didn’t fix everything instantly, I noticed that after a couple of days wearing it, I’d stopped subconsciously blocking my reflection whenever I walked past the mirror in the bathroom whilst i was wearing it. And a couple of days after that I noticed something else: I’d looked up whilst getting ready to shower and could see my topless reflection in the mirror. I mean, I genuinely cant remember the last time I actually looked at myself in the mirror, particularly without clothes on.

Before, if I did force myself to look, I’d see large breasts that I hated, and a body that was far too fleshy - and I couldn’t see past that. But now, I can look and I can see that, actually, I quite like my tummy. I really like the way my waist curves.

The breasts are still there, and they do still bother me, but I don’t notice them nearly as much now, and I can see past them.

Did wearing a binder cure my dysphoria? no, and I didn’t expect it to. But it has made me so much happier.

#I’m not kidding when I say the first week I wore it I cried happy tears every single day #the first day after I put it on my dad and my best friend both commented that they’d never seen me so happy #I put it on and I just…I feel so much lighter. I joked the other day that I considered it armor - like a breast plate - I feel so much more #invincible with it on because I feel so much more confident and more like me #I dunno if I’ve explained any of this right. I’ve been struggling with the words for it for a while now. I just wanted to get them out there #as a record and testement to how much my life has improved since I started wearing it