Dear Anita

There are times when my inner critic tells me that I’m not good enough because I don’t know how to do this or that. I am still very self-critical of myself. I am working on countering the inner critic though by reminding myself of the things that I have done that are good like my writing skills and my compassion for others. I find that it helps me keep a sense of self and not get lost in the inner critic by reminding myself when it starts to criticize me for not being productive or smart enough that I remind it of the good grades I’ve gotten so far and tell myself it’ll be okay. I wish I could press a remote and completely mute the inner critic but it’s difficult so I settle for working on keeping myself calm when it roars. The inner critic is like the wind rattling the leaves of the trees and sometimes the branches break and there will be days when the inner critic seems to win, but there is always something that reminds me that I am special and that even though I may bend and break at times I still have strength to grow and establish my foundation like a tree. Thinking of myself like a tree helps me ground myself when I’m feeling stressed because I like to imagine my feet touching the Earth and spreading out my roots to grow and my arms are branches that dance in the wind. I am still learning to work on dancing in life’s storms rather than having the storms drench me in sorrow and feeling like I’m drowning in rain. I am continuing to regulate my exercise so I don’t overstrain myself and eating regular meals. I need to work on the chest binder one though because I find that tighter chest binders help me with the dysphoria and make my chest look the most flat. But since the chest binders are tight and I have to take deep slow breaths to get oxygen to my lungs sometimes I find it straining. There are times when the chest binder makes me feel better about myself and other times when it feels constricting. I hope that with more meditation I can work on reducing my anxiety and stop myself from focusing so much on the parts of my body that give me dysphoria. I sometimes wish I could just let go of myself and stop trying so hard to make my body to look masculine and do things that build my health and also help me with my gender expression but not break me down. I find that sometimes I feel quite focused on whether my chest and hips look masculine enough that I am so self-conscious and start to feel disconnected from the world. When I feel disconnected from the world, I feel like I’m not living and I want to be able to feel a sense of connection with the world again and learn new things but sometimes the inner critic of dysphoria makes me lose myself and I become afraid that I don’t know enough to thrive in the world. Although I want to transition very much with every ounce of my being, I don’t want to feel like I’m losing touch with the world because I’m so focused on my gender expression and sometimes in those moments when I’m alone with myself I start to question myself and am afraid that my intense gender dysphoria is making it harder to live in the world. I can achieve temporary peace of mind with meditation but I think I need a steady practice and discipline to help me cope with my feelings when I feel lost in fear about things in life.