Dear Anita:

Thank you for your advice. I have started a meditation and yoga routine that helps me release tension. Also, I have drafted a temporary schedule which I use to help me coordinate my tasks throughout the day. As long as I get most of my priorities done, I can counter my inner critic and say “See, I was productive today.”

Speaking of stereotypes, my therapist told me that if I keep following the stereotypes of who I should be, I’m never going to be happy with myself. I told her that an underlying factor for my anorexia was the stereotype that males had to be muscular and skinny and since I identified as a male and felt like I was losing myself more in my home environment, I found something I could control which was my weight. I have overcome the stereotype that female cannot be scientists because I don’t care what gender I am, science has always fascinated me and my passion for it motivates me to achieve my goals as a genetic engineer. This is one goal that I know is me being true to myself. I still feel that the more I try to surpass the limitations of stereotypes, the more people will try to place them on me. I find it emotionally draining to always hear people who see only what’s on the surface of who I am and at times I wish I could just close my ears. I have my music player and headphones when I hear people arguing or making assumptions about who I am and I tune into that. At times I feel like I’m being disrespectful, but there is an inner sense of peace because I know I’m keeping myself from picking up the negativity of others that may waste my energy. Another thing about my anorexia is that I believe it is a way for me to “purge” myself of the negative stereotypes that I feel like are making me lose control in my life. If I can control how I look by controlling what I eat, I can stop the negative stereotypes from affecting me, but at times I feel like that it’s not the case. By being anorexic, I’m giving the stereotypes of gender more power over me because I’m harming myself to fit more into the physical appearance of what an ideal body type of a male should look like. Of course, there are many people in the LGBT community who don’t fit into society’s boxes. I feel like I just want to be myself and not care about what makes others happy if it makes me unhappy. A society is made up of individuals and each individual can improve themselves and by their own improvements, they can inspire other individuals to improve and better society. Just because an individual expresses views different from cultural or societal norms doesn’t mean that individual is a deviant from society, it just means that they have a different way of looking at the world and if it harms none and makes them happy then that’s okay. People cannot always fit into the societal roles set for them and sometimes the judgments of others that try to keep them within the lines hurt them more than helps them. I wish this was easier to explain to my parents who feel like there is no individualism within society, but conformity. But there is both individualism and conformity within society since a society relies on the voices of its individuals and if there is something different that one individual sees from another, it is okay because it is these different opinions that once heard may move society forward. Everyone’s opinion is important as long as it doesn’t harm any and people are affected by others’ opinions whether they feel it pertains to them or not because they live within the same societies and what affects one may affect the others. This is why it is important to be open-minded about all aspects of knowledge because you never know how it can play a role in your life, knowledge is power and sometimes you have to see the viewpoints of others to see how accurate your assumptions are. I wish my parents were more open-minded and sought more knowledge rather than kept the stereotypes of their Asian culture which they keep trying to put on me and whom I keep trying to break out of. I don’t want to hear things like “There are only two genders in this world” or “males are the ones who should be outgoing” or “People who don’t fit into specific gender identity or sexual orientation have a mental illness.” There is a difference between true mental illness and someone who knows who they are as a person and is different because they were born that way or choose to go outside the lines, but that doesn’t make them abnormal. I love all aspects of science and will research psychology, parapsychology (includes paranormal, supernatural, etc) and abnormal psychology and how people think in relation to their environment and I find this fascinating. the more research I find and the more sources I see to back up specific points, the more I understand the world around me. I believe everyone has different ways of interpreting the world around them and people should be respectful of that and not tell them that they shouldn’t be this way or that. Some questions I have are: “How do I know which situations to defend myself in and which ones to avoid?” “How do I stop the people who never listen to me and look beyond the surface to my inner feelings from continuing to intrude into my life?” “How do I become more self-reliant?” “How do I stop trying to get entangled in the views of others that will never change and work on improving myself?” “When I am in an argument and I know that person will never see my side or won’t be considerate to listen, how do I remove myself from the situation?” “How do I know that my actions are not being influenced by the expectations/stereotypes imposed on me by others and the choices I make are my own?” “How do I work on disentangling myself from the stereotypes and what’s truly me?” I feel like some of my actions have come about due to the results of stereotypes and I find it hard to release some of the stereotypes because they can be hard to face at times. It may be possible that I dislike parts of my body because I was never taught how to love myself emotionally or supported emotionally, so I had to work on finding myself and seeking support in my own way. My inner critic must have resulted from always doubting myself emotionally because I never felt there was a solid foundation to guide me through life and now learning the life skills I need, it all seems to be happening so fast and it feels like I’m growing up too fast for me to handle and at times I regret the years I was in emotional turmoil and I question myself “Was I an irresponsible person then? Am I an irresponsible person now? how much do I truly know how the world works?” and these questions fill me with doubts about the achievements I have made in life. Do you have any advice? Thanks!