Dear Janus, Earth Angel and Poet:

“I wish I could press a remote and completely mute the inner critic”- if only such a remote existed, gone will be the field of psychiatry, psychotherapy, way less people in hospitals, way less people sick and injured, way less aggression and violence, inside homes and outside homes, oh how different the world would be!

Like you wrote, the inner critic when it is hostile, or aggressive, it roars, rattles and breaks (the verbs you used). When we are under a barrage of hostile criticism, we do feel drenched in sorrow and drowning, like you expressed.

I am glad to read that you are continuing to regulate your exercise so that you don’t overstrain yourself and that you are eating regular meals. I understand that the chest binders help you feel better. What I am saying is why not wear binders that are not too tight and wear loose shirts of a thick fabric, seems to me like good enough, isn’t it?

Point is, you want a more masculine body, not a broken body (from over-exercising), not a bruised body (binders that are way too tight). Also, got to accept the fact that no matter how hard you exercised so far, you never felt masculine enough, not enough that you were no longer anxious about it, not enough to eliminate your gender dysphoria. So try to reason with yourself and aim to look masculine, but not perfectly masculine. Accept the imperfect masculinity… after all, no one (outside the body builders who adhere to a strict body building regime of heavy duty weight lifting with the aid of complimentary nutrition and drugs) is perfectly masculine. Look around you at people and you will see that men born as males, look at their chests and hips, and you will see that they are not perfectly masculine and many are far from being perfectly masculine. So  you see, it is simply too much for you to ask for such perfection from yourself,  to be perfectly masculine, that is.

“I’m focused on my gender expression.. so focused on the pieces”- removing your focus from your chest and your hips and focusing on your body as a whole, and on your energy, like you’ve been doing more and more, is the way to go. It is, like you stated in your poem, your inner critic that focuses on the pieces that distress you so.

I was wondering, do you think that when your parents favored your brother, and criticized you for not being like him, that they encouraged the creation of your gender dysphoria?

anita