1 year 1 day post op! 🏳️‍⚧️ I had a weird complex about posting this yesterday because of my long caption... And thinking it was cringe, but here’s the honesty anyway. My relationship with this flesh suit has always been complicated. Most of my teenage years were twisted up in being complacent, being whatever people saw me as. Shape shifting over and over, ignoring signs and slapping on a smile. It’s not till after top surgery. I realised in the past I’d spent a lot of time dissociating away from my body. I spent years trying to achieve a body that was ‘traditionally masculine’ without surgery. I developed a very fragile relationship with food, and began chronically exercising - couldn’t see what was right in front of my face. And even when I could, I was scared. So fuckin’ scared. I’ll be completely honest here though, the whole system is a shit show & without the hundreds of people that donated to my go fund me, I wouldn’t be here. When life gets super dark these days I tend to look at my chest and realise that, I’m possible. My future is possible, I never thought I’d make it to 18 let alone 22. For transparency, when I had my top surgery I was without a home & sofa surfing. I knew it wasn’t’ going to be easy, but the lack of ability to do things quickly triggered my BPD and my moods started fluctuating between frustrations, elation, and sadness. I also unfortunately had a hematoma on the left side of my chest, which was super painful & had loads of fluid. It made one side of my body a lot heavier than the other. Sensory wise this was not funky fresh. I had this drained back at the place I had my surgery, as soon as I could. Stuff didn’t’ get brighter until around 8 weeks. I wanna’ appreciate that these reflections are in such a random order & probably not massively clear. To sort of wrap it up a bit here’s how I feel now: - - I feel the breeze in between leg hair. Sitting in grass and wondering is this an ant on my leg, it’s just nature saying hello, experiencing it because I’m more at home in my authenticity. A house built on self acceptance, embracing myself, and the knowledge that being a human being is a thousand complexities in one skin.