CW: Bodily insecurities, dysphoria, existential fears, and... internal violence? used for comedic effect? idk what the term is for that, let me know if you do.
A little bit of a heavier one today, really using this blog as a kind of journal to write my thoughts down. I hope you enjoy? Is that weird to say? Maybe you find it relatable, maybe not, maybe you wanna yell at me and call me a dumbass in the comments, jokes on you, that's engagement babyyyy >:)
We all react differently to seeing how we look, could be why most of us prefer to be fronting only when alone in our dark room, and usually sitting or laying down because a few of us feel weird being the wrong height physically.
I think it's really hard to identify with the body for us since we only discovered we were plural after being a few years into transitioning (one identity crisis into another, lucky us!) so we always tend to see the body as that particular person who had the most responsibility for our transition. Our legal name is Pink's name, the name we use with everybody is Pink's name, it's hard to not think of her as the body's identity, after all that's what we transitioned for.
I never identified with the body pretransition. I was in a constant state of derealization and dissociation without any sense of identity until a certain pandemic happened that gave me an excuse to grow out my hair for the first time in my life. We're coming up on our 4th HRT anniversary soon, and I can safely say that I did not feel like a person until transitioning, no wonder we never figured out our plurality until after that.
When I look in the mirror now, I see how far I've come. I see a body that I identify with, a face that doesn't disgust me like it used to. But in having this sense of self reflected in the mirror, we lose any chance of having others feel the same. That scares me.
It's a tricky situation, you can only ever look like a single person at a time. We have a few tricks like wearing our hair in different ways and dressing up in different types of clothes that give us a good approximation of being more than just Pink, but it's still hard. It's only ever that one person we've become when we look in the mirror. It's hard, and we don't have an answer.
We're not that far into our journey figuring ourselves out. I still feel like I write and draw these posts without the proper input from the rest of us. I can't escape that feeling of being "the default". But that's the honest answer, I don't know how to do this properly. I can read up on everything you should and shouldn't do, but ultimately I'm not perfect. I'm scared. I finally see myself in my reflection, I've reached the goalpost that trans people strive for every day, and it's terrifying to think of giving any part of that up.
To look more like us, that could mean looking less like me. To have us all here working together could mean I front less. It could mean less control. It could mean remembering less of my days. It could mean giving up parts of what I've worked so hard these past four years to achieve, and when I've come so far it's hard not to interpret that negatively. I know it would help us, I know Red thinks I'm selfish for putting myself above the rest of us, and I know it's something I need to make peace with if we're ever going to heal.
But it's hard, and I'm scared.
