#tocd

Mentally, I am in a lot of pain.

My ptsd is... a lot.

My OCD doesn’t ever stop. It’s exhausting.

I might be transgender. I might have Transgender OCD. I have no idea. All I know is I woke up one morning and the thought I might not be a woman robbed me of everything feminine that I’ve loved so much, all the comforts of being a woman, even all the progress of loving my body I fought tooth and nail against an eating disorder to gain. Gone. Gone in a day. I’ve enjoying my gender for 25 years, and now I’m just... stuck. Stuck in a strange limbo of uncertainty and pain. I don’t know what I’m feeling, but none of it is good, none of it is relief it’s just pain and sadness and God I don’t know why this happened.

I am 25. That’s so young. But I’m terrified I’ve lived too long already to not be further. I’m afraid to confront that because what if I lose sight of all I’ve already achieved? All my progress and success. What if I’m doing things wrong? What if I am just. Wrong.

I’m fighting every single day to keep going forward. I can say even on my worst days, and this year I have had BAD days, that I always try to do the best thing for me. Sometimes that’s just, eating some food and drinking water. if I see I’ve not done it, I will do it. 

I will not be robbed of my chance to live a long, happy, healthy and wonderful life. I REFUSE to let that be kept from me by illness.

But it is just a lot. And nobody can help me but myself. That’s the lonely bit.

I am a lucky person. I live in a good home. I have a close family. My dad is just about the best person on earth. I have a best friend I can rely on. I have friends online and in real life who I know will help me if I ask for it- or will hang with me. My therapist has done incredible things that have changed my life forever. I have good physical health. I’m talented, determined, passionate.

But I am also very, very ill. And I have been ill for a very long time now, even if I didn’t know it. Developing OCD at 12 and still having it at 25 is upsetting. Sometimes it feels like there’s an element of life I’m being kept from by this. A happier, less stressed, less sad side of life. One that everyone things I'm a part of because I’m right beside them, but not one I’m actively experiencing. 

When I was 16, I told myself I would never be mentally ill. And now, it feels like all I am is mentally ill. I want to be happy again- a real kind of happy. One I don’t have to fight for, or force, or fake and hope I make.

I’ve told myself I’m broken for a long time. That there’s a little me that’s normal deep down inside, but she’s covered in a dark shadowy static, totally encased in all the darkness and pain, and the only reason nobody else can see that is because I craft a careful skin on top of the static, because I don’t want people to think that’s who I am. I want people to think I’m the person I want to be. I want to be that person...

My therapist is encouraging my to change that language, to CHOOSE it to be different. Because I know I'm not broken. All the things I am are just me. And yes, I have hated myself for years, but that doesn’t mean I’m hatable, it doesn’t mean anything.

I am Jess Butcher. I am a 25 year old woman, and if I’m not that’s okay. I like spicy food and sour flavours. I list colours to calm down. I paint my nails because I like painted nails. I find people amazing gifts. I compliment strangers on tiny things because I love making people smile. I make characters and stories and huge worlds and I can share them with people. A couple months ago I was having suicidal ideation and I did a 5 hour party for 6 children, and those children all loved it and I was happy they did. I’ve spent thousands on therapy because I am worth the effort. I have cried an ocean of tears all because you have to feel it to heal it. I refuse to avoid my pain because I don’t deserve to hold it in, I deserve to laugh and to love and to enjoy every little part of our little blue dot. I love women, I love their beautiful bodies and incredible brains and gorgeous voices and the way their soft arms wrap so warmly around you. I’m full of so much potential and words I don’t have right now because it’s late. It’s late and I have work in the morning and all day I have been trying to live in the moment but I’ve been in so much pain. It hurts so much and I don’t know when it’s going to stop but it’s GOING to stop. Not because it magically went away but because I worked hard to overcome it. Nothing will ever stop me from that. NOTHING. Not even my own mind.

Because I am me.

I went from genderfluid to nonbinary, before settling on agender around 18. I liked the idea of not having a gender assigned to me, i like the idea of being queer especially when it came to relationships. but I also was still feminine, I was still me. So I went by they/them and in an attempt to validate myself more I tried pushing away feminine things and leaning into being very gender non-conforming.

At one point, I had put a facial hair filter on myself. I liked the clash of masculine and feminine, that 'feminine guy' look -- so I begin using they/he and presenting myself more as a masculine person who was feminine. I never doubted being nonbinary, i didnt even really think much about it outside of presentation and using masculine terms alongside my neutral ones. 'He' in the sense thst anything was better than she.

I would go back and forth a bit between preferring to be referred to masculinely/neutral, or femininely/neutral. It seemed it depended on the circumstance or what aesthetic I was trying to pull off. But I mainly stuck to they/he without thinking of it much.

Around this time is when the obsessive thoughts around gender began to really set in for me. I had a bit of a problem -- i liked that 'feminine in the way men are feminine' look, but i didnt necessarily want to be a boy. That was never something id even really considered even when experimenting with gender and masculine terminology.

I realized I began to obsess over my own validity. Being nonbinary, i did see myself as gay in a sense in my attraction to men. However, I was not a man, and I worried I was appropriating a culture that was not mine.

I begin to lean into being masculine more, more to fit into my view of myself being a nonbinary person queerly attracted to men, and as a nonbinary person who liked the 'feminine boy' look.

I started identifying as transmasculine, dressing hyperfeminine and making my mind see myself as a feminine man-adjacent or 'male-aligned' second binary id placed on myself to feel valid. I got euphoric seeing myself somewhat gender-nonconforming in my femininity, but i felt like I was forcing being transmasc on myself somehow. I couldnt see myself as a man despite the aesthetic I wanted.

I would obsess with microlabels, changing them day to day along with my gendered feelings. I struggled with feeling valid because something about my gender felt so forced and i wracked my head over it because i didnt really understand why i felt that way. Then one day, after reassurance seeking through reading trans experiences, I was laying in bed and the thought hit me-- 'do I want to be a boy?'

From there my OCD spun out of control. The very notion put me into an intense anxiety attack that had left me bedridden for about a week. I couldnt stop ruminating on my gender experimentation, my past to see if I really was showing signs of wanting to be a man, and if I was in denial of that very fact until this point. I would spend my nights unable to sleep, instead reading 'egg' experiences and asking my mom for reassurance that she wouldn't abandon me if I realized I was a trans man.

Even with her reassurance that she would never do that, that pit in my stomach stayed. Its been over half a year since that incident and my daily life has been spent ruminating on this aspect.

On one hand, im grateful to my OCD -- it made me rethink myself entirely, helped me reconnect with my femininity and find that I enjoy it. At least, I THINK I do, but my OCD twists my feelings in all sorts of ways. Surely I must enjoy being feminine because it confirms im not a trans man -- thus, I am in denial of such a fact.

But if I am nonbinary and feminine as I say, then I am invalid in my prior feelings -- i cannot be queerly attracted to men or call myself gay, because I am essentially 'girl lite', and as well how does that explain enjoying looking feminine in the way boys do?

And from there I've been stuck in a never ending game of tug-o-war with my brain as I fight two opposing sides that dont seem to satisfy me either way. I feel so exhausted that im becoming apathetic, wanting to just ID as agender and nothing else, but I feel I have to justify the labels I use for myself such as 'queer' or 'gay' or whatever it may be.

Ive never really experienced dysphoria. Even now, im not sure if I experience dysphoria, or just severe OCD that makes it feel like so, which im more inclined to believe given ive never felt dysphoric prior.

There are aspects/aesthetics of being feminine and girly that I like, and there are aspects/aesthetics of being masculine and boyish that I like. I do not like the gender binary in any sense, or being called cis or straight really in any direction from what I can tell. Ive always kind of felt like a mix of masculine and feminine traits, or liking masculine and feminine aesthetics/looks. The emo boy look. The Rockstar girlfriend look. The loner numetal girl look. the pop-punk 2000s guy look. I want to be a girl with a girlfriend. But I dont want my relationships with men to be seen as straight either. I wish my body was androgynous or more of a slightly masc leaning base that I could dress up like a doll.

I've found myself most comfortable with the bigender or agender labels, or just 'genderqueer', but my OCD even has its gripes and doubts with those. I will never be sure if I enjoy my femininity truly or if I lean into it to escape my OCD tormenting me. I will never be sure if im faking being bigender just to be seen as valid in my queer attraction to men. Being masculine just feels like a compulsion now. A test to see if I truly enjoy it or not, an invitation to ruminate and feel miserable the rest of the day. Its possible ill never know and ill live with this forever, and that scares me.

For now I just present fem, its the easiest for me being AFAB and I dont mind it minus the OCD and anxiety it brings. At the end of the day nothing feels like it truly fits without an intense amount of doubt or fear of denial pooling my gut.

Being diagnosed with AvPD, I also have a crippling fear of abandonment and being alone that fuels this obsession (and many of my other OCD obsessions) to the extreme.