Growing Up
Heya, been a while since it posted. But honestly, its inspiration is fleeting at best so it hopes that you still find what it has useful!
Anyway, today it kinda wants to talk about what it was like for it growing up, specifically identifying things in its past that might be indicators for its current dysphoria. This is important for it because it struggled a lot when going through its self-discovery; its growth didn't match what it found on the internet for trans folks. Most of what it was reading online earlier in its journey would say that many folks knew or felt that something was wrong in their body from a young age. Unfortunately a lot of what if found focused on the binary genders, which doesn't really include it. So it didn't quite understand the feelings it had growing up and just assumed that the body it had was the right one.
This meant that it was raised in its natal AMAB gender. It was taught about how its body worked, and how it should feel. It felt pressure on it to be masculine, because that is the genitalia its body had. It doesn't blame its parents at all in this... well, at least not its Mom. It thinks it's important to note here that at the age of 6 its parents divorced and it continued to live with and be raised by its Mom. Most of its upbringing was done by her, and she did the best job that she could in the circumstances we were in. Maybe it'll do another post later going into more detail on how its parents affected its upbringing.
As it continued to get older it started looking at porn and dealing with arousal and how its body reacted. It found websites that it may have been too young to be on, but was on them anyway. It found things that it really liked and started developing sexually. It still remembers the first site that it found that had a kink filter -- where it really started to understand what made young Nova tick. It used to masturbate as an AMAB person does, and it did so because that is what society and porn told it that it should do.
At the time it felt fine, good even. It enjoyed the sensations that its body gave it, and it didn't feel wrong. This is the point in its history that always trips it up -- when it is examining its past to evaluate its present. It used to use its body in the past as it was born and because of that it felt like it was taking up space that it didn't deserve -- that it isn't "trans enough" because it didn't identify from a young age that its body didn't match itself. It has done a lot in therapy to reinforce that everyone's journey is different and follows different paths. Upon deeper thought it even found some potential indicators that shows that maybe it did feel differently about its body, but just didn't have a way to express or understand that.
This is why it mentioned the fact that it found the "kink" section on its first porn website, because it is there where it started to discover things like chastity. For the uninformed: chastity itself is the practice of abstaining from any sexual. However, in terms of kink, it usually means preventing one from experiencing sexual gratification, sometimes by using a device called a chastity cage (for those with a penis), with the goal of preventing erections, penetration, and sexual gratification in general. It's frequently used as a form of (consensual) dominance and control over another person. Anyway, for some reason (probably the one it is writing about), the idea of chastity really resonated with its young self, so much so that it used to find itself using things like painter's tape and electrical tape to "put away" its genitalia. The smell of the adhesive used in blue painter's tape still triggers memories of this, by the way.
It would do this rather frequently and really enjoyed the way that it looked afterwards. Now, if we apply the lens that it has today, it sure looks like that might have been some sort of signal of its relationship with its body. Sure, on the surface it looks like a youngin' getting into kinky things. It also looks like someone who doesn't quite understand their genitalia, and taping it away so that its groin is smooth and featureless to make it feel good -- euphoric, even.
Recognizing this felt validating. Its brain is always looking at the worst possible scenario and making it feel like shit in general. However, having that examination... that small detail of a young Nova experiencing euphoria during something it couldn't quite explain helped it combat its negative self-talk. That helped it reframe its journey from that which it read online to what its actual experience was, and that its actual experience is valid. It just might not have had the vocabulary or understanding it needed to know what it does now: that its body doesn't fit who it is.
Chasity is just one example of something that it discovered about itself from a young age. The way it uses chastity has changed over time, from a kink to a support system for itself to prevent stimulation and attempted engorgement. Actually, thinking on this topic, it is wondering about something else that it used to do.
Content Warning Ahead: Description of self-induced pain to bits. Skip the next paragraph if you don't want to read this part.
Something else that it used to do is take a paper tube from a toilet paper roll and put staples through it so that the staples ends were pointed out, not folded over themselves. It would then use this to wrap about its bits to cause pain to itself when its bits would try to engorge. It hadn't considered this before in terms of its journey, but looking at this in hindsight, it's another example of it not being comfortable in its own body. Intentionally trying to hurt itself when its body tried to react to arousal in a way that an AMAB body does engorging the bits, and feeling a sense of euphoria from it, is another indicator that something wasn't quite right. Just, it didn't know how to describe or even understand what it was going through.
Content Warning Abated
All of that to say: its journey, while definitely its own, is not entirely unique. Its past is just an example of the type of journey that one can go on in their own self-discovery. It doesn't fit in neatly to descriptions of gender dysphoria, and yet it experiences that. Its past was not textbook, and that doesn't make it any less valid. It is its own entity that has had its own experience that shaped it into what it is today. Just because you don't fit someone else's expectations, or the way you got here was different means only that you took a different. You're still here. You're still valid. Your experience is yours, and you deserve to be heard, seen, and loved no matter how you got here. ❤️
Talk to ya next time!