#being nonbinary and pregnant in itself is an entirely different feeling of dysphoria

[flameliberator]

being pregnant is definitely one of the weirdest things ive ever been

[enbyemerald]

Early Nonbinary Thoughts: Journal Entry #1

Trigger warning: period dysphoria - This post will discuss my experience with getting my period for the first time/feelings about my period from adolescence (and beyond). Just a heads up.

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This is the long story of what seems to be nonbinary feelings re: my period and slow realization of the roots of that no one asked for. Shrugs.

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So. I’ve had several different perspectives over the years regarding what my experience with getting my period for the first time/monthly in early adolescence meant. I have OCD, which started presenting itself at age 10, if not earlier. I also have social anxiety, and I’m not entirely sure when it first started presenting, but - probably around the same time if not earlier. (I was also apparently always a fairly anxious kid in general even REALLY young? Apparently when I was as young as 4/5 someone suggested to my mom that I see or get checked out by a psychologist? I’m assuming this never happened, but. Occasionally it has been brought up in the context of how -Whatever- I was as a kid. Shrugs). Anyway. For like a full YEAR (age 11) before getting my period, I was increasingly like terrified of this impending thing happening. I used to think that most of that was the fact of it happening suddenly, randomly, uncontrollably, and more than anything, at a potentially really inconvenient time in which I might have to actually - Le gasp - go to the nurse or TELL/ask someone for a pad or something and that just was all way too stressful and embarrassing of a thing for me to handle. And sure, all of those feelings were true and probably at least partly fueled by my OCD and/or social anxiety. (Additionally, aside from my mom telling me that usually one gets their period at the same age that their mother did, I wasn’t exactly like, particularly educated on the matter?). And I ended up getting so stressed out about it that I started just avoiding going to things. I can remember really wanting to go to church youth group things but avoiding them because I was just perpetually afraid that THAT would be the time when I suddenly got my period.

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But then here’s the thing. When, at age 12, I finally DID get my period for the first time, my reaction from that moment on seems to me something more than simply mental illness-fueled fear etc.

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I got my period when I was out for the day with a friend and my mom - my mom was driving/chaperoning us for local pool/movie/lunch things… And like. I noticed that I had started my period as I was changing out of my bathing suit/we were about to leave the swimming portion of the day behind. I was alone; there wasn’t some kind of awkward situation; my mom was right outside and I could have very easily just informed her, the ONE person in my entire life for which all my social anxiety stuff takes a break and it theoretically should be nbd. Like. When I theoretically got my period, there is no other person I would have wanted to discuss this with, and here this situation was fairly ideal, all things considered - swimming was over for the day, so THAT wasn’t an issue for the moment. Even if I had had to reveal this to my friend, I was with the ONE friend at the time that I felt comfortable enough with that it probably would have been okay. And most of all - I probably could have just privately told my mom, and tbh even if needed we could have cut the day out short since it was *my* mom who was the chaperone…

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But. Instead of thinking any of this, what happened instead was this: I kind of just went into shock? (apologies - I don’t know how else to describe it). Like. I just STARED and my heart raced and I was internally freaking out and I just immediately went into total denial that this was happening. I remember that being my first thought after Realizing - “this can’t be happening; this can’t be happening…” And I just. Couldn’t even deal with it. So I didn’t. I left the bathroom/changing area/pool without telling my mom, and three of us went about the rest of the day. (TMI, but for the record, I was only barely spotting at this point/the next day). And I just tried really hard not to think about it, but I can remember still just being really on edge the whole time or often - especially at the movie theater because some moment in Uptown Girls directly made me think of period things, and I remember feeling that rush of like anxiety-terror or something.

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I didn’t tell my mom even after we dropped off my friend and went back home. I think that night I prayed over and over again for this to somehow have just not happened/not to be happening. I DEFINITELY prayed that the next day. Still having not told my mom, walking around at the mall/some place to eat, I just kept silently praying over and over again “Please don’t let this be what really happened. Please somehow don’t let this be happening.” I think I started trying to bargain/say what good thing I could do or be if only this wasn’t happening. I remember being even more on edge/high key anxious all that morning.

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We went back home and I still hadn’t said anything. I knew that in a few hours I was supposed to head over to the house of the same friend I had spent the day with yesterday for her birthday pool party. That’s right - POOL party. I knew that given the nature of the party, I was going to have to tell my mom before we left. (TBH that was possibly the ONLY reason I even eventually brought myself to say something. I’m not sure HOW long it would have taken if there hadn’t been some kind of “SWIMMING YIKES” deadline looming). I still couldn’t bring myself to tell her though. I remember pacing around my room a lot and sitting down to do the practice typing skills thing I was supposed to be doing, and just trying really hard not to think about it.

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And then somehow eventually, finally, down to almost the last minute, I managed to bring myself to walk downstairs and just say to my mom, “I started my period.” The words felt awkward and hard coming out, although I just said it quickly. And I remember that for a good while after that I would think back to myself that the most embarrassing, awkward moment in my entire life had been just the moment of saying those words. Not the actually starting my period - but telling my mom/someone else that that had happened.

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(This was followed, btw, by my mom handing me a box of tampons, and I stared at the instructions and just started crying… I did not end up attempting to use said tampons, but I did end up going to the party. I listened to the Christina Aguilera Stripped album the whole way there to try to make myself feel better/safe about things, and I remember before taking off my mom making some comment like, in surprise of how upset/bummed I seemed to be. She was supportive but like. Apparently pretty surprised. Anyway…).

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And that’s kind of a huge, important point, and something that leads me to the next, more specifically screaming “not cis” in my opinion part of all of this. Because I don’t think the thing was that telling my mom made the thing real. I might have been praying for it to not be happening, but by at least that point in day two if not before, I knew this was real and happening. I was just wishing that I could somehow pray what was real out of existence.

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Telling my mom was essentially telling someone that this thing had happened to me that in their eyes signified me “becoming a woman” on some level. I actually think my mom casually said that phrase to me at some point right after telling her, even if not like with the weight of a lot of “important moment” gravitas. I was also just aware that in all the media depictions or in real life whispers of people getting their period for the first time that that was the specific weight attached to it - it meant that you were entering this new phase of your life in which you were now or were on your way to becoming a “woman.” And even without consciously realizing it, I think that made me really uncomfortable. (And I don’t think it was specifically because it was linked to ability to get pregnant/childbearing because at the time I didn’t even know that I for sure didn’t ever want to be pregnant/give birth. And I don’t remember ever consciously linking the two things all that much during all this discomfort? At least not in the same way that I linked it to “beginning womanhood” or whatever). For further evidence of this, see also: how I responded to period things for the next at least year or two…

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My responses to starting/being on my period for the next like…couple of years? Were, I think, particularly telling. I remember for a long time still feeling just a slightly lessened version of that, difficult to say/words feel strange in my mouth/embarrassing-awkwardness of telling my mom for the first time, each time I needed to again for whatever reason… “I’m on my period, so…” “I started my period, um, where the heck are the pads?” Or whatever. I still always had to psych myself up to say it, because I never wanted to. It was weirdly one of the ONLY things I was uncomfortable communicating to my mom. And every time after I finally did, it felt like, some kind of defeat or resignation in addition to some sort of shame?

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I was not a fan of when my mom would sometimes casually inform my grandma that I was on my period, for some I suppose relevant reason?… I remember having this thing of being in the school’s single stall bathroom trying to unwrap a pad as slowly and as quietly as humanly possible because god forbid someone from far away outside know that I was on my period? I never discussed it with girls in my grade even when others were openly talking about it and it could easily have been used as a tool for bonding with peers I often had trouble forming close connections with.

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On our eighth grade school trip to D.C. Over the course of the weekend all the girls (or all the girls in our room?) got their period, and I eventually unexpectedly started toward the end of the trip, and I had to, for the first time, endure asking a friend for a pad. At some point I managed to quietly whisper the question to my friend, and after helping me out ended up announcing to the room that now ALL the girls in the room were on their period. Knowing me otherwise I theoretically should have reacted like “Yeah! Part of the group!” But instead I was just like “shh shh… (internally - omg I can’t believe that just happened, shit).”

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I also remember a certain level of dread every time a started my period for a little while, but that’s sort of harder to measure in terms of emotional discomfort or dysphoria versus just “I have to deal with THIS again.”

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But like. Even after I finally just sort of figured out a system/coping with stuff/numbed to things or whatever over the years…I still to this day will not even casually mention (my) period anything to any friend ever, even in the context of it actually being relevant to a story? I still have only ever voluntarily offered up this part of myself to my girlfriend, who from the beginning was someone who I trusted so much as someone who really respected and understood me and has been the one person to whom I’ve wanted to really tell all the things, even the hard things. But she’s literally the singular person in the 15+ years since this has been a thing.

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Also, even that was only after I had started identifying as a trans man and had learned that people of ALL genders get their period. Like. Honestly I think THAT was the final puzzle piece re: all sorts of personal feelings about the matter. (It didn’t much help my dysphoria/feelings about all sorts of things at the time, but still). …Also all of that combined translated to: I met my now girlfriend while I was identifying as a trans man and therefore at the time had actually only ever been seen as a not-woman by this person. Like. So much of this all comes back to me feeling uncomfortable or defeated or resigned not so much because the thing happened but because I had to share the existence of this thing that most of society considered this incredibly gendered experience and seemed to instantly connect me to that concept in a way this didn’t feel right to me.

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Anyway, I began writing this to put it out into the world and maybe hopefully see if this experience sounded similar to other nonbinary/trans people’s experiences because I’ve sort of come to look back to specific past things like this every time I question the validity or exactness or whatever of my gender identity…But it’s also been good to just. Finally tell a sort of full story of a thing and work stuff out. I’ve also been pretty nervous about all possible things that this stuff could mean. Maybe I’m really a cis girl after all, after all of this, and this particular thing is just related to anxiety/OCD things? Maybe I’m definitely not cis and BEYOND that, maybe this could indicate something for gender identity or dysphoria or future paths that I haven’t been thinking about and that I’m not sure I would be ready to embrace?

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Or maybe it means what I’ve been thinking it means - I’m nonbinary and I’ve had a lot of discomfort and at times more re: my periods because (primarily but possibly not entirely?) it seemed so attached to growing up to be a woman. However… tbh I also feel like there might have been some level of me feeling like “this doesn’t seem right. My body isn’t supposed to do this?” But. That part I’m not sure of. I have complicated and confusing feelings re: what it feels like is right for my body to be/do/look like. The period as an attachment to womanhood whether that was me or not thing? THAT I’m fairly certain makes all the sense though.

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Anyway. Um. Someday if some kind person makes it through this long and meandering post, has similar experiences or feelings, and feels like dropping a message of “hey, me too” that’d be pretty incredible and beyond deeply appreciated, but regardless, I’m just going to leave this here. I hope anyone out there struggling with anything like this knows that they’re not alone and that they’re valid and wonderful.

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