[my thoughts and/or interpretation]

Content Notes: dissociation between body and mind; abelism; self-hatred, -harm and -destruction; dysphoria; mention of abusive relationship; eating disorders; => most explicit stuff is just in the fifth paragraph

When we were born, my body and I were unfinished. It was too small, it's immune system weak and it didn't even have fingernails. I was too scared and sensitive, every noise and touch startled me and I cried until our parents ears bled.

We grew up together and for a while, we were friends. When I wanted to explore the neighbor's yard, my body accompanied me, when I read books my body held them for me and when I got caught lighting bottles on fire, my body got grounded with me. The support was mutual. When my body got hurt, I cried in solidarity, when it wanted to run around I invented adventures to make it more exciting and whenever it got sick I was there sharing in the pain and boredom. We were indivisible, joined together and I thought it would stay like this.

There were some smaller arguments even back then. At night we struggled to fall asleep, because while my body was already tired and refused to move, I was wide awake. We also went to speech therapy together, where my body had to learn how to hold it's tongue when I was trying to speak. We worked it out and the experience was pretty positive (there were a lot of gummy bears involved). More troublesome was my body's honesty. I learned rather quickly that some adults didn't like the way we were and adapted accordingly, but my body was stubborn. It kept jumping and flapping it's hands when excited, gestured too widely, refused to moderate its facial expressions and started crying whenever I had a stronger emotion. We kept being invited to talks with teachers, sent to doctors and our peers mocked us extensively, but our misery was mutual, our pain different but similar enough to not grow apart.

That started happening when we were nine or ten. The first conflict were the stretch marks that my body developed - bright red and covering both thighs. I hated them. I hated the way they looked, the way other people looked at them and the stuff they asked. My body couldn't answer them, so I had to stammer out excuses and explanations and I started to resent my body for putting me in that situation. I understood that it was just excited to almost be a teenager, but I still wanted to be a kid. I didn't want this and I didn't want to be friends anymore, but of course I couldn't just leave. So I started to distract myself - got lost in books and maladaptive daydreams, where I didn't have to deal with my body and its stretch marks, knee effusions or back pain but also not with my social awkwardness, constant confusion and isolation. It was an unstable truce reliant soley on ignorance.

Around two years later puberty came and changed our relationship into all-out war. My body was trying to develop into a "young woman" and I was hellbent on sabotaging it in any way I could. I didn't think too much about gender in the beginning, but I knew something was wrong and I had to try to stop it. So I started starving and hurting it - for the first years only by neglect, later by swallowing dozens of diet pills a day, burning my body's skin with acid and cutting it with razor blades. At some point I figured out I was trans*, but that only fueled my vengeance against what I saw as my body betraying me. I lost weight until bones stuck out sharply through my clothes, wore binders until ribs cracked and got so weak, that I wasn't able to vacuum the floor. I even got into a relationship, that looking back actively added to my almost decade-long campaign of mutual self-destruction.

It left both of us in ruins and full of wounds. My body got scars, I got trauma. There is no real way of coming back from that but the last few years have been an exercise in slow re-acquiantance and attempted peace-making. Getting diagnosed with autism and ADHD took aways some of the self-loathing, I learned not to punish both of us for things we have no control over and that stimming and the way my body does or doesn't show emotions is fine. I started HRT, which made my body easier to be around and identify with. Top surgery was a huge step in that direction, and the hysterectomy helped as well. I still have to feed my body chemicals to fall asleep, but at least we avoid the hours of tossing, turning and mental warfare. We have been to therapy and two clinics and while the experiences certainly were mixed, overall it has been good for both of us.

We are 23 now and there are other problems. I don't know if they are new, or if they were just overshadowed by everything else, casualties to our conflicts. Contrary to mine and doctors' beliefs, the constant exhaustion, low energy and brain fog stayed even as all the things that could be responsible for causing it receded into the background. I won't say "went away" because I don't think they ever will, but they are too irrelevant to explain why my body has gotten worse. It refuses to stand upright for a few minutes without getting dizzy, to walk long without threatening to crumble and it shoots pain through its limbs at random intervals. Every day it's tired and exhausted and after activities, it makes us crash. It's debilitating and if my body and I didn't have this history of war, this would be a crisis worth to start one.

But I never want to go back there. I honestly don't think I would survive a second round and it's been a lot of work to just be able to exist next to each other again, so I'm doing my best to handle it differently. If it can't stand, then I'm finding more places to sit and buying kitchen and shower chairs. If it can't walk long, then I'm getting a cane for support and if that turns out to not be enough, I will get a rollator or wheelchair. The thought honestly scares me, but I refuse to let that stop me. If it's in pain then I'm trying to alleviate it and if that's not possible I will sit with it and accompany my body through it. If it needs rest, we're resting and if it needs help I'm taking it to doctors and trying to advocate for its needs.

My body and I might not be friends, but I will do my best to be friendly. I know that won't heal it or reverse all the damage we did to each other, but it's the only way to not make it worse.