When I was a child, I thought like a child...if I was called a "girl", then "girl" meant things that I liked and did.
When I hit school, I figured out that "girl" meant a lot of things I couldn't relate to at all. My consent was fenced in. There were things I felt and was that weren't allowed. But "tomboy" seemed to mostly work, leaving me uncomfortably mislabeled but not yet harmed, but not yet utterly unfit. But I stared enviously at those allowed the "boy" label, who could do and be ALL I felt inside me. This is when my fig leaves began.
When I was supposed to have grown out of "tomboy" and even "tomboys" couldn't do this or that, or must do this or that, a tearing rip formed across my reality. I began bleeding behind my fig leaves, staining them dark purple.
When puberty hit, and my body betrayed me, bleeding in literal truth, I was crushed and horrified. The bulge in my pants was ALL WRONG, every change was NOT what I was sure was supposed to happen. Fig leaves expanded to try to cover budding mammary glands, both socially and internally unacceptable. The figs put out tendrils, reaching into my mind.
When SECOND puberty hit, we were all confused, there were doctors visits and waxing experiments and I had a LOT of consent taken from me. But I utterly refused to take hormones to force my body to be more "girl".
I was taught to cover, to wax (Ugh! Once!) and shave. I had to shave more and more often as I matured. Fig leaves spread across my face, covering my mouth. They grew roots throughout my mind. Some knowings, some realizations (Was that fig scars, THERE?? When did THAT happen??) were too hurtful, too dangerous, to leave unveiled. Sometimes, I thought the fig leaves helped. Looking back, I'm saddest about that.
The next too-many years were spent mostly fighting to see around the infestation, not directly fighting it with pruning shears and knives and fire - oh, I wanted to, but society was all around me, telling me that fig-me was the only acceptable me.
Until I got the fire, whether I wanted to or not. I got a concussion, and suddenly all the flimsy walls I'd built to protect me from the strangling fig collapsed. I stared in dismay as my entire adult construct burned and collapsed into ash.
I rebuilt, out of what was real, out of regret, out of, yes, hope for a way to show the real me to those around me. I rooted out those roots of fig. I decided, for once, to do what I wanted and needed, and NOT give a fig.
It takes surgery to remove the fig leaves - repeated, once for each part of me they'd subsumed. I started with the last grown. I had to consult fig leaf infestation experts and get letters, find surgeons skilled enough to cut out the fig and leave the me.
Then came the healing. And Oh! What glorious healing! With my chest unbound, my arms free, my skin able to kiss the air - what glorious healing, indeed!
I have more surgery to do, more fig to excise. It's still strangling me. So again, I have the fig leaf infestation expert letters, and the surgeons and I are planning our next attack. It'll be two phases, I suspect. That's a lot of physical and psychological healing I've left to do - but I've been able to take in and give so much more sunlight and nourishment to others with what I've already freed that I'm desperate to remove the last.
And then? The healing. Oh! What glorious healing! I can't wait to see what I'll be able to give, when at last I'm free!
— FriarMir
When I hit school, I figured out that "girl" meant a lot of things I couldn't relate to at all. My consent was fenced in. There were things I felt and was that weren't allowed. But "tomboy" seemed to mostly work, leaving me uncomfortably mislabeled but not yet harmed, but not yet utterly unfit. But I stared enviously at those allowed the "boy" label, who could do and be ALL I felt inside me. This is when my fig leaves began.
When I was supposed to have grown out of "tomboy" and even "tomboys" couldn't do this or that, or must do this or that, a tearing rip formed across my reality. I began bleeding behind my fig leaves, staining them dark purple.
When puberty hit, and my body betrayed me, bleeding in literal truth, I was crushed and horrified. The bulge in my pants was ALL WRONG, every change was NOT what I was sure was supposed to happen. Fig leaves expanded to try to cover budding mammary glands, both socially and internally unacceptable. The figs put out tendrils, reaching into my mind.
When SECOND puberty hit, we were all confused, there were doctors visits and waxing experiments and I had a LOT of consent taken from me. But I utterly refused to take hormones to force my body to be more "girl".
I was taught to cover, to wax (Ugh! Once!) and shave. I had to shave more and more often as I matured. Fig leaves spread across my face, covering my mouth. They grew roots throughout my mind. Some knowings, some realizations (Was that fig scars, THERE?? When did THAT happen??) were too hurtful, too dangerous, to leave unveiled. Sometimes, I thought the fig leaves helped. Looking back, I'm saddest about that.
The next too-many years were spent mostly fighting to see around the infestation, not directly fighting it with pruning shears and knives and fire - oh, I wanted to, but society was all around me, telling me that fig-me was the only acceptable me.
Until I got the fire, whether I wanted to or not. I got a concussion, and suddenly all the flimsy walls I'd built to protect me from the strangling fig collapsed. I stared in dismay as my entire adult construct burned and collapsed into ash.
I rebuilt, out of what was real, out of regret, out of, yes, hope for a way to show the real me to those around me. I rooted out those roots of fig. I decided, for once, to do what I wanted and needed, and NOT give a fig.
It takes surgery to remove the fig leaves - repeated, once for each part of me they'd subsumed. I started with the last grown. I had to consult fig leaf infestation experts and get letters, find surgeons skilled enough to cut out the fig and leave the me.
Then came the healing. And Oh! What glorious healing! With my chest unbound, my arms free, my skin able to kiss the air - what glorious healing, indeed!
I have more surgery to do, more fig to excise. It's still strangling me. So again, I have the fig leaf infestation expert letters, and the surgeons and I are planning our next attack. It'll be two phases, I suspect. That's a lot of physical and psychological healing I've left to do - but I've been able to take in and give so much more sunlight and nourishment to others with what I've already freed that I'm desperate to remove the last.
And then? The healing. Oh! What glorious healing! I can't wait to see what I'll be able to give, when at last I'm free!
— FriarMir
Glorious! absolutely glorious!
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