The Androgynous Bliss and Complicated Fears of a Lipstick Bisexual

I first found out I was bisexual when I was fifteen years old - I had developed a crush on a girl obliviously and two years later, I had accepted the fact that I was in love with her via the help of my previous therapist.I'd rather not discuss the whole ordeal as for the time being, but I decided to tell you just for a brief background.

First finding out that I was bisexual was painful and confusing; I didn't want to like girls, but I did. And furthermore, I also didn't want to be stuck in the middle of the binaries of straight and gay. I wanted to be as orthodox as I possibly could with this particular facet of my identity. I tried so hard to force myself to swing one way or the other, but it just wasn't working.

• Myth #1: Bisexuals will never become straight or gay, no matter how hard they try.

I tried to convince myself after that I needed to think more about it - that I was confused and I needed more time. That wasn't working either because I kept going back to the fact that I still liked guys and could see myself marrying one. I still thought Leonardo da Caprio was extremely sexy and all that jazz. I still felt a connection with guys that I still cannot seem to erase to save my life. Yet, I noticed this in relation to girls too. I felt like I could marry one. I felt physical attraction and I felt a deep desire to be connected with one both from emotional and physical standpoints. And I was only denying myself of living this pure truth because of reactions from others.

Myth #2: Bisexuals are not confused most of the time.

My next fear was fearing that people would still consider me straight, even after I told them, and therefore, it was unjustified that I would come out because I wound end up straight anyway.  I tried to convince myself of that lie as well.

Myth #3: Bisexuals are not former gays turned straight.

I kept thinking to myself how horrifying it would be if I was oversexualized because I was bisexual. Let's look at it this way: gay people come out to discuss the potential possibility that they are going to want to be in a committed relationship with someone of their own gender one day, not to disclose who they'd like to be in bed with. With bisexuals, it's no different. Just like gay people, we feel an obligation to disclose these things to inform about emotional connections rather than sexual ones. We should not be persecuted for coming out.

Myth #4: Bisexuals are too interested in sex.

There was another part of me that still exists even today where certain girls are beautiful, but I wouldn't want  to date them. Let's be mindful of the fact that I am still a girl even with my sexual orientation. Girls admire each others' beauty, even when straight. I am no different.

Myth #5: Bisexuals think everyone is attractive.


Bisexuality holds equal amounts of intense pain, fear, confusion, and pride as homosexuality does. It is nuanced, bended, different, open. That scares people off and we are often looked at as a bit of a guessing game if you will by not only others, but even ourselves on occasion as well. The guessing game that we have hardwired into our neurological and endocrinological system is a unique one indeed - a zebra out of a band of horses. At least in the romantic snse that is.

Society being bended is a very tricky thing because people don't know what make of a circumstance such as this. Here's what to do with it: be prepared for fluidity within us and try not to shock yourself with shock from our sociological courses.

With that implemented within myself, I have not only learned to embrace that sociological implications of this binding agent, but also the cultural implications of this. Furthermore, even though I am very feminine (and always will be and proudly so too), I have additionally learned how to appreciate the subtle nature of androgynous bliss at least from a glance. The ability to be so open without having to remove yourself from your true identity is absolutely wonderful. Soak it up if you're like me!

Whoever is reading this right now, I hope you'll support me. I just couldn't hold it in any longer. This post will ideally free me from shame and secrecy.  My friends and therapist who I have come out to seem to support me and I hope you will too. And for any people reading this that feel the same way I did, remember to always be yourself and give yourself time to think and grow. Thank you.

The Relationship Between Dance and Eating Disorders

There are multiple categories of the ideal body type in Western culture: the bodybuilder body, the swimmer's body, the runner's body, the gymnast's body, and, the one that has had a significant negative impact/affect on me, the dancer's body. These body types all set utterly unrealistic standards for us as women in many facets of society; they have proven to completely obliterate the appropriate psychological boundaries of what it means to achieve success and quite frankly, I disagree with this greatly.

There are many different types of dance of course, but the three that I do are ballet, modern, and hip hop. Since I have moderate cerebral palsy, I often feel like I need to attempt to attain the ultimate epitome of a dancer's physique to compensate for the lessening of technical [kinesthetic] skill that I have due to my poor motor control. Over the course of my teenage years, I have had to learn to realize that this is pure overcompensation that is far too excessive by all means. But I still sometimes wonder if it is accurate. After all, ballerinas and modern dancers are inherently regarded as superior if they have skeletal sides, but I try my very hardest to combat this line of thinking, not only for myself, but for other dancers as well. Yet, facts preference for dancers with flat stomachs and visible shoulder blades, collarbones, and ribs are still extremely pervasive as much as we like to shut our eyes and blindfold ourselves into a eutopian bubble that states otherwise.

--Example of a Ballerina Body (Olga Kurraevva)

My teenage years were rough because I became a woman, not a skeleton anymore; I started to lose my frame of a body, my fairy body and that scared me in all honesty. So, then I started putting more and more pressure to maintain that dancer body whose mind desperately wanted to maintain a girl who could wear belly shirts and low-rise sweatpants and crop tops without something under or over it and leotards and tutus and articles of clothing that only thin people could possibly wear.

When my eating disorder had reached it's very worst, I started to wreak havoc on my body in ways that I'd prefer not to discuss. But essentially, I lost some weight, but I was never able to keep it off. My body had made me eat eventually due to my history with low blood sugar. So I started depleting virtually every ounce of my energy with dance itself. I stayed the same physique, much to my dismay and I did not attain  the desired and pernicious effect of seeing my flesh turn to bone. I yelled, I screamed, I cried and came to the disappointing realization of dreadfulness that subjecting myself to a succession of a stomach pratically made of water, an ill-tempered demeanor, unwanted persperation, and dizziness was serving me no justice than little add-ons of control and the [unhealthy] release of endorphins. I hated this harsh reality more than anything.

Nothing about me had the qualities of an elite dancer -- I was klutzy by default, spastic, gimpy, tight, and most of all, in my eyes, not skinny enough. Dance is about a beautiful body, and my eating disorder convinced me that unless the Teddy Grahams bearwas gorgeous, I was certainly NOT considered so either by any stretch of the imagination. I was nowhere near close to having the sexiness of Nina Sayers from Black Swan or of my most looked up to dancer, Olga Kuraevva or my hip hop dance all-star acquaintance, Kate. So I had no passion, no drive, no desire for sex, dance, or the pursuit of happiness anymore. Here I was  -- a dancer always claiming to herself that dance had been her eternal passion... here I was -- a dancer, who in all senses, happened to be the ONLY one who was [directly] pressuring herself to lose weight. No one had ever told me to lose weight, especially not for dancing purposes, so it was subtly ludicrous that I was doing so myself. I guess I want to be perfect, I guess I wanted to be sexy, I guess I wanted all the exacerbated pain and fatigue from dancing my ass off to actually MEAN something for once in my fluctuant life -- I guess I didn't want to be ostracized from the elite anymore than I already was, I guess I wanted my CP to not matter nearly as much anymore. I guess I wanted to go to NYU or Julliard. I guess I wanted to feel good.

Now, I guess I do feel good in SOME respects about it, feeling good and vital about my presence as a dancer again. I have regained my passions, my strength, my carthartic acts, and my artistic visions within my dancing in the fields of ballet and modern dance and have tried very hard to be able to look in the mirror and see arm exercises that show healthy bones - and ultimately a dancer with drive, swagger, soul,, grace, strength, and all things in between without the detrimental and disproportional omission of a body worth celebrating even in belly shirts, crop tops,  sweatpants, leotards, and tutus. And I guess I feel not 100% good, but alright to maintain myself.\

Olga Kurraevva - Contemporary Ballet Improvisation

Built on Stilts Dance Festival 2009 with Kate and Evan - Hip Hop Performance

Eating Disorders and Sex: A Toxic Correlation

I blew this up so you could see how this cover hit me like a ton of bricks shortly after buying FOOD.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that you're thinking that this post is going to be another generic rant about how society instills in us as people in Western cultures (especially young women such as myself) to be stick thin. Well, if that is your assumption of what the post may be about, let me inform you that you are right, but also wrong. The topic of this post has rarely been discussed in relation to eating disorders at least to the limits of my current knowledge, much less so that it is written by someone who is 18 years old. And that topic is sex. Yes, sex. I know it may seem odd or futile or even salacious to write something such as this, but I truly do believe that this is a legitimate issue that needs to be carefully and tastefully addressed.

You've all heard the endless and timeless harping on about how the media and pop culture seem to play a distinctive "pattern" of roles in the breeding of eating disorders I'm sure. But have you ever stopped and thought about how maybe, just maybe eating disorders could be caused by sexualized society as well? I didn't think it either until I was about 16.

Let's break it down. When women feel sexy, they show off their breasts, their asses, their legs, their backs, their shoulders, and their tummies. This is because visibility of those body parts show things. Now let's look at a girl with an eating disorder: she doesn't like any of those things because her view of her body is distorted and she constantly feels like her body is hideous. Now let's look back at the women without eating disorders: they want to show off body parts because they feel that their bodies are sexually attractive and therefore, suitable. Notice how on the magazine cover, it is essentially talking about these main topics:

a) ways to be "more beautiful" via the aides of products such as cosmetics and perfumes: BEST BEAUTY UNDER $10 and HOT LOOKS FROM BEACH TO BAR+

b) ways to get a "better" body: STEAL KATY'S FLAT ABS TRICK ASAP. 

c) stuff about sex: EPIC HOT SUMMER SEX and TURN UP THE HEATAT WORK * IN LIFE * IN BED, and MAKE HIM ROAR!

Size of the Text:

The words that have been enlarged are as follows:

FLAT ABS

EPIC SEX

HEAT

ROAR!

Placement of the Text:

Notice how "FLAT ABS" is directly under "TURN UP THE HEAT"... 

Am I the only one who thinks that the fact that these things occurring in this way is on purpose? In other words, this whole magazine layout may as well say this:

"If you want to have a good sex life, it is essential for you to attain a completely flat stomach like none other than Katy Perry; this will ensure that you will get laid and be good in bed."

Society often seems to overlook the fact that casual sex is about a good body. Having a good body is beautiful, to a certain extent. But if you ask many people how they feel after losing weight they'll say words such as "hot" and "sexy" or even "Things with my husband have never been better!"

Sex is ultimately about a BODY; a person's physique and in all honesty, eating disorders are used to perfect that body much of the time. They're a way to feel secure in whatever sense used. Sex has an element of security as well,  and in Western culture,a skinny body not only means a beautiful one, but a one that will get someone to take you home and fuck you. Being thin is often considered genetically alluring to our homosapian selves and translated in our modern selves, a factor in their sexual capabilities. I encourage you to ponder this the next time you see another edition of Cosmo in the grocery store or another playing of Jason Derulo's "Wiggle" on the radio. Thank you.

Myths About Psychotherapy

 Myth: All you do in therapy is bitch and moan about your life.
Not true. While a lot of sessions with a psychotherapist consist of the client venting to the therapist, the client and therapist will work together in trying to figure out how the client can successfully manage their mental illness and life stressors. Furthermore, the client will also share good, happy, funny, or lighthearted events with their therapist. The therapist likes this because they like hearing about their clients' lives and they love to hear when the client is doing well. Psychotherapy is kind of like a friendship except the client has to mostly talk about themselves and they can either talk about positive or negative things or both.

Myth: Therapists are completely taciturn; you will not hear a peep out of them at all.
Not true. While psychotherapists have to be very good listeners and keep the discussion of themselves to a bare minimum, they will talk to you and engage in conversation when necessary. Therapists need to do this in order to engage the client and form a dynamic and interesting rapport with the client to make sure that they understand what the client is trying to express to them and keep the session interesting. Additionally, neither of the two therapists that I have worked with have ever asked the stereotypical question of, "And how does that make you feel?" because they tend to get a general idea of where the clients thought patterns are heading. If you have a good therapist, they will probably know how something makes you feel already, especially as your relationship "grows" and gets stronger. Good therapists are good mind readers and are extremely perceptive.

Myth: Therapists are boring people with the personality of cardboard and are cold and aloof.
Not true. While some are like this. a lot of therapists are fun and engaging human beings. My first therapist had an amazing sense of humor and she was super fun to talk to. My second (and current) therapist is good too. Good therapists are relatable people.

Myth: Therapists' offices are dark and uninviting.
Not true. Therapists love to make their offices comfy, bright, and inviting. If the therapist often works with pediatric clients, they will most likely have a room filled will board games, toys, picture books, and other fun things. The couches are usually very comfortable as well.

Myth: Therapists no nothing about psychiatry, psychopharmacology, or mental illness.
Not true. Therapists go through years of advanced degrees, internships, residencies, and extensive and rigorous training. Psychotherapists are technically working in the medical field believe it or not and get a lot of information on the diagnostic process and treatment options of mental illness. However, they cannot prescribe medications to clients. While getting licensure to be a therapist is not as hard as getting the qualifications to be a doctor or a lawyer, it is extensive and rigorous and somewhat medically-oriented.

Myth: Therapists will NEVER tell you about their lives under ANY circumstances WHATSOEVER.
Not true. While it is extremely important to note that a good therapist has excellent boundaries, from time to time, a good therapist WILL reference their own lives to a certain extent to use it as an example as needed. For an example, my first therapist would sometimes her own experiences as a mother to make me understand why my mother was responding to my actions the way that she did. My therapist knew that would be an effective executive decision and it was because it made me walk around in my mother's shoes. My therapist ALSO decided to reference her life in a very vaguely-told account of her first broken heart when she knew I was too embarrassed to talk to my own mother about it and consoled me as much as she professionally could do. This was also an effective decision on her part because it comforted me and checked me into reality when needed when I couldn't confide in anyone else. The truth of the matter is, therapists care about you.

Myth: Because of the statement above, all therapists don't know boundaries and become way too emotionally attached.
Not true. While a choice few of therapists care about their clients so much that it becomes unhealthy with it seeming more like a friendship or some other sort of "outside" and "standard" relationship, most therapists maintain a balance and appropriate boundary setting.

Myth: Therapy isn't fun for anyone.
Not true. While therapy is a drag for many, some people, including myself actually find going to therapy sessions enjoyable and even lots of fun. For some, therapy is a time to catch up with someone you really enjoy being around.

Myth: Going to therapy is a sign of weakness.
Not true. Techniques learned in therapy are beneficial to everyone, whether actual therapy sessions work for them or not. Some people are bored or made worse by psychotherapy sessions even. However, therapeutic techniques should be exercised by everyone when taught.

My Scars, My Story