I've had body issues ever since I could remember. I was always one of the bigger kids when I was growing up, and I was okay with it for a while. I had a lot of friends, and no one ever really commented on my weight. I'm sure I got mean comments sometimes, but I can only remember the nice things that were said. I'm a person who always clings onto the mean comments in life, so I think I would have remembered that. My friends were skinny and beautiful, but they never made me feel like the odd one out.

When I got to middle school, my body image issues started. My supportive friends were all off at different schools, and people were starting to care about how they looked. All of a sudden, being big wasn't okay, and people were sure to let you know how they felt about it. I was made fun of, I was called fat, and other terrible things. I was called boyish because I wasn't skinny with slight curves (jokes on you bullies; I'm a full-on dude now), and I was never the one people wanted romantically. I was there for the comic relief, nothing more and nothing less.

Then I got to high school. Things got a little better, people stopped outright bullying me, but the damage had been done. I hated myself, and I hated my body. I looked in the mirror, and I saw this fat blob who took up too much space. I started treating myself like the disgusting thing I saw in the mirror. I cut myself all over because there was just so much skin that I hated, I had to cover it even if it was with blood and wounds.

I started starving myself during my junior year because calories meant pounds and pounds I couldn't afford. I ate celery for breakfast and air for dinner. I told my mom I ate at school and told my friends at school that I had a big dinner waiting for me at home. I still can't look at food the same way. I lost thirty pounds. That was a high point at the time, but the lowest I've ever gone in my entire life. My junior year was also when I found out being transgender was a thing, and that made a lot of sense, but it wasn't a comfort. I was told why I hated myself so much, and it was cool to have an answer, but it didn't change the fact that I hated myself.

I graduated, and I went to college. I still hated myself. I hated looking in the mirror because my fat face was staring right back at me. Judging me. I came out of the closet. I started going by Russell every day, as opposed to just by my closest friends in private, and I wore a binder so my chest would look flat, but it wasn't enough. It didn't change the fact that the person I saw in the mirror was not the idealized version of myself that had set up camp in my mind all those years ago. It wasn't until a couple months ago that I realized how I was setting myself up to fail.

I would buy shirts and clothes in the sizes I felt I should be. Not the sizes that I really was. That meant that they never fit me, and I ended up hating myself even more because I didn't fit. In marching band, if my uniform was too tight, I would just deal with it. I didn't want to admit that I was too big for it, so as a result, I couldn't breathe, and I would lose circulation in certain parts of my body because I refused to admit that I wasn't skinny enough.

About a month ago, I made a change.

I started buying clothes a size up, in my real size. I asked for a new uniform when it didn't fit. I stopped blaming my body for things that were out of its control. As a result, I'm slowly learning to accept what I look like. I still hate looking at myself in the mirror or in pictures, but it's getting easier. I won't look like this forever, but for right now, I have to deal with the cards I've been dealt in order to survive. It's taken me 20+ years to learn that that is not weakness, and I'll spend 20+ more making up for the time I lost when I blamed myself.