My body is complicated and so is my relationship with it. Over the past few months, I’ve realized how often I don’t feel like it belongs to me. I think that’s why I go to such lengths to control things about it, like the color of my hair. So much of my body is beyond my control. My skin color, being intersex, my autism and my spinal injury all just happened to me. I can’t control how people judge me for my body, either. Those things effect my day to day life with no regard for what I want. I responded to that by separating what I think of as myself from my body. I treated my internal self as a separate entity from my external one but that’s wrong. I don’t want to feel trapped in my body anymore. I want to feel whole. So I’m gradually learning to accept my body and everything about it. It’s really hard. The limitations I have since I was injured scare me and cause me both physical and emotional pain. Sports used to be what made me feel connected to and in control of my body but now I guess I have to find new ways. I’m just figuring out how to put myself back together. I’ll get it eventually.
