There's a lot of really fun aspects of trauma that I don't realize until they crop up, half stilted and monstrous.

I almost revel in discovering them.

Frankly, I'm a drama queen, and I enjoy concerning my friends into caring about me.

There's nothing worse than being ignored, and I was ignored for so long in my youth that I'd rather be manipulative instead.

But back to trauma.

Lately, I've been wanting to bind my breasts.

I suppose this comes from a conversation with my mom in which she told me not to (I am notorious for ignoring my mom's directives), but I think it's also a self protection thing.

I've never been sexually assaulted, but some part of my body thinks I have been or will be.

I keep searching deep within my memory for some sign of the presumed trauma I'm reeling with now, but nothing shows up.

Anyway, I like my tits, but they need to go.

If I flatten them I'll look even more masculine, and my masculinity is theoretically my power.

In eighth grade, my friends told me I was sleeping with teachers to get good grades, and slowly but surely the visage of my middle school band director began creeping into my head when I got off.

I knew it was wrong and disgusting, just as I knew later on that getting off to rape porn and abuse was equally nasty, but some part of me thought I deserved that.

After all, if my friends thought I didn't have inherent worth outside of my body, how could I?

I got aggressive as a result of this, and learned how to cuss, and told my friends I'd killed a man once in a stilted British accent as if that'd make it more believable.

I suppose that, in a way, this is where my look comes from.

It's a coping mechanism.

I am afraid of weakness and sexual assault and beauty and actually being wanted with all its bad effects, so I'm masculine to cope.