Byronic Mess

The day my first binder arrived, my life changed.

I’d ordered it in secret, not quite ready to share this step of my journey with my parents, especially when they were just coming to terms with me being trans. I didn’t want to put too much on them right at the beginning. I’d known I was trans for a few months at this point, so it wasn’t as fresh for me as it was for them. It was a step I was ready to take, and I didn’t want my parents trying to talk me out of it. I knew they’d have concerns about the safety of binding, but I felt like I was losing my mind, and something had to change.

When the binder arrived, I remember rushing it up to my room to try on under my clothes. I had a struggle getting into it, which is something that hasn’t really gotten easier in the years since. It felt almost surreal to stare into my camera and see myself as I wanted to be seen. For the first time in years, my body felt right for me. For years, it had felt like I was a bird trapped in a cage, and I was finally able to spread my wings. All because of a magical piece of cloth that hid my chest.

When I first wore it to college, people had a lot of nice things to say. I got told how happy I looked, and how proud of me people were. It felt like this weight that I’d been carrying around for years was finally lifted, and I was able to walk with my head up at last. Naturally, I became addicted to the feeling of euphoria that came with wearing my binder, and that’s where problems would start to arise.

I would frequently wear my binder for longer than was recommended in the safety guidelines. According to the internet, to bind safely, you should only wear the binder for 8-10 hours, with frequent breaks. I ignored this, choosing to wear my binder for upwards of 12 hours every day, with no breaks in between to give my chest a break. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t want to go back to the feeling of heaviness that I dealt with before buying my binder. Every night, when I took it off, I wanted to crawl out of my skin. My body would stop feeling like my body and go ack to that of an imposter, and I hated it.

That’s why, one day, I decided I wouldn’t take it off. Everything I’d read said not to sleep in your binder under any circumstances, but I’d been ignoring the rules for about a  month now and I’d been fine, so I was sure that this wouldn’t hurt me.

I was wrong.

When I woke up the next morning, I couldn’t breathe. I was in so much pain, and every breath felt like knives were lodging themselves in my ribs. It was agonising. I laid there for god knows how long before I managed to push through the pain to sit up, and that’s when I remembered that I was wearing my binder. It hurt to raise my arms, but I managed to get the binder off, and was greeted with bruising covering both sides of my chest.

The bruising paired with the pain was enough to make me panic, and I convinced my dad to take me to A&E before college. I was worried that I’d done some serious damage, and that trumped hiding the binder from my parents now. Luckily, after hours of waiting, we found out that I had just bruised my ribs, rather than cracking one like I feared. The fear of a cracked rib, plus not being able to wear my binder until the bruising went down, shocked me into paying more attention to the recommendations. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t sleep in my binder again, and I haven’t since that day.