A YEAR AGO, I WAS LIVING IN A HOME FOR BOYS SUFFERING FROM BODY DYSMORPHIA
A year ago, I was living in a home for boys suffering from body dysmorphia.
We could barely make it outside. We cut our nails outside. It became impossible to keep from stealing. Our hands were clumsy and awkward. Terrible words ran through our heads. Our voices left us, changed, even when we didn’t have colds, even if we had nothing to say.
We never had anything to say.
We gossiped. We heard things so well it bothered us. We played with our hair. We masturbated. We masturbated each other. We vegetated. We had stomach pains from anxiety disorders. We played sick to get out of things. We played plenty of basketball, table tennis, and video games.
We talked about girls, sometimes women. We criticized them. We cracked our jokes wide open, like supermarket eggs, all over the panicky heads and bodies of our victims. We were trying to be men: playing around, edging up against the law, getting under your skin, and staying there.