Queers in Love! [Art of Survival]

"Queers in Love," Craig Bidiman
this story originally appeared in The Art of Survival.

I came out as bisexual in June of 2010, to much celebration among my friends, and many jeers among my family. Since this initial coming out, I have revisited what queerness means to me.

I had always felt an attraction to men, an attraction to women, an attraction to really anyone that intrigued me or made me swoon. But I never really spoke of anything outside of the assumed/the heteronormative – so I internalized my attractions to men/masculine-assumed folks. However, college changed this for me. I became more comfortable showing affection toward really anyone but still didn’t really know what it meant for me.

My exploration of sexual fluidity over the last few years has led me to understand this a little bit more. At first, I thought of coming out as this permanent thing. Once I said I was “bi,” that was it.

But nope!
I realized that coming out is a process.
Coming out can be fluid.
Sexualities are fluid.
Gender is fluid.
All of this shit blew my mind.

Because while I initially felt my attractions were toward two genders, I found that my attractions were much more broad and inclusive. Yet, I didn’t know what to call this feeling. I’ve always been a little effeminate for a dude, and my dad used to say that I “walk like a queer,” which at the time was funny to me and even slightly contributed to why I didn’t feel comfortable coming out. So I reclaimed this term, “queer,” and I started to think about it more.

I realized that I am queer. I am a queer.

And for me, being queer transcends my sexual orientation. Being queer is my personal/overall identity. Queer is how I perform my gender (which I do identify as a man); queer is the lens by which I interpret the world around me; queer is how I exist in the world.

Now, insert Katy Hamm (Ken, Kenny) – my best friend and the greatest human being who has ever lived. I often use that phrase when I introduce people to Katy for the first time.

Here we are going to the bathroom together at the amazing gender-less
bathrooms at Optimism Brewery in Seattle, Washington!

Last year, Katy wrote this amazing piece coming out as being both agender and panromantic – on the asexual spectrum. While Katy’s identities might appear more complicated than mine, it’s been so important to me as their partner to recognize the significance of what this sort of coming out meant for them. It took a lot of unlearning of norms for Katy – I watched them and helped them process years of repressed sexual frustrations and anxieties about intimacy and sex. It was wonderful to hear them explain to me that they felt comfortable identifying on the asexual spectrum—because they were so happy to have finally figured it out! And for me, as someone with an active libido, it also meant reckoning with the reality that I love this human being more than I love sex.

We don’t hold hands too often in public, and we hardly express much affection in public – simply because 1. neither of us are big fans of PDA to begin with and 2. we are so keenly aware of our privilege in society as a couple that at least APPEARS straight. I dress and appear pretty masculine, and while Katy doesn’t necessarily dress femme very often, they still appear femme. So we get how that looks.

We talk about this all the time with each other.
We know that we are a queer couple that appears straight.
We’re just two queers that happened to fall in love.

It does get convoluted because when I refer to Katy, I use the term, “partner,” which throws some people off. It’s a term we prefer to use. We have never used the terms, boyfriend, or girlfriend, partly because Katy doesn’t identify as a “girl,” or even a “woman,” so it wouldn’t make sense. But it also doesn’t feel right to us. Boyfriend and girlfriend have always felt very temporary to me. Partner feels more attached, more comfortable, less childish – I mean, we are adults after all. Might not act like it all the time, but we are adults – and “partner” just feels right to us. We also reject heteronormative relationship troupes like those titles and the roles by which we are "supposed" to occupy within our relationship.

Nope. Not for us!

Yet, it’s disarming for some folks when I call Katy my partner because that term is often associated with couples that are same-sex or appear same-sex. So it especially disarms people when they hear me use it without any knowledge of who my partner is or how they identify because I almost always see their expression changed—seeking out if I might be gay—and I often use Katy’s pronouns (they/them), so I can tell it might confuse them. And then if I refer to Katy by name, the person tends to ease up a little. As if they are piecing it all together.

I know that this stuff isn’t always easy for folks who don’t live with a queer identity or in a queer relationship. But I try to be as normative with how I refer to our relationship and the queer community because that’s a form of resistance. I refuse to accept heteronormativity, so I’ll queer this shit up at any chance I get.

I’ve even had people say things like, “you’re gay? but I thought Katy was your girlfriend.” In this example, queer is inexplicably synonymous with gay.

Nope! That’s not how that works.

At no point do Katy or I feel like we need to justify our queerness to each other. We have helped each other become more and more comfortable with our identities through the three years of our relationship.

Yet, within the queer community, it can feel sort of disengaging to feel forced into proving and acknowledging our queerness just to feel as though we belong.

Honestly, I’m not always comfortable in overtly queer spaces because of our relationship presenting so hetero—and that sucks! It’s an internalized stigma that I haven’t gotten over and am still unsure of how to get over it. Because when alone, I am very comfortable in these spaces. Even within the queer community, there are still a lot of unnecessary stigmas and prejudices that exist toward certain identities—especially toward the bi- population and the Trans- population. There is identity erasure within the queer community – sadly, the same as in many communities – that shouldn’t exist, but it is rampant.

And I think a major contributor to my frustration and apprehension toward our relationship being present in some of these spaces stems from having felt his erasure firsthand from fellow members of the queer community who make assumptions—when the crux of our community’s inclusivity is predicated on not making assumptions of anyone’s identity.

One particular experience stands out like a sore thumb to me and Katy and it’s a circumstance that happened early in our relationship – and has sadly stuck with me ever since.

I brought Katy to a meeting with a colleague (who I was meeting for the first time) who worked in the queer resource center at the campus in which I worked at the time, and I introduced Katy as my best friend and partner (to which this colleague laughed—which I thought the timing was odd), shook our hands, and we began chatting. At one point in the conversation, this colleague, a queer woman, said, “well, we over here in the queer community have specific support and resource needs” - which is obviously very true and I agreed with them completely. However, I transfixed on the emphasis my colleague put on we — “we over here in the queer community.” It hit me real hard because in that moment I didn’t feel comfortable in calling myself a queer — years after I have owned the identity and the label that accompanies it.

Again, we are very aware that our relationship presents very hetero – so I’m not saying this colleague wasn’t in the wrong to assume – but again, these assumptions are hazardous to the queer community. And I was fairly confident that I had informed this colleague that identified as a queer through email correspondence, but they might’ve forgotten. Because as the conversation continued, this colleague continued to refer to a separate “we” in reference to the queer community, as though Katy nor I were included and spoke down to our knowledge of queer issues in society – again, as though we hadn’t lived it.

I recognize that every queer experience is different and our exclusion might not have been intentional – nor did we attempt to correct this colleague because we were made so uncomfortable that making a correction would feel like overcompensation of some sort. Which, in hindsight is a stupid thing to think – we likely could have made some sort of comment about our identities in order to relate and to connect, but we did not.

It made me think back to those times when I wouldn’t confront my queerness out of fear of persecution or confusion, or that no one would believe me because I don’t necessarily look or act stereotypically queer. It’s internalized shit like this that made me contemplate suicide in high school because I couldn’t figure out my sexuality. It fucking sucks.

Almost immediately when we left the conversation, Katy and I turned to each other and said, “was that weird?” “yeah, that was weird!” “are we not queer?”

It sucked to ask that question after I had spent YEARS questioning this shit.
Are we not queer enough?
Am I not queer enough?
Is our relationship not queer?

Fuck, this sucked.
Feeling as though your identity was invalidated sucks.

But it's not just this example. This sort of stuff happens quite often in the queer community.

During college is when I realized I was queer.
And it was when I started being an activist for queer rights and awareness.
I even started an organization while at Oregon State University called
the Campaign for Understanding, which did awareness campaigns,
actions, and spread the message of intersectional inclusivity. 

This is a reminder that even in the queer community, we are capable of micro-aggressions toward each other – and I’m not innocent in this regard, it’s something I know I am still working on. But this is an example where it can feel pretty erasing. It sucks – and you may even think it’s a little overdramatic to feel that way – but after you spend years working on your identities and you are finally comfortable with your body, gender, and sexuality, it can hit hard.

As though, my queer credibility, Katy's queer credibility, and our relationship's credibility was in question. It's a frustration we live with and reconcile every day.

It goes to show that there is still a lot of work to be done. There are still problematic performative expectations of queerness. I’ve legitimately had people say to me, “oh, but you don’t look queer,” or, “you don’t act queer.” I hate that these types of comments exist because it’s the same reason why so many members of the queer community are afraid to come out – because of these unnecessary expectations of what it means to be or act according to a certain identity. These connections are harmful and can make our community unsafe.

There is no right or wrong way to perform or present your gender, and/or demonstrate your sexuality/preferences/or lack thereof.

Even now, as a sexual health educator, I work with college students to understand their bodies, their attractions, and how to be safe sexual beings. I talk with male students who have sex with men but don’t consider themselves gay – and I tell them that’s fine! I talk with nonbinary students who identify as lesbians and ask me if that’s how they “should” identify, and I tell them that I cannot tell them how to self-identify.

How you identify is a process of learning and unlearning, as well as an evolutionary personal understanding of who you are attracted to and who you aren’t attracted to—either romantically or sexually. Or, again, if you have no interest in any of those things! And that’s okay!

This process is not easy – trust me, I know.

Yet, we gotta help people become more and more comfortable processing their identities publicly. Even within today’s political landscape, we need to resist the politics of hate and self-hate that keep us from living authentically.

Happy Pride month!
Let’s be queer together.

Coheed and Cambria’s “Neverender” tour hits Boston

Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria.
All photos by me!

It has been nearly 12 years since Coheed and Cambria released its landmark major-label debut with the brilliant, Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear through the Eyes of Madness.

To celebrate the success and impact of Good Apollo, the band embarked on a national tour to perform the album in its 75-minute entirety every night. And last week, the tour came through Boston and the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion. Despite the overwhelming chill of an outdoor venue in early May, the crowd was electric.

Opening the evening was The Dear Hunter, fronted by musical savant, Casey Crescenzo—a man wrote, performed, and recorded his own symphony, “Amour & Attrition,” back in 2014. But with his full-time project, The Dear Hunter, Crescenzo has spent the last ten years or so telling a story of his own through five albums titled with “Act 1,” “Act 2,” and so on—with the recent being, “Act 5, “With the Devil in Confessional,” which was released last year on Equal Vision Recorss.

The Dear Hunter!

The Dear Hunter has also released two standalone projects, “The Color Spectrum,” which is comprised of nine 4-song EPs that represent the color spectrum, and an LP titled, “Migrant.” Essentially, there is not stopping Crescenzo's creativity or ability to construct rock music that packs so much into the form, constantly reinventing itself.

After a brief intermission, Coheed and Cambria began its set with the recording of the intro track, “Keeping the Blade,” playing to visuals on screens to entice and excite the crowd. And then out walks singer and mastermind, Claudio Sanchez, with an acoustic guitar to play the next track, “Always & Never,” which has such a lullaby feel to it before breaking into the band’s biggest hit to this date, “Welcome Home.”

“Welcome Home” has become a standard within the modern prog rock lexicon. Brandishing a double-neck guitar, first seen in the video for the song, Sanchez and company rocked out on stage as the crowd let loose.

As the album progressed, the band seamlessly went track-by-track, speaking very little, to just give the crowd their money’s worth and a kick-ass rock performance.  Having seen the band a few times, it a hard to find a more tight, solid, and composed set of performers.

The beloved ballad, “Wake Up,” brought out the lighters as the crowd got a chance to breathe and hold their loved ones, as well as investors along to some of the band’s more popular lyrics—”I'd do anything for you, kill anyone for you.” It's sweet in a dark, sinister, gothic kind of way—which is perfect for Coheed fans.

Then the band really kicked into overdrive with another successful single, “The Suffering,” a song that brought many fans to the band thanks to its catchy chorus, amazing riffs, and lively drums—as perfectly performed by the flamboyant and charismatic, Josh Eppard. Eppard carried much of the excitement of the gig through his hilarious facial expressions and intoxicating energy as elaborate and psychotropic images repeatedly flashed behind him as the band played.

Josh Eppard drumming real hard.

The aptly titled finale track, “The Final Cut,” ended the set with what I consider the best closing track to a concept album, ever. It's everything a finale track should be—dramatic, epic, and truly feels like a conclusion.

This wasn't the first time, however, that the band had performed this album on special occasion. Only a few years, Coheed toured select cities, in which the band played four consecutive nights—each night featuring a different album from the band’s discography to the point, with the third night being “Good Apollo.”

These strings of shows were called the “Neverender,” and this year’s “Good Apollo” tour was also given the “Neverender” tag—which elated fans who were eager to hear the entire album performed once again.

For a slight history lesson, fresh off the acclaim the band received from its triumphant sophomore album, “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3,” which was released by Equal Vision Records in 2003, the band came out with a virtually untouchable follow-up that has transfixed its fans for well over a decade. And throughout the career of Coheed, fans have followed along with the seven-album epic concept storyline called “The Amory Wars.”

What makes this album, and this tour, more special is that the mind behind the band, Sanchez, has been crafting a series of graphic novels to coincide the first three albums/sagas of “The Amory Wars.” However, a series for “Good Apollo” wasn't announced or released until this tour was announced, which brought much rejoicing to the legions of fans and collectors of the band's projects.

Another perk of the tour announcement was that for the first time since its release there was to finally be a vinyl pressing of “Good Apollo”—not even just one, but three! Something that made me incredibly happy as a vinyl collector and lover of this album.

Twelve years later, “Good Apollo” is still one of the strongest prog rock albums in the modern era and Coheed and Cambria are truly living legends for having written it and given so much to its fans for supporting it so much over the years.

Healthy Dose 011: Let’s keep the air clean, please.

This piece appears in the UMass Boston publication, the Mass Media.


I get it, smoking looks cool. And I understand that smoking cigarettes can be a very serious addiction for many people who get hooked. But there are real health dangers involved with smoking that have been well-documented over the last six decades or so.

In January 2016, the UMass Boston campus became smoke-free—this move was made to join the hundreds of campuses in the country that have shifted to a smoke-free campus. Campuses have made this shift over the last few years because they are recognizing the immense health risks of cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke.

A student survey conducted in the fall by the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) revealed many interesting perceptions and behaviors regarding the campus tobacco ban. Over 700 students responded to the survey, 95% of whom responding being aware of the smoking ban on campus.

So awareness isn’t the issue.

Yet, amid the myriad of No Smoking signs and smoking ban notices spread across campus, there seems to be some confusion and/or apathy toward the ban. 96% of students surveyed reported either sometimes, frequently, or almost always seeing someone smoking on campus. That’s a problem. However, 83% of those surveyed said they do not personally smoke on campus, while 11% said that they do smoke on campus.

So perhaps there is a lot of apathy about this ban—I understand that. I’m not a fan of people telling me what to do with my body, or judging me for the choices I make, either. However, that apathy needs to end when decisions we make impact the lives of those around us. We are not insular human beings when on this campus—we are a community that should feel safe and comfortable to breathe clean while here.

Especially with the weather (hopefully) turning into Spring soon, more and more folks will be outside, which is all the more reason to discuss this issue. The USG survey also found that numerous students independently reported having asthma attacks as a result to smoking on campus, which contributes to the 12% of students who reported that smoking significantly impacts in their life.

Two interested correlations found in the USG survey were the 11% of students stated they smoke on campus, while coincidentally, 11% also stated they have no desire to quit smoking. Then there is the 5% of those surveyed who said they smoke but not on campus, when coincidentally, 5% of those surveyed would like to quit smoking. The connections here may have some overlap in reporting, but those numbers are truly too important to excuse.

The campus administration is very much aware of high-traffic smoking areas on campus, and this issue is being taken very seriously, for the sake of those of us who do not like breathing in any sort of smoke. Yes, this ban also vaping and e-cigarettes—of which, I’m annoyingly aware are not tobacco, but still include chemicals that people who have made the choice not to smoke would also not like going into their lungs.

I’m very comfortable asking people to stop smoking or vaping on campus, and maybe I’ve asked you to do so—perhaps in a fun, upbeat tone that bothered you, or in a more forceful I’m-not-in-the-mood-for-cigarette-smoke-in-my-face kind of tone. And if you complied in any of these moments, thank you. Trust me, there is plenty of resistance. However, I’m not afraid to ask someone to put out their cigarette on campus, and I encourage other bystanders who wish to breathe clean air to kindly ask your fellow community members to cognizant of the clean air and tobacco ban policy.

With the recent decriminalization of marijuana in Massachusetts, the campus has maintained that use of the substance is still prohibited from campus grounds.

As someone who last a father to lung cancer in 2015, I have very much dealt with the harsh reality of the detrimental impacts that smoking has on the human body. Watching my dad die a very slow and painful death was very difficult and I never want any of you to ever have to experience what he went through in his finals years of life.

We, over at University Health Services, offer cessation therapy for quitting smoking, as well as nicotine gum for those who wish to quit. We want to see all of our community members thrive on our campus, and this means we all need to be able to cleanly breathe the air that surrounds us.

So, let’s keep the air clean, please—for yourself, for your peers, and for our future.

The Healthy Dose 010: Eating Disorder Awareness

Note: parts of this piece appear in this story at The Art of Survival.


With Eating Disorder Awareness week coming up from February 28-March 3, I wanted to share a pretty personal story with my experiences as a person that lives with an eating disorder and body dysmorphia.

A very common phrase I utter is some variation on, "I'm gonna have to run a lot if I eat this." Sometimes it can refer to a large meal with lots of sodium, a dessert, some fast food, or a massive brunch.

I run so that I don't feel guilty about eating. Anything. Almost any time I eat, my brain tells me, "you need to run now. You need to burn off whatever you just dumped into your body. You need to go now. Leave. Run! NOW!"

That sort of internal narrative can be pretty frustrating to live with on a daily basis. This has been my reality for the last eight years or so, when I really started to develop a distorted vision of my body, a condition called Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

Essentially, I don't view my body the others may view my body. I am hypercritical of every perceived curve, roll, stretch mark, even if they aren't really there. My mind often exaggerates these aspects of my body, and it makes me overcompensate by running. Or by under-eating, fasting, or harming myself when I don't feel good about my body.

My history with fasting is long, and certainly connected to how I was medicated as a child. It fucked me up. I was (and still am) a typical case of ADHD. Always running around, lots of energy, mind going a mile-a-minute, and lots of projects to keep me busy. Being medicated gave me a weird relationship with food—I hated it. I was scrawny until college, when I realized that food was great! So I started to eat a lot. And I began to gain weight for the first time in my life.

Slowly, I began to notice that I wasn’t really taking care of myself—I wasn’t eating food that was necessarily “good” for me. It was a lot of meat, fast food (Taco Bell, Carl’s Jr.), sugar (candy, soda), and sunflower seeds (which are just drenched in salt). I tried to balance a lot of my crappy eating habits with running. I ran a lot. I was able to consistently run about 35 miles/week, with an average long run of 10 miles.

I have a love/hate relationship with running.
I don’t actually like running that much.
But the endorphins I get from running have always helped with my depression and anxiety—some of which is caused by my eating habits.

Thus, I’ve also used running to make up for the way I ate.
Which also means I have used guilt to motivate myself to run.
And that sucks.

However, my early complicated relationship with running doesn’t mean I changed the way I ate in college. The complicated relationship led to me hating how stubborn I was being with food. I would do all of this running—great exercise, wonderful for my heart and mind—but ultimately, I wasn’t returning the love to myself. It sucked. I wasn’t losing weight; I wasn’t necessarily “fit.” I was just going through motions of somewhat self-destructive behaviors, and the running became how I masked my insecurities.

One day, I had just come returned from a run, and a very good friend of mine said, “with all the running you do, I figured you would be in much better shape.” One of the worst things I could’ve ever heard. It sent me directly to food. And I ate a lot.

Those words have echoed in my brain.

During college, it got to the point where I would start fasting intermittently—sometimes for a day here and there, sometimes for multiple days, often for a week at a time. Fasting does have some benefits—restarting your system, flushing out crap from your body. But I wasn’t doing it for necessarily the best reasons.

I did it because I genuinely thought I was fat. And it hurt a lot.
It hurt my body, and it hurt my mind.

I know I’ve never been “fat,” but my anxiety about my body kept convincing my brain otherwise. It was an endless cycle of comparing myself to my other male friends, not feeling “fit” enough, not feeling JACKED enough. I’ve never really been a huge person, or one to pack on muscle, but I kept convincing myself that I was a complete mess.

I know much of this critique is due to a severe concern for my health, but it's also very much influenced by the way I interact with other men. Growing up in a hypermasculine society has been pretty detrimental to my mental health—constantly being in locker rooms with muscular dudes checking themselves out in the mirror. Me, wondering why muscles won’t appear on my body, resenting them as they flex and brag about their delts or tris or whatever muscle group they were working on that day. While I repress the urge to yell in their bro faces for being more attractive, stronger, and cooler than me.

Only within the last few years have I figured out what’s been going on with my brain and body—it’s all about insecurity.

I am, and perhaps, always have been pretty insecure about my body. Either I felt I was too skinny (especially when medicated, and during high school), or I was “too fat.” Again, my brain had a wonderful way of tricking me into believing both were the end of the world. I don’t feel there are many times where I’ve held a “comfort” weight. But I know where it is, and finding that level has been a constant struggle for me.

These insecurities have led me to unnecessarily project onto others—friends, colleagues, my partners. When I don’t feel comfortable about my body, I find myself being hypercritical and judgmental of those around me. And I think/say terrible things that I know are only my own projections of issues that I feel about myself. Hell, I say them to myself all the time as well.

Emotional self-harm is still self-harm.

The only true way I’ve found to cope with my body image issues, outside of running, is to get tattooed. I have many tattoos—a full sleeve, and another in progress. But I consciously and unconsciously use these tattoos to give me SOMETHING to appreciate about my body. It sucks that it needs to be tattoos, but there aren't many days when I feel good about my body

And on the days I do feel good about myself, my confidence is untouchable. And when I look in the mirror, I think to myself, “I’m a badass.” The tattoos help me feel that. The tattoos help me feel anything. Even the action of being tattooed is enjoyable to me. The pain, the reality of it all, the experience—it’s all to capture a moment in my life and to add something new to my imperfect canvas.

A year ago today, I weighed the most I have ever weighed—after a year-long job search, months of depression, soda, sugar, and anger led me away from taking care of myself as I should have been.

Today, I eat much better. I pay attention to virtually everything I put into my body. Now that I am a health educator, I have really doubled-down on my wellness. I haven’t eaten meat in over four years, I’ve cut caffeine almost completely from my diet, I avoid unnecessary processed sugars—fruits are always gonna be my jam. I’m even back down to my goal “comfort” weight, and I feel great.

Yet, recently while visiting home, another friend of mine uttered virtually the exact same words that stung me a few years ago—with all the running you do, I figured you would be in much better shape. It sucked because I know I am doing great right now.

So I chose to not care this time and I didn’t dive into food.

I am the healthiest I have ever been, and I still don’t really like running (even though I’m marathon training again), but I do it to keep myself sane. I use running as motivation to keep myself on the right path of mental and emotional wellness, as well as physical. Granted, I still find myself justifying the things I eat with how much I will need to run, but at least I am giving some sort of consideration to how what I put into my body these days.

I’m not sure I will ever conquer this disorder, but I have plans to start seeing a therapist about it and I cannot wait to see how and if it helps me. So here goes nothing!

For UMass Boston students: Finally, with this story, I also want to make a plug for a fantastic talk that my office will host on March 1 in Campus Center 2545 at 1pm. At this talk, we will be bringing in Dr. Ebrahimi from the Cambridge Eating Disorder Center to discuss how to recognize when you or a friend may be struggling with an eating disorder and how to support them. See you there!

Runner's Guilt [Art of Survival]

Content warning: The following story makes references to a survivor's experiences with an eating disorder, and body dysmorphic disorder, which may be triggering for some readers.

"Runner's Guilt," Craig Bidiman
this story originally appeared in The Art of Survival.

A very common phrase I utter is some variation on, "I'm gonna have to run a lot if I eat this." Sometimes it can refer to a large meal with lots of sodium, a dessert, some fast food, or a massive brunch.

I run so that I don't feel guilty about eating. Anything. Almost any time I eat, my brain tells me, "you need to run now. You need to burn off whatever you just dumped into your body. You need to go now. Leave. Run! NOW!"

That sort of internal narrative can be pretty frustrating to live with on a daily basis. This has been my reality for the last eight years or so, when I really started to develop a distorted vision of my body, a condition called Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

Essentially, I don't view my body the others may view my body. I am hypercritical of every perceived curve, roll, stretch mark, even if they aren't really there. My mind often exaggerates these aspects of my body, and it makes me overcompensate by running. Or by under-eating, fasting, or harming myself when I don't feel good about my body.

My history with fasting is long, and certainly connected to how I was medicated as a child. It fucked me up. I was (and still am) a typical case of ADHD. Always running around, lots of energy, mind going a mile-a-minute, and lots of projects to keep me busy. Being medicated gave me a weird relationship with food—I hated it. I was scrawny until college, when I realized that food was great! So I started to eat a lot. And I began to gain weight for the first time in my life.

Me, after a recent 14 mile run.

Slowly, I began to notice that I wasn’t really taking care of myself—I wasn’t eating food that was necessarily “good” for me. It was a lot of meat, fast food (Taco Bell, Carl’s Jr.), sugar (candy, soda), and sunflower seeds (which are just drenched in salt). I tried to balance a lot of my crappy eating habits with running. I ran a lot. I was able to consistently run about 35 miles/week, with an average long run of 10 miles.

I have a love/hate relationship with running.
I don’t actually like running that much.
But the endorphins I get from running have always helped with my depression and anxiety—some of which is caused by my eating habits.

Thus, I’ve also used running to make up for the way I eat/ate. I also use running to "allow" myself to eat certain foods or certain amounts of food. And the constant mental gymnastics I put myself through can be incredibly exhausting.
Which means I also use guilt to motivate myself to run.
And that sucks.

However, my early complicated relationship with running doesn’t mean I changed the way I ate in college. The complicated relationship led to me hating how stubborn I was being with food. I would do all of this running—great exercise, wonderful for my heart and mind—but ultimately, I wasn’t returning the love to myself. It sucked. I wasn’t losing weight; I wasn’t necessarily “fit.” I was just going through motions of somewhat self-destructive behaviors, and the running became how I masked my insecurities.

One day, I had just come returned from a run, and a very good friend of mine said, “with all the running you do, I figured you would be in much better shape.” One of the worst things I could’ve ever heard. It sent me directly to food. And I ate a lot.

Those words have echoed in my brain.

During college, it got to the point where I would start fasting intermittently—sometimes for a day here and there, sometimes for multiple days, often for a week at a time. Fasting does have some benefits—restarting your system, flushing out crap from your body. But I wasn’t doing it for necessarily the best reasons.

I did it because I genuinely thought I was fat. And it hurt a lot.
It hurt my body, and it hurt my mind.

I don't like sharing images of myself without a shirt on,
but this happens from time to time after I run.

I know I’ve never been “fat,” but my anxiety about my body kept convincing my brain otherwise. It was an endless cycle of comparing myself to my other male friends, not feeling “fit” enough, not feeling JACKED enough. I’ve never really been a huge person, or one to pack on muscle, but I kept convincing myself that I was a complete mess.

I know much of this critique is due to a severe concern for my health, but it's also very much influenced by the way I interact with other men. Growing up in a hypermasculine society has been pretty detrimental to my mental health—constantly being in locker rooms with muscular dudes checking themselves out in the mirror. Me, wondering why muscles won’t appear on my body, resenting them as they flex and brag about their delts or tris or whatever muscle group they were working on that day. While I repress the urge to yell in their bro faces for being more attractive, stronger, and cooler than me.

Only within the last few years have I figured out what’s been going on with my brain and body—it’s all about insecurity.

I am, and perhaps, always have been pretty insecure about my body. Either I felt I was too skinny (especially when medicated, and during high school), or I was “too fat.” Again, my brain had a wonderful way of tricking me into believing both were the end of the world. I don’t feel there are many times where I’ve held a “comfort” weight. But I know where it is, and finding that level has been a constant struggle for me.

These insecurities have led me to unnecessarily project onto others—friends, colleagues, my partners. When I don’t feel comfortable about my body, I find myself being hypercritical and judgmental of those around me. And I think/say terrible things that I know are only my own projections of issues that I feel about myself. Hell, I say them to myself all the time as well.

Emotional self-harm is still self-harm.

The only true way I’ve found to cope with my body image issues, outside of running, is to get tattooed. I have many tattoos—a full sleeve, and another in progress. But I consciously and unconsciously use these tattoos to give me SOMETHING to appreciate about my body. It sucks that it needs to be tattoos, but there aren't many days when I feel good about my body

And on the days I do feel good about myself, my confidence is unfuckwithable. And when I look in the mirror, I think to myself, “I’m a badass.” The tattoos help me feel that. The tattoos help me feel anything. Even the action of being tattooed is enjoyable to me. The pain, the reality of it all, the experience—it’s all to capture a moment in my life and to add something new to my imperfect canvas.

I recently ran a half marathon in a snow storm.
Very fun, but very stupid.

A year ago today, I weighed the most I have ever weighed—after a year-long job search, months of depression, soda, sugar, and anger led me away from taking care of myself as I should have been.

Today, I eat much better. I pay attention to virtually everything I put into my body. Now that I am a health educator, I have really doubled-down on my wellness. I haven’t eaten meat in over four years, I’ve cut caffeine almost completely from my diet, I avoid unnecessary processed sugars—fruits are always gonna be my jam. I’m even back down to my goal “comfort” weight, and I feel great.

Yet, recently while visiting home, another friend of mine uttered virtually the exact same words that stung me a few years ago—with all the running you do, I figured you would be in much better shape. It sucked because I know I am doing great right now.

So I chose to not care this time and I didn’t dive into food.

I am the healthiest I have ever been, and I still don’t really like running (even though I’m marathon training again), but I do it to keep myself sane. I use running as motivation to keep myself on the right path of mental and emotional wellness, as well as physical. Granted, I still find myself justifying the things I eat with how much I will need to run, but at least I am giving some sort of consideration to how what I put into my body these days.

I’m not sure I will ever conquer this disorder, but I have plans to start seeing a therapist about it and I cannot wait to see how and if it helps me. So here goes nothing!

- Craig.

NOTE: If you would like to read more stories from The Art of Survival, check out our website by CLICKING HERE!