First Steps in Learning to See Myself
I mentioned in my introduction that, when I left my last office job, I got rid of all my femme clothes. I’ve never been a clothes horse, but I was surprised how many bags of clothes came out of my closet anyway. My one pair of jeans needed to be replaced too, and my spouse really wanted me to retire a few of my rattier t-shirts since I was going to be wearing them more often.
In effect, over the last year I’ve been building my wardrobe from scratch. It was never an organized effort on my part, however. I’d buy a pair of jeans because I needed a new pair of jeans, and Value Village had a pair half-off in my size. I bought a flannel shirt because I was cold… and because Value Village had one half-off in my size. Are you sensing a theme here?
I really like Value Village, guys.
But I needed to learn to use Value Village responsibly. I started out the year buying clothes like I’ve always bought clothes. I didn’t pay much attention to materials, and I often bought things that technically fit me but didn’t feel good on me. Besides which, just getting rid of my wardrobe didn’t solve the problem of not liking the way I looked, so I still wasn’t trying things on before I bought them. I still ended up cycling through a pile of tees, flannels and pants that I bought with only minimal regard to how I would look and feel wearing them.
For months, I couldn’t figure out what the problem was. I didn’t have to buy anything I didn’t like, and I didn’t have to match any dress code. Why was I still unhappy with the way I looked?
Turns out I’d been ignoring body dysphoria for years. The media likes to feed us a certain kind of story about gender variant people and how we relate to our bodies. Some people definitely experience severe dysphoria, but I think a lot of us experience some dysphoria without knowing how to understand it. In my case, I assumed I must not be feeling real dysphoria and ignored my body, buying clothes with only the a vague understanding of how they related to my body.
You might be shocked to learn that having a closet full of clothes you don’t like or look good in is not going to make you feel good about yourself, even if they’re clothes that you like on the hanger. At least, that’s how I felt when I finally figured it out.
I still wasn’t ready to look at myself in the mirror, but if the same is true for you, there are ways you can find clothes that make you happy.
First, open your closet and pull out the pieces you already own that you love. (Or, let’s be honest, these are probably the things that aren’t in the closet because you wear them out of the dryer.) I want you to study these clothes for two things: how they feel in your hands, and what the tag says about the brand and the size.
I learned two things about myself with this method: I like t-shirt fabrics that are soft and thin, and I like my flannel shirts much larger than I need. These became shopping rules — no matter how much I liked a shirt that didn’t fit these rules, I wouldn’t buy it.
Let’s talk about feel first. The next time I went to Value Village, I put on my favorite t-shirt. When I went to the rack, I stood there in front of my size and actually touched each shirt. Not just moving it to see what it looked like, but actually feeling the fabric, stroking it, and paying attention to the texture. I started buying shirts that I knew I would like wearing.
Next, when I considered the flannel shirts, I paid attention to what I knew about my size choices. I only really like 3X flannel shirts, despite the fact that I “can” wear smaller ones comfortably. More than once, I picked up a smaller shirt because I liked the color and then wore it only once because it didn’t feel right, even though it ostensibly fit me fine.
By paying attention to what I knew I liked and setting myself some rules, I stopped falling prey to things I wanted to enjoy wearing. Even though I wasn’t ready to look in the mirror yet, I was able to stop seeing clothes as the enemy. This, in turn, was the first step in learning to like clothes on me as much as I liked clothes on other people.
Originally published at www.dressingthespectrum.com on September 7, 2015.
