#its because i'm playing lex and back when i was more wholly lex i had an eating disorder

[lucysweatslove]

10.31.2023 // On names and generally feeling like my corporeal form is not me.

So, I'm organizing a group gift for one of our instructors. She's wonderful, so we wanted to give her a thank-you gift that involves giant plushies (a giant heart that has attached blood cells that hide away + an immunoglobulin that has a detachable antibody). Anyway, of course people have to address me somehow. I'm usually quite quiet, but organizing something means more talking + more addressing.

Everybody addresses me the way I've asked. Which is simply a shortened form of my legal name, Lex. The OGs know that Lucy is not connected to my legal name, really, other than having the same first letter. I went by Lexie for years (also not my legal name but a shortened version), but it was constantly misspelled as Lexi. It always looked unfinished to me, and the fact that I had people argue with me about how I spelled my name and then refuse to learn to add the final "e" annoyed me enough that I just shortened it further to Lex. There was also the time I briefly went by my middle name, Reyne (pronounces like rain), because Lex felt too harsh or masculine and not ~wispy~ and ~creative~ enough (look, I was a young teenager).

At the same time all of THAT was happening, my little sister was born. "X" sounds are typically hard for toddlers. When I was an infant and my older sis was a tot, she pronounced my name "lets-see" which is also cute. But, when Little Sis was born, my mom decided to give me a nickname to make it easier. My older sis was Wee (her first name starts with a W), and I was Lu/Lulu/Lucy. Mine came, in part, from being called "Lexie Lou Who" as a little kid. Reality though is that my little sis first called me Weecy, since /w/ is easier than /l/, but I've been Lucy for my family and close/loved ones for over 1.5 decades. My mom introduces me as Lucy. My husband calls me Lucy or Lu (sometimes lulu or lulu lemon).

So basically: Lexie for the first ~12-13 years of my life, then I branched into "Weecy" and "Lucy" with people I am safe with while keeping my "outside" (unsafe/uncertain) name as Lex, with a short stint being called Reyne because I was exploring a more creative, less scientific side of me.

The Lucy/Lex dichotomy has worked out for me decently so far, and in part, this is because it allows me to compartmentalize. I know that the people who call me Lucy are safe. I won't always like them or what they do, but I know they care about me. My parents still don't know I've been diagnosed autistic, and there are bits of me that I don't share in general because I don't know for sure that they will always be respected and valued. But that comes from my parents having a different set of experiences and values. In general, I know they want what is best for me, we just have differences in opinions about what that "best" is sometimes. Still, it's safe enough to have them call me Lucy because I trust that they have good motives. These are also the people I deeply care about. We have a reciprocal relationship. I can trust that they will be there when I need them, and they know I will be there for them too. Contrast that with Lex- the people who call me Lex are acquaintances. People I need to hold off at a distance. People I'm not sure will have my best interest at mind. They may respect my personhood, but they don't care the way people who call me Lucy do. They could be amazing people- and many of them are- but they just haven't yet earned the privilege of calling me Lucy. I also have no expectation that they might earn that privilege. There is no expectation of reciprocity either. I expect nothing from the people that call me Lex. They could ignore my name all together and call me "kid in the pink jacket" (like everybody did when I went to the community college for the last two years of high school). This separation protects me from getting my hopes up, thinking people are friends.

And I'll also say- the people who call me Lucy, I don't invite to call me Lucy. I invite yall online to call me Lucy, but that's because I expect that if you're here and listening, it's because you want to be here and supportive, not because I have something to give you. And I will give to all. But I digress- I don't invite the IRL people to call me Lucy. It develops organically. They pick up on the fact that nobody in my personal life calls me Lex. They ask about it. I tell them honestly. Then, they decide- they can call me Lex if that feels right, or they can call me Lucy and enter into my circle. I don't present it as a choice, I just inform them that I separate it out, and people close to me choose to call me Lucy, and that's how I know who is safe. Sometimes, people don't ask and just start calling me Lucy. I don't think my husband ever asked. It just... fell into place and felt right. And I don't think my best friend's main partner asked- he just always knew me as Lucy because that's what Best Friend calls me all the time. Literally never Lex. But other times, people do ask. Best Friend asked first- which was very thoughtful and probably one reason why we are best friends. It was respectful, understanding that how I feel may not be how she feels.

Anyway, back to now. When I was working full time, I was Lex or Lexie to everybody, but when I was off work, all the people in my life called me Lucy. I had a work Self, Lex, and a non-work self, Lucy. I stopped working for a year, and I was full-time Lucy. I had to use my legal name on applications for school, but studying self was Lucy, wife self was Lucy, pug mom was Lucy (or pug-mom), gym self was Lucy, friend self was Lucy... you get the point.

And now I am back to being Lex like, half the time.

I think part of the issue is that I haven't been "Lex" as me for a long time. It's always me as somebody else. Lex the Student. Lex the Chemistry Teacher. Lex the Scribe. Lex the MHT. Lex the... you get it. All of those are roles I've had- not wholly me. The whole 'me' is Lucy, but this physical body is "Lex" half the time, so I don't feel like my physical body is me.

But it goes deeper than that, because for years, only my family called me Lucy. Lucy was "Lucy, the sister" and "Lucy, the daughter." I didn't see it as who I was. Lucy was the second self, the role. Lex was who I was, and at that time, I was thin. I worked out a ton. I put studying on a pedestal. I was, objectively, not mentally healthy, not living according to my own personal values, still figuring myself out.

And when I recovered and grew into "me," I grew into Lucy, not Lex. Lex became the role, the second self. So of course now that I am playing the role of Lex more and more, now that my body is playing Lex despite Lex being left in 2013, my 2023 body is not Lex of 2013 and I don't feel congruent.

I also didn't realize until now how little I cared about my body/appearance as part of "me" until now. As I grew into me, I didn't really think much about my body. My way of dealing with my body's changes? Distancing. Ignoring. Separating. So even though this body is the one I inhabit as Lucy, I still don't feel like the body is me.

(Note... Interestingly: my therapist calls me Lexie, not Lex. It felt very wrong for her to call me Lucy, but Lex felt too... informal, stuffy, closed off.)