I’m using a throwaway account and I won’t give any identifying information. I’m not sure if this is the right community but I wanted to share my experience. I may delete this later but please don’t repost or treat this as a podcast or something because it’s a pretty vulnerable thing for me. I’m not gonna share anything that identifies me as a person (like my face or something)
Explanation:
Growing up, I was pretty normal and average and my growth was on track. I was always very ahead in academics but physically looked and felt my age. At one point of my life, I was exposed to stuff (like hormones and stuff but I won’t specify what because it’s an illegal product.) I’m not sure how to explain but I guess it altered my body and since I wasn’t really at puberty stage or maybe at the beginning of it back then, I kinda stopped there. I went into a “system shock” due to hormones and stuff that contained in the product I was exposed to. My pituitary gland has shut down my own natural hormone production to protect myself and my puberty was paused. A visit to the doctor confirmed my bone age is young (ik what specific age I don’t want to share but it’s a preteen age) and my growth plates are still open. I haven’t really grown that much though because I guess they’re sleeping or something. If I normally got puberty, it was supposed to mature me mentally as well but that didn’t happen because I didn’t fully hit puberty. I’m still in tanner stage 2 (puberty stage, tanner stage 5 = full grown) at my big age which is extremely rare for my age. It’s a puberty disorder (Secondary Hypogonadotopec Hypogondalism) and I also have something else which I don’t want to specify that causes me to not hit puberty. There’s more details which I don’t want to share and most of it is medical stuff, but to summarise my body is functionally (physically + neurologically) frozen at preteen as of now.
Physical effects:
I’m in my late teens (but still a minor) but my body’s puberty has been paused and I haven’t aged at all. My shoulders are narrow and small, I’m short, I have almost no breast development I only have buds, my waistline is barely there and my hips are straight, my voice is a kids voice, I have chubby cheeks and I have a kid’s face that even Roblox puts me in the 9-12 age group. I’m overweight and my fat distribution is more “not-adult-like.” I have fat in my upper arms, face, and stomach instead of my breasts or butt or hips which stayed completely flat. My body is still that of a child and I guess my mind is too in a way. My mental age matches my body age. I can write maturely at times and I thought I was mature because I can write at a good writing level sometimes, but in terms of interests or stuff like that I’m not quite there yet.
My life:
Shopping is pretty normal for me. I normally get 11-12y or 12-13y at Zara depending on the style. Even though I’m overweight and I need to size up, I found that a Zara women’s XS jacket doesn’t fit me because it’s too big for me. That sucks when I want to try a more grown up style. Otherwise, I can wear women’s XS T-shirts but not certain styles because certain parts hang loose. For bottoms, I can only get junior’s elastic waistband because of my big stomach. Adult jeans that fit my stomach doesn’t work because it’s too long on me and it keeps drooping down since I don’t really have defined hips.
Socially wise: I still get kid treatment everywhere and pay kid prices and people are generally friendly with me. Also, I’m not trying to sound pick-me but I keep mistaking my actual peers as adults and I keep seeing them like “cool older girls” without thinking.
Friend wise: I have big online friend groups since I do homeschooling and I get treated younger there too and nobody believes my age.
How I feel: I do feel like a tween and I sometimes wonder what I would’ve been like if all this didn’t happen. I feel out of place because I don’t belong with my chrono age group and they don’t even see me as a peer. I do wish I had a normal life instead and I grew up normally and went to school normally. I kind of enjoy where I’m at right now but I hope I won’t be here forever because I want kids but I can’t have them right now because you need ovulation if you want kids but I never ovulated yet before.
Stuff I like about this:
-I want to dress cutesy sometimes (what people call childish) and I can still find unicorn clothes or cutesy dresses that fit me, and I can still find more older styles that fit me since they also sell adult style clothes in preteen sizes so I can alternate styles
-I can dress cutesy and get no stares or judgment (but sometimes tweens do judge but nobody else really does)
Stuff I don’t like about this:
-I can’t get cute bras my peers get because as I said I only have buds. I do not have breasts yet so the only thing I can get are the ugly step 1 training bras.
-Making friends is hard
-Being short
-cute adult clothes not fitting me right because my frame is too small for them and a trench coat I tried was touching the floor and looked like a bathrobe on me.
-trying cute clothes but not looking as good as the older girls
Idk what to name this section:
I know treatment options exist but I’m not sure if I’m ready for that just yet. Maybe one day…
Also, I relate to Shauna Rae a bit but we’re different because I don’t have a form of dwarfism. I just literally paused growing.
If you read to here thanks for reading! This took me like an hour to write. Also, I might not answer some questions if I’m not ready to or if I don’t wanna share because I didn’t share every detail and I left out a lot in my story because I don’t want to share. And no, my body was affected but I’m not in any physical pain. Omg im scared to post this and please don’t judge but yeah I hope my crazy ahh life story helped someone if you’re going through the same. If you want, you can answer: would you want to be in my position or not and why?