I was adopted when I was born. A decision made by adults with no words exchanged with the soul that arrived. That’s how my story starts — with silence. No womb-to-arms transition, no scent of mother on my skin. Just a handover. Just a beginning shaped by absence. From that moment on, I learned to adapt — to tune in to the frequencies of others in order to survive. And maybe that’s the superpower of the adopted: to become so finely attuned to external signals that your own signal gets lost beneath the noise.

And then there’s being transgender — which is not just a gender issue, but a layered, existential displacement. I didn’t just grow up in a family that couldn’t fully see me — I grew up in a world that didn’t even have the right lens to try. I’ve moved through life like a witness at my own trial, watching people mistake me for someone else, including those who loved me most. I became an expert in showing just enough to be accepted, but never so much that I couldn’t be erased when the room shifted.

But here’s where it gets deeper — because that kind of identity isolation, the kind that forms in the marrow, creates a hunger. Not a literal one at first, but a soul-deep ache for resonance. For mirroring. For someone or something to say: “I see you. Not just the parts of you that make sense to me. But you.” And when that echo doesn’t come, the hunger gets louder. And when you don’t know what to do with it, you reach for what so many of us do — the thing that’s quick and comforting and doesn’t ask questions.

You eat.

Feeding the Ache

This isn’t just a fat thing or a food thing. It’s a human thing. People soothe their wounds with all kinds of things — sugar, booze, validation, sex, social media. We’re all trying to silence something. But food is special. Food is primal. It tells the body, you are not starving. And that’s the most ancient fear of all — not just of death, but of not being nourished. Of not being fed in the places that matter.

But when the real hunger is spiritual or emotional — when the ache comes from abandonment, rejection, invisibility — no amount of pasta, cake, or crisps can touch it. You end up full but still starving. The plate is empty but the ache is louder. And so the cycle continues. And we blame the food. We call ourselves greedy, lazy, weak — when really, we’re just trying to translate an ancient ache through a modern medium.

The Lie of the Quick Fix

We live in a world obsessed with solutions. Got a rash? Cream. Got a feeling? Pill. Got a hunger? Feed it fast, and don’t ask what it wanted to teach you. The diet industry knows this — it sells us skinny, not healing. And so we sign up, again and again, for quick fixes that never address the root. We train ourselves to override hunger with protein shakes and willpower, not once asking why the hunger came in the first place.

Sometimes, hunger is a teacher. A sacred signal. It says: “Something is not being met.” And if you listen long enough, it will show you where the absence lives. But you have to be brave enough not to run. Brave enough to sit with the ache until it speaks.

A New Kind of Nourishment

I’ve spent most of my life trying to be seen, trying to belong, trying to understand myself through the lens of others. But now, with clarity returning through my hormone therapy and the stillness that comes from deeper integration, I’m starting to hear my hunger speak in a new language.

It says: “Feed me truth. Feed me beauty. Feed me with resonance. With words. With stillness. With slow, sacred action.” Not sugar. Not quick fixes. Not praise. Not apologies. Not proof.

The hunger has become a compass. And I follow it now — not to silence it, but to understand it. Because it turns out, it never wanted food. It wanted home.

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TL;DR (Too Long Didn’t Read)

• Adoption and being trans can create a profound, often invisible, hunger for resonance and belonging.
• We often mistake that hunger for the need to eat or soothe — but it’s asking for something deeper.
• Quick fixes don’t heal the root. Listening does. The hunger holds the answer if we are brave enough to hear it.

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Lean into this…

If you’ve ever looked down at an empty plate and wondered why you still felt hollow, know this: you’re not greedy — you’re hungry. Not for food, but for truth. For resonance. For something real to reflect you back to yourself.

Sit with the ache next time. Just for a minute. Don’t rush to fix it. Ask it what it wants you to know. You might just find it wasn’t about food at all.

You’re not broken. You’re just ready to stop distracting yourself from what matters. And that, my friend, is the beginning of coming home.