Well. Being forced into the closet, biggest challenge is dealing with dysphoria while smoothing things over with family. Situation's only temporary- I'm past legal, can move out when I'm able and will be out of my mom's by mid January. Have to present female while at home. Top dysphoria's getting a lot worse to the point where I'm having trouble getting out of the house and acting somewhat like a normal human being- but enough shit's happened in my life but anyway... I just want my body to be the last thing I have to worry about considering everything I'm dealing with right now. I have a binder- works perfectly, no complaints. But it's too conspicuous- can't wear it under most of my shirts without it showing. Good chunk of my wardrobe's feminine but I disgress. :| Can't afford another binder at the moment. So. Question is, is it possible to safely bind with bandages? And if so, how and what advice could you give for it to work out? I know bandages aren't ideal but I just want something inconspicuous to tide me over until I'm out of the house. :\ Just shutting up and coping hasn't been working in my favor.
In short - don't do it. Why can't you wear your binder and if someone asks say it's a sports bra? Or you could wear a sports bra and looser shirts. Or could you wear a sweatshirt or hoodie or something? Please don't use bandages, they are for injuries, not injuring. There's also ways of making homemade binders out of better materials - I'd suggest looking into those. Stay tough, buddy.
Binding with bandages is not a good idea... It will wreck your ribs which will make binding impossible in the long run. I'm sure that's not what you want. I've found that undershirts help a lot with hiding my binder. Also, button down shirts and looser fitting shirts help too.
Don't go for it. I did a method similar and I messed myself up so bad that even binding for not even an hour was painful. I was having trouble breathing and I got dizzy a lot, plus I had to stop binding for quite a few months because the dizziness wasn't going away. As TheCat said, you can wreak your ribs (if I didn't do serious damage, I did minor possible damage with bruising).
There are sososo many reasons not to bind with bandages. For a while when I started getting dysphoric, I bound with ace bandages, which was a TERRIBLE idea for a lot of reasons, some more superficial than others. And since the list of reasons why binding with bandages is medically bad is common knowledge, I'll share some of those somewhat awkward personal reasons I found it to be bad: - it was way more painful, in my experience, than using an actual binder - i couldn't do it for very long without it affecting my breathing - the bandages might get you flat, but it's hard to get the bandages to lie flat - there was a ton of bunching and rolling and underneath my then all-feminine wardrobe, they proved a challenge to even try to hide - they slide a lot, no matter how tight you pull them - i stabbed myself in the nipple with a safety pin trying to secure them - they're way sweatier - if you start getting sore while you're binding, that soreness doesn't seem to go away fast when you unbind if you're using bandages - it's hard to adjust your chest lumps underneath bandages - yes, you can have a chest that is both flat and lopsided - it's a pain in the ass
Okay, so bandages are definitely a big ass no. Didn't think it was that bad. Kind of reminds me when I used to use duct tape and a sports bra. Never did that shit for over an hour at a time but man, I did regret it. My question now is, what'd be some good alternatives to bandages? I have sports bras, have a good binder. But the sports bras don't get me flat, binder isn't always possible to wear (even when presenting male. Have to wash that shit sometime). Any good homemade binding options you can recommend? Thanks.
