Well.
I hate my body because I hate it.
I took this picture of me today:
To me, this body is huge. I absolutely hate my figure right now, because this is the biggest I've been in my entire life. My car accident really fucked my world up. I ate like I was still running 3-5 miles every day, because my body was still hungry like that for a couple weeks afterward, and then I spiraled down into the habit of letting my now husband, then boyfriend, cook deliciously caloric meals for me. Like curry, and beef with broccoli, and taking me out to eat all the fucking time, and really doting on me. Which my crazy frosty bitchy ass secretly LOVED, because it felt like genuine doting rather than pity or obligation, and the weight gain happened so slowly that I didn't even notice. Until one day, I was taking a selfie to send to Derek and I was like, excuse me there, ma'ams, but have you always been here? I was, of course, talking to my extensive collection of chins. They responded they had not, and I was dumbfounded. I didn't realize how big I had become until I was scrutinizing my self to send a naked picture to Derek. Which, I mean....I didn't end up sending. For obvious reasons. My chins talked me out of it, with my new tummy rolls echoing the sentiment. When we got engaged in 2014, I was around 210 pounds, a number I do not like telling anybody because I am very heavily caught up in what society tells me about weight. I hate our engagement photos with a fucking passion, because I'm massive in them. I was a very fit, very slender little runner when I met Derek, and to see my engagement photos come back with this...just...I don't even know how to describe myself...but the end of the story is that I was distraught over how I looked. I was supposed to be happy and in love in these photos, and my makeup had been fucked up, my hair had been fucked up (I paid a girl to do them and she was not what she promised, skill-wise), and I was FAT.
I hired a personal trainer, and busted my fucking ass in the year leading up to my wedding. I had my training twice a week, for an hour and a half each session, and then the other three days a week I hit up the gym on my own, for an hour or two, depending. I got REALLY strict with my diet, I counted calories, I got more sleep, I did everything right. I got down to 192 for my wedding.
That's about where I've been for the last two years, and I am FRUSTRATED. I'm frustrated about several things.
1. I'm frustrated because I do everything right. I'm as close to vegan as I can be without jeopardizing my health (even with multivitamins, I had lines in my nails, fatigue, all around bad health, and after introducing eggs, cheese, and the occasional piece of fish into my diet, my health has improved ENORMOUSLY. But my diet is more vegan than it is pescatarian). I workout every fucking morning, taking a three mile jog with my dog. I come home and do body strengthening workouts for 30 minutes every day. I eat well. No fast food, only the occasional sweet treat. I don't drink soda, I don't drink juice, I have a cup of decaf coffee in the morning with almond milk creamer, no sugar, and then water the rest of the day. I cannot make my body look like anything but those two photos, and I don't fucking know why.
2. For some reason, I am not allowed to hate my body. Nothing makes my husband more upset than me going on a tear about my wide hips and my flat tits and my fat arms and my thick thighs. He gets irate, he yells at me, we get into arguments about this fairly regularly. My friends, too. I know they just want to make me feel better, nut it's maddening when someone tells you to seek therapy as you gripe about your body, like you have a mental illness. I do not have a mental illness, I do not have body dysmorphia. I am a 192-200 pound woman, somewhere around there, that used to be exceptionally fucking fit at 170 and is rightfully upset to find herself in a bigger body than she's used to that is exceptionally slow to change. I hate people saying, "you're a babe!" or "I think you're super sexy" to me like that matters. The fact is, my body feels like a stranger to me, especially now. Because I feel HEALTHY. It's so defeating to see 194 on the scale when I feel like I should have a 180 weight. I feel fantastic. I'm not sluggish, I don't get tired through the day, I'm not winded easily, I feel strong (except for my bad arm) and like my body is at almost optimum performance power. I know I could be a lot stronger, and be doing more, and I already have a plan to do so when I finish my last class of the semester tomorrow, but where I'm at INTERNALLY feels wonderful. And then, when I see how much I weigh, it makes me cry, because it doesn't feel right. My body feels like it's in shape; my body LOOKS like a hot fuckin' mess. And I don't mean hot as in dudes want to cum all over my tits immediately. It sucks to feel like your insides and your outsides are not in harmony. And I am trying to fix it, but if there's progress, it's so slow that I'm more familiar with feeling dejected rather than proud or motivated.
3. My husband has this aggravating habit of following curvy models and curvy model collection pages on instagram. Now, I'm not one to freak out about fantasy when it's not close to being real. Porn doesn't bug me, having massive boners for celebrities, Hollywood, Internet, or otherwise, doesn't bother me. It's all fantasy, it's all healthy, it's totally cool. If it swings into reality, that's when I have a problem, but that's not the issue. My husband likes to show me pictures of these women and talk about how sexy and confident they are, which, you know, good for them! I'm so happy that women are happy and confident.....as a size 8. My husband follows CURVY women, not full figured (or plus sized, which is a fucked up term) women, and the two are not the fucking same. These women are fit, they are toned, they are just a little bit thick in areas like their thighs. They're all young and perky, they're exactly what people say "real" women should look like (I have beef about that bullshit, too, but again, not the point here). And I'm not sure how he thinks comparing me to women who have 24 inch waists with 36 inch hips and 32 inch chests is going to make me feel good about myself, but it doesn't. It makes me feel worse. Which brings me to my next frustration.
4. WHAT THE EVER LIVING FUCK IS UP WITH THE BODY POSITIVE MOVEMENT??? Look, a few things. The body positive movement SHOULD encompass all bodies. No one body is better than another, and it's important that people understand that society is made up of all flavors, and not wanting one kind of person's body type does not mean that body type is inherently bad. So women can be short and overweight, and it is perfectly ok for them to feel sexy, and for others to think they're sexy, just like a woman can be tall and lean, and she has every right to feel sexy in her skin, too. I understand this in my head, but in real life, I get very, very, VERY angry seeing thin, athletic women plastered all over the bopo instagram hashtag, and the love your body hashtag, and the hashtags that are meant to help women (and men, who do not get equal press in this movement, but definitely should) who are not exactly fitting in society's mold of hot and sexy find a following that helps them love themselves more without seeing their bodies as flawed. On top of THAT, I hate seeing predominantly white women all over these hashtags. White, able bodied women. It needs more diversity, because people in wheelchairs, people with dystrophy, people of color, people missing limbs....they don't get press, and they need and deserve representation. And it needs more diversity in looks, because for the great majority of love these hashtags gets, the women are pretty. They are still very attractive women. Like the women on my husband's curvy model pages. And look, most of us are not that white, not that pretty, not that fit, and not that curvy, and not that able. These movements are becoming exactly what they sought to topple down: impossible archetypes that make normal people feel bad. I am fucking sick of that shit, which leads me into my final complaint.
5. Seeing someone who is 200 pounds does not mean that person is unhealthy. I am pretty sure I'm healthier than the bulk of my skinny friends, though if you judged us by our bodies, the assumption is that they're skinnier, which means they're healthier. Nevermind that they eat like assholes and don't workout, and I eat well and exercise at least five times a week. We tend to place a lot of weight, pardon the pun, on how people look. Which is 100% ok, because, barring a lack of vision, we are visual creatures. Our first impressions are visual. And that's part of why I get so fucking hammed up about how I look, because I do not like it. And if I don't like it, that. fucking. MATTERS. But it doesn't mean that I hate myself. that's the important distinction, and I guess it's my primary point here.
I do not hate myself. not in the least. As a general term, I don't hate my body, either. My body is strong as fuck, it's able, I can do so much with it, it takes care of me, and I am grateful for what my body can do, and has done. I've given birth to two children, I've won races, I've built a home, I've volunteered in hurricane clean up efforts, I've done things in my communities. I don't have the balls to hate my body, because I know other people don't have the benefit of using theirs to the full capacity that I do. My body is, as a body, INCREDIBLE. Why is it so fucking difficult to reconcile the idea that I can hate my weight, hate my hips, hate my tits, hate my arms, hate my thighs, BUT be working on changing them in the same space that I'm grateful for them in?
It seems very difficult for people to understand, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because our instinct is to assure people of how little those things stack up against, say, your intelligence, or your wit, or your capacity to care for others. Or that those things we see as flaws are gorgeous and wonderful to other people, and shouldn't that count?
The short answer is? No.
No, how you feel about my hips doesn't count against how I feel. And you loving my body doesn't matter when I hate how it looks.
If you are complaining to someone about your body, and they respond with you're gorgeous, why can't you see it, they see it, maybe you should see a therapist if you can't understand your own beauty, you tell them to go fuck themselves and to stop gaslighting you, because that's what that is. Someone trying to convince you that your feelings are invalid and crazy instead of being there for you if you need time to vent.
Now, to be sure, there are people who genuinely DO have body dysmorphia. Who have eating disorders, or disordered eating. Who do not take care of themselves and enact self harm because of the way they view their body. And if you are concerned that a loved one is heading down that path, I'd suggest viewing this checklist against what you're noticing, and having a frank discussion about your concerns FIRST. If they laugh it off, and say it's just something they're going through that you should just listen to them about, trust them. It's 100% OK to keep a watchful eye on your friends afterwards, though, and even to be concerned that they're about to head down a dark, unhealthy road. But I can tell you there is a difference between a frank and open conversation about the possibility of maybe having an eating disorder and wanting to check in, and saying, "why don't you go see a therapist, you're unhealthy."
It is unrealistic to think that we are going to love ourselves after we've gained a lot of weight, or even if we've always been a heavier weight, because the shit society drums into our heads is dangerously effective. I feel inadequate as a woman for not looking like a fucking stellar model in lingerie. Cute, trendy clothes look like shit on me because I have a short torso and a high waist, and broad shoulders. Designers do not cater to women built like me, and I get this, and I am frustrated by it, and at the same time, it hurts to know that I am not as "real" to clothing designers as my thin, or even non-thin with reasonable proportions counterparts. I need a size XL for my chest, an M for my waist, an XXL for my hips, an L to an XL for my thighs, and an L for my calves. AND on top of that, I wear a size 11 shoe. I have a strange body, and admitting that marketing gets to me and I feel like an ugly, Quasimodo-esque failure when I see what I "should" be wearing sucks, but it's also accurate. My husband likes to say I'm crazy. My friends like to ask me if I've considered therapy. My mom tells me to get everything tailor-made because she thinks I have her kind of money?
My conflicts with my body are rational and valid. I've spent my life as a fit, muscular woman, and adjusting to a heavy body that is stubborn about losing weight, and isn't as youthful, full, and perky as it used to be, is really fucking hard. Really. Fucking. Hard. I have times where I don't want to have sex because I understand how my stomach looks, and the women my husband ogles do not look a thing like me, and do not have my body proportions, or my extra skin around my stomach. The women my husband ogles are either curvy and perfect, or thin and perfect. Always young, always pretty, never anything like me. And while yeah, fantasy is not something I am going to cause an argument over, it's ok for me to admit that seeing what his go to preference is when I'm not around really does make it feel an awful lot like he's settled when I am.
A lot of variables go in to having things about your body that you hate, and while I think the body positivity movement is a great idea (in theory), it also enforces this idea that you have to love yourself, and that's just unrealistic. You don't fucking have to love yourself. I don't HAVE to love my wide hips, I don't HAVE to think it's great that my stomach birthed two babies, a 7 pound baby girl, and a ten pound baby boy, and that the skin of my stomach never bounced back after the birth of my son, and it looks like a wet pile of raincoats when left to its own devices. I can recognize that my body is fucking AWESOME, but I don't like it's packaging, and that doesn't mean I need to see a doctor.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, body negativity isn't as bad as it's cracked up to be, and maybe, just MAYBE, what women like me, and men who think like I do, need is for other people to be a bit more present and a lot less talky when we air our grievances.
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