body image

“In all the years I've been a therapist, I've yet to meet one girl who likes her body.”
― Mary Pipher

i am a woman who hates her body. i have spent years talking about body image, teaching young girls to love themselves, and yet, here i am, admitting to the world, that i hate hate hate my body. 

“You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.” 
― Amy Bloom

intellectually i get that i am more than my body. intellectually i can understand that it is my mind, my personality, my love, that makes me who i am. but emotionally, i am my body. this body that doesn't move the way i want it to. 

“You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won't discover this until you are willing to stop banging your head against the wall of shaming and caging and fearing yourself.” 
― Geneen Roth

i am constantly trying to reinvent myself. and banging my head against the wall of shame. i am constantly judging myself and my body. holding up the image of myself against the thin bodies around me. 

“To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.” 
― Simone de Beauvoir

my lack of confidence in my body and in myself is overwhelming at times. i want to hide away inside my house and never be seen. being seen is my worst fear. and i have to be seen every day, which really sucks to be honest. 

“A cultural fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience.” 
― Naomi Wolf

this post is about my journey from self-hatred. 

i wish i knew where the journey was going to ...

“Even the models we see in magazines wish they could look like their own images.” 
― Cheri K. Erdman

our ideal image of beauty is false. i get that. i don't want to look like pages from a magazine. but i do want to look like the thin women i see walking down the street. and i know that they want to look like someone else as well. we all have parts of us that we wish we could change.

“Every woman knows that, regardless of all her other achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful.” 
― Germaine Greer,

i have always wished to be beautiful AND smart. and if i had to choose, i think i would choose beautiful. which is sad. but it's the truth. 

“Weight (too much or too little) is a by-product. Weight is what happens when you use food to flatten your life. Even with aching joints, it's not about food. Even with arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure. It's about your desire to flatten your life. It's about the fact that you've given up without saying so. It's about your belief that it's not possible to live any other way -- and you're using food to act that out without ever having to admit it.” 
― Geneen Roth

i spent years flattening my life - using food to numb my feelings. over the last year i have been learning to feel my feelings and i am happy to say that i no longer turn to food. i eat when i am hungry. i eat meals. i eat snacks. and i don't binge. 

unfortunately, it's taking my body a long time to catch up with my actions. i feel like i am stuck in this body that no longer represents my behaviours.

“Every weight loss program, no matter how positively it’s packaged, whispers to you that you’re not right. You’re not good enough. You’re unacceptable and you need to be fixed.” 
― Kim Brittingham

i have dieted for years. lost weight, and then gained it back. because dieting didn't address my problem. dieting told me that i wasn't good enough - told me that i needed to be a better version of myself and that if i deprived myself i would get thin. and i was never thin enough. but i was deprived. and then i would "cheat" on my diet and feel like crap. and i would figure, well i screwed that up, i might as well keep eating. 

and eating. and eating. and numbing myself to all my emotions. 

“Eating – overeating – saved me. It comforted me when I was at the mercy of grown-ups who didn't know how to give what I needed. Food was something to which I had ready access, and with it I cleverly fashioned a survival mechanism that pulled me back from the edge of insanity. – a young MacGuyver of angst and junk food.” 
― Kim Brittingham

i learned from a young age that food would soothe me in the ways that the adults around me couldn't. and now i have unlearned to use food to soothe. 

but there is so much more to unlearn.

this is my journey, and welcome to it ...

“I have a body, 
but I am not my body.
I have a face, 
but I am not my face.” 
― Iyanla Vanzant

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

dis-em-bodied

disembodied. 

dis em body

dis them body

dis my body

this body is not me. this body is not my body. i don't recognize this body that i am in. mounds of flesh that aren't mine. layers of protection from the outside world. protection that got too thick. protection that got carried away. 

this body is not my body. 

this body is not me.

i talk to this body,

beg it to change. beg it to cooperate. beg it to be different. 

i hide this body. i hide it under layers of clothing. baggy tops that hide my flesh. sweaters when it's hot, hiding this body that is not mine. this body that is not me. 

i hate this body that i carry around. it's an imposition. i am an impostor, walking around in a body that is not mine. 

i am thoughts and feelings and energy and words. i am writing and reading and guitar playing and piano notes and songs. i am teaching and learning. i am talking. i am thinking. i am not this body. this body is not me. this body is not mine. 

people see this body. this body is presented as me. i am read as this body. this body that is not me. this body that is not mine. these mounds of flesh that hide who i am. 

when a stranger on the street calls me fat, i can't say, "oh yeah, well DP says i'm beautiful." or "oh yeah, well nosy nora says i have an energy about me and you're stupid that you can't see it." all i can do is take in the abuse. and then abuse myself. call myself names. call myself fat, and ugly, and lazy, and stupid, and useless, and worthless, and undeserving. 

all because of this extra weight that is carried on this body that is not me, this body that is not mine. 

this body doesn't move how i tell it to. the body in my mind can dance and walk for hours. the body in mind can do yoga like i used to. the body in my mind can do all sorts of things that this body can't do. this body gets tired. this body gets sore. this body doesn't have the flexibility. this body refuses to cooperate. 

i HATE this body. i HATE being stuck in a body that isn't mine, that isn't me. i HATE this body and i want it to go away. i want to peel off the layers. until i find myself. until i find the body underneath that is me. the body that is mine. 

i feel trapped inside a body that isn't me.

disconnected. disembodied. 

this is my body. but it is not my body. my body is not me. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...