I haven’t blogged in a while. Mainly because I don’t write unless I feel inspired to write. I felt it deep this Saturday morning.
I bought several dresses for the summer. When I was in the dressing room at the store, I thought I looked so cute in them. Then, I got home, and it was time to wear one of them out. The first dress I wore to church on Easter. I was excited and loved everything about it again.
I went to a wedding Friday night and was very excited to rock my hot pink dress! As I got ready, I felt so gross and disgusting. I thought it looked really bad on me. Rewind to two weeks prior where I wore the same dress at a girl’s night at my place and was so happy in the dress.
This experience reminds me that my feelings and thoughts can change on a dime. I was worried about how I would be perceived at the wedding by strangers, and it caused me to be self conscious and blame my body. When I wore the dress with my closest friends, I was very confident and loved it so much!
The funny thing about body image, for me, is that deep down it really isn’t about the size of my body. It’s more about how differently society treats me because my body is larger. I don’t miss the days of my eating disorder when I was in a thinner body. I miss the way I was treated because my body was smaller. In my smaller body, I was hit on more frequently by men, no one questioned my food options and thought I was so “healthy” (little did they know I was very sick). I was praised constantly for how great I looked. No one judged me for eating dessert and no one considered me lazy. In a larger body, I am rarely hit on by men, my food options are questioned, and I’m considered “unhealthy” by doctors and others, I am questioned and judged when I eat dessert, and I have been called lazy.
It’s hard because at my core, I am still the same loving, kind, amazing, caring, and patient person no matter my body size. But because I’m in a larger body, it’s sad, but people may miss out on getting to know me and how I can be a good friend or girlfriend. Their own fat bias and fatphobia scare them away from me. I deeply hate diet culture, as it has brainwashed us on what intuitive eating looks like as well as how bodies are different and that they change over time. If it wasn’t for diet culture, I might not have developed an eating disorder. The thought of needing to change my body along with the false control it gave me to soothe the chaos was the perfect storm to lead me down a 20-year battle with my eating disorder. I’m happy to say that I’ve been in recovery for many years and that doesn’t exempt me from struggling with body image.
Do you relate? Drop a comment below.