TW Body Image, Weight Gain and Loss
My face has subtitles, that reflect the thoughts and feelings I wish I could keep trapped within.
I have a double chin that I desperately try to erase with the help of a gua sha and some girl from the internet whose tutorial is blaring through my phone screen.
I have a fleshy belly that used to be sculpted with long lean lines that are now nowhere to be seen.
The new stretch marks on my hips are deep shades of red, weathered lines that sometimes I can't bear to look at.
There are constant hangnails on my thumbs as I compulsively rip at the existing skin, peeling off layer by layer, down to the bone.
My face has become a battleground as I waged war against the acne scars on my chin.
I have a sensitive soul and surface deep insecurities, the flesh wounds opening from the scrape of an insult or the pinprick of a perceived slight.
My heart is worn on my sleeve, despite its bandages and unsteady beat.
I carry with me a forced smile. A face littered with subtitles.
***
I used to wear the fact I didn't care about my body like a badge of honour. Like a trophy. But I had a child's body that a woman would one day grow out of.
This is a privileged take so I apologise if I stumble on my words, but I think when you quote on quote fit into the beauty standards that are hammered into you from the beginning, it feels like a quiet nod of approval. I liked to think that my body positivity was a conscious rebellion against the narratives we're taught, but in actuality, it was more that I didn’t need to think about it.
Now, the person in the mirror is not the girl I remember. After the year or two of depression-induced under-eating, I started to take care of myself. My body filled out in ways that are natural and expected but somehow still managed to feel like a betrayal.
And oh how quickly that change triggered something in me. Everyone says that I look healthy now. Before I was fading away, fatigued, desperately unhappy and a shell of a person. I don't remember that, instead, some twisted part of my subconscious misses the the girl who was told she needed to eat more.
And the fucked up thing is that, even now, I still fit societal expectations. So who am I to complain? The issue isn't with how I look, it's with the standards that make me feel unworthy for not being perfect. Standards that made me feel unworthy the moment I deviated even slightly from some imagined ideal.
I'm still struggling with the dissonance between knowing I'm more than my body and existing in a new version of myself. The goal, I think, is to make peace with this ongoing tension. To hold space for the discomfort while also gently reminding myself that I deserve more than to constantly worry about my body.
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