Body Dysmorphia & Me: Fat Girl turned Skinny turned me

Written by a 23 year old me

Throughout the course of history, women’s bodies have been an ultimate source of ridicule. We’ve tucked and squeezed, starved, binged, and puked in our best efforts to become acceptable. While this information is hardly novel, it is our reality. Men, of course, also struggle meeting the status quo but my writing about their struggles would be like a salamander writing about a day in the life of a penguin. In a search for acceptance, understanding, and in a desperate attempt to extinguish a quickly burning fuse, I want to explore my personal strife with my appearance.

Currently, I am a twenty-three year old woman. I stand at five feet and four inches and weight 160 pounds. By the books, I am petite and overweight. It’s terrifying to admit this, in fact I have been in denial for three years up until yesterday. Ironically, while feeling GOOD about my body and looking to find reassurance of my self-worth, I finally decided to step on the scale. My heart sunk into the trenches of my blubber. The girl that had been feeling great about herself booked it and has yet to be seen. I lost it. I cried. I called my boyfriend, my mother, my best friend seeking consolation. “I don’t really look THAT big, right? I was definitely bigger in high school. Do you think I’m fat? Honestly?” …typical girl jargon. Their kind and ardent attempts were ultimately feeble, as I knew they would be. What I was asking for were lies. I knew the truth, but denial can be such a comforting place to live.

I am sitting here now, at my boyfriend’s Chromebook trying to sit as tall as I possibly can as not to feel my fat rolls stack. I know what you’re thinking. Why don’t I get off my ass and do something? Right-o. Well, guys, I am discouraged. You see, this isn’t my first time at the rodeo. Eight (wow, eight already?!) years ago, I did the impossible and went from weighing in at 165 to a whopping 124 with a size three waist. in just a month. After being dumped and traded in for a newer model, I finally snapped. I was going to get him back. I took to the gym and quite literally worked my ass off.

I was finally the girl I had always dreamed of! I drop kicked my Prozac pounds and slaughtered my cellulite. However, much to my dismay, I found that my ex still didn’t want me back and I only seemed to attract pond scum into my life. Nevertheless, people told me how amazing I looked. My family and friends soaked me in praise and I ate up the validation….only to shit it back out. Their compliments stuck about as well as a snowflake would lay in a warm palm. I still wasn’t good enough. I still sent nudies to random perverts. I still posted pictures to Facebook with captions degrading myself and believing them to be true. I was empty.

I now know that you not only can you not love others until you love yourself but you can’t love yourself until you love yourself. No one else’s views will hold any significance when you believe they are trying to say nice things so you don’t feel badly. No number on a scale can change your ego’s opinion. Since 2008, my freshman fifteen snowball had slowly rolled into the round snowman I now perceive myself to be. I’m miserable and crave my own self-acceptance now more than ever.

So, before things really get out of hand, here I am. I am making a commitment to my inner-self. May I take the necessary steps toward liking who I am right here, right now. I am throwing myself out to the world in my most vulnerable state in hopes that even one person feels a little less alone. As I have endless things to say on the subject, my self-appointed assignment is to chronicle my journey on Medium and to one day look back at this entry and utterly adore the woman that wrote it because she deserves it. We all do.