Progress is a long long journey. I feel that I've been making progress in terms of both my mental health (depression, anxiety) and my personal acceptance of my body ever since I came back from Ghana. Mental health has had two big hurdles/setbacks in the last year, but I've honesty never felt better about my body than I do these days. However, this week has been incedibly hard. My sister has been struggling for the last two weeks, she took it out on my father, and he took it out on me.
So I'm taking it out on the blog.
Have you ever written a hate-note to yourself? For years I used to just write "fat ugly stupid" and leave it in my underwear drawer or the corner of my desk so that my parents or roommate could never find it. I haven't written one in ages, but I did a few days ago... its almost funny, almost, that this time I wrote "too fat."
I know this is all part of being human. But it hurts so much. And waking up in the morning to find my note the next day just threw me back down again. I have to remember that we are all human, and I am not alone in this. And that if you have ever been here, you are not alone either. It takes time to make progress. And we're here together to make that journey.
So I'm taking it out on the blog.
Have you ever written a hate-note to yourself? For years I used to just write "fat ugly stupid" and leave it in my underwear drawer or the corner of my desk so that my parents or roommate could never find it. I haven't written one in ages, but I did a few days ago... its almost funny, almost, that this time I wrote "too fat."
I know this is all part of being human. But it hurts so much. And waking up in the morning to find my note the next day just threw me back down again. I have to remember that we are all human, and I am not alone in this. And that if you have ever been here, you are not alone either. It takes time to make progress. And we're here together to make that journey.
I'm a 43 year old fat woman and have been learning about size acceptance for the past 10 years, and part of various size acceptance communities for about 7 years. I was a plump teen and off-and-on fat young adult (sometimes fat, sometimes not so fat, due to various diets I tried). Since my late 20s, I've pretty much been a fat woman and through my personal experiences and involvement with size acceptance, this is what I've learned about body and self acceptance: it's a journey with no end. Which might sound ominous and horrible, but it really isn't.
ReplyDeleteWhat I mean is, there's never been a time in my life as I've worked on body and self acceptance that I've been able to say to myself and the rest of the world, "That's it! I'll never have another body issue again! I've completely accepted myself and my body as they are! I've accomplished my goal!" I don't know any person working on self and body acceptance who could say the same.
There are days, weeks, sometimes months, where I'm perfectly fine with myself and my body. And those are good times. But all that can easily fall prey to negative self-talk and bad thoughts in my head simply by glancing at one airbrushed Cosmo magazine cover while standing in line at the grocery store, getting rejected by yet another guy on a dating website, overhearing my co-workers doing their food police/I'm not eating carbs this week because my ass is too big conversation at lunch. It doesn't take much.
And then I regress, I fall back, the negatives take over and I go through a dark place where my body and myself are not such great things. But that's where all the reading words of inspiration and support, where all the things I've learned from the size acceptance community can help. During those dark times, I remind myself to be gentle with me, to not beat myself up so hard, that acceptance is a journey and I'm walking a particularly treacherous part of the path at the moment.
And eventually I come out of it, stronger, better, more accepting. But it's how I am with myself, the things I inwardly say and think about my body and myself during those dark times that is the mark of true acceptance. If I can weather the dark times without being too hard on myself, by reminding myself of what I know about my body and about how fat bodies are just as worthy as any other bodies, and then continue on my journey, still working towards acceptance, THAT's a mark of how far I've come. And most of the time, I find I'm growing gentler and more tolerant with myself each time I fall. I'll never reach the end, but I can get better with myself as I journey.
I used to write "Fat Ugly Stupid Useless" and eventually shortened it to FUSU. I repeat it in my head a lot. A reverse mantra of sorts. FUSU FUSU FUSU
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