Why is literally everything over sexualized except for realistic body types? All women have cellulite. All women have rolls when they sit down or lean one hip to the side. All girls jiggle somewhere when they walk--and I'm not talking about their ******* ****.
I'm talking about feeling your legs and belly jiggle, wishing you didn't care, feeling less and less **** every day. Feeling like a stranger in your own skin like you put on the wrong meat suit one morning and misplaced your old one.
I'm talking about skinny taking over everything, and my own skinny being considered plus-sized. I'm talking about looking in the mirror, utterly disgusted by your own body because the world tells you that you need to change.
I'm talking about feeling guilty after eating anything; not eating, binging, and dressing in layers to hide how you really feel about how you really look. I'm talking about how hard it is to love yourself, when the world tells you the only women deserving of love are sizes 2 and under...and if they are bigger, they can only have curvy hips and a tiny waist, both of which you have to be born with to achieve. Having a wide rib cage and a wider everything else is something I was born into....and I can't change it enough:
My legs rub each other raw when I walk, and I'm too tall for heels. I have bruised hips from hitting doorways and edges because I misjudge how wide I really am.
I'm in denial.
I grab the fat on my back wishing my boyfriend would stop. I stand in front of the mirror, fighting back tears, fighting back the urge to wish for the flu. After all, the skinny girls are always bragging about how much weight they lost while home sick with one thing or another. Unfortunately, losing weight is harder for those with weight to lose.
As I put my arms to my sides and watch how far the fat expands to make my arms look like three times their size than when I was yanking at my hair in panic.
I watch how my belly looks when I slouch, when I stand up straight, and when I lean too far back in an effort to obtain a flat stomach.
Round, curvy, rounder.
It's intoxicating, sickening, but I just can't stop. I stare and I stare some more and I hate every inch. I wake up, and do this routine every morning, and every second of my day thereafter.
I'm talking about waking up every morning and making a point to avoid mirrors throughout the day, tripping over things to avoid looking down at yourself, and the constant feeling of inadequacy knowing that you'll never be someone that can walk outside with confidence knowing how easy life is as opportunities and love fall right into your lap...because you're conventionally attractive, of course.
You're too big to cuddle on a couch, or share a chair, or casually sit on your lover's lap. You'll never be lifted off the ground with ease in a romantic gesture. You'll never be able to joke about how much you eat like the skinny girls can because, unfortunately, your love of comfort in food form shows all too well.
You'll probably never have love as solid as an attractive woman would have, either. No one will ever be jealous over you because, well, who's going to steal you away but the desserts you sneak when you're alone and aching?
Alone and aching are emotions all too familiar to the less than conventional.
#bodyimage #fatshaming #selfimage
