I started participating in Temerity Jane’s ‘Stockholming Myself’ project the other day. I can’t really explain in a way that doesn’t sound tacky why I wanted to participate, but basically it was because I, just like every single other woman I know, have things I do not like about myself. Many of these things are things that I can not change – so, through looking at myself everyday, I might eventually go ‘you know what? Those things do not matter’. I hope. Or I might get so hung up on them that all I see is a giant nose and arse when I look at myself, sprouting thighs from hell 
.
Awlbiste left a comment on today’s picture that really resonated with me.
I think it’s good for people to see that no matter one’s body type, people can still not be totally happy. A lot of times I hear some women say to each other “oh you’re thin, you should be happy!” And that’s totally not fair. I like that TJ’s project has attracted different body shapes.
As someone who was ‘unhealthily thin’ as a teenager, and slender throughout most of my time after that, it really means a lot to me that people recognise that it’s not just curvier people who think about their body. Most every woman does. Hell, I am sure that supermodels still find things about themselves that they do not especially like. Sure, the rest of the world may roll their eyes, and say ‘If I looked like that, I wouldn’t complain’… but, you know, you probably would. Because everyone has the right to be happy OR unhappy about themselves. Ideally, we’d all love what we look like. But there isn’t a magic state of perfection where you don’t find anything wrong with yourself anymore.
As women, we find ourselves more often than not putting down other women we feel jealous of. I’ll admit it – I couldn’t even count the amount of times I have made a disparaging remark about someone that I perceived as more attractive than myself. Why? Not because I honestly thought that, but because I felt envious that I couldn’t look like that, and that they had something that I did not.
Growing up, I loved food. Especially junk food. Nothing would get me into a room faster than something loaded with sugar. Fortunately (perhaps) for me, I did not ever put weight on. I ate four to five times what a regular person would eat and never gained an ounce. People regularly expressed their envy of this. ‘Oh I hate you. I wish that I could eat what ever I wanted and not get fat’. Which always put me in the awkward position of:
- Feeling obligated to reassure them that they weren’t fat. As a teenager who wasn’t very comfortable within herself, I found it hard to try and reassure adults about their own issues. Frankly, it was terrifying: I spent my whole teenage existence hoping that, when I finally ‘grew up’, I wouldn’t feel so worried about how I looked anymore. Then all these adults would judge the way I looked, and I knew that just wasn’t going to happen.
- Expressing something negative about my weight/size (which was easy enough when I had a range of negative comments that people had said to choose from). This would either work really well, or backfire miserably. Flip a coin between ‘You know, you are totally right, you ARE too thin’, where the person would walk off happily… or ‘How can you say anything bad about your size when I hate MY figure so much?’, which would leave me feeling guilty for ever thinking anything bad about myself.
Of course, envy is not always expressed outright. Just as I make disparaging remarks about how people look, other people did the same to me.
“It’s OK, it’ll all catch up with her when she gets older, and she’ll be just like the rest of us”
“Do you just eat in front of people for show?”
“I’m happier being curvy – no man is attracted to a stick” *pointed glare*
Not to mention the studying of my hands for scratches (a sign of bulimia), the looks if I went to the toilet AFTER I ate rather than before, the occasional offer from random strangers to buy me a hamburger…
It frustrated me that people didn’t understand that I hated being so skinny. That the first thing anyone remarked on when they met me was how thin I was. And I couldn’t work out how adults could be so hateful to someone that was essentially a child. So, I wore baggy clothes all the time. To this day, I still feel more comfortable in winter clothes and big jackets and knits, because they hide everything. I didn’t go shopping with friends, because it was embarrassing never being able to find clothes small enough. When I was a teenager, stores in Australia didn’t cater to the small market the way they do now. Most didn’t go lower than an 8 (a US 4), and often sizes 6’s would still be loose when I could find them. I lived in baggy jeans and cargo pants, and loose shirts and knitted jumpers. Anything to hide myself in. Of course, I was simultaneously terrified of gaining weight, since these women somehow made me think that once I put on a kilo or two, I’d balloon up into a monster of unknown proportions.
Thankfully, when I finished high school, I developed a slight fitness obsession. Eating couldn’t help me look healthy, but an hour (minimum) of resistance training a day sure could. Even then, people would interrogate me “Why would you want to go to the gym? You aren’t fat, you shouldn’t be here”. Apparently the only girls who belong in gyms are large or fitness trainers. I finally worked my way up into a size that could be purchased in any store. I was almost happy with how I looked (sure, not perfectly happy – everyone has flaws, and we are very good at finding physical flaws within ourselves). The greatest thing about this was that I learned to be confident when people remarked on my weight. When they said that I’d get fat one day eating so much, I’d just smile and say I was willing to take the chance. When they commented that it was unfair for me to so ‘effortlessly’ be thin, I’d remind them that I worked out for 15 hours plus a week, so if I didn’t look healthy, there would be something wrong. Anything else, I’d just accept it as a compliment and move on. I look back at that time, and wish that I could be so confident today.
So, that is why I am participating. Because I want to be happy with how I look. I don’t want to justify, explain, or apologise for my appearance. I want to be able to accept my flaws and be happy with them, or at least comfortable that they give me character. I don’t want to fall in to the trap that those women did when I was growing up. I want to encourage young people to be happy with their size, not put them down for it.
We need to wake up to ourselves and be positive role models, be happy with ourselves, or at least happy to be brave enough to try and change what we can, and live with what we can’t.
