Dreading July: My Body Image and Summer
Trigger Warnings: mentions of weight, body dysmorphia, feelings of self-hate.
A personal post about my relationship with my fluctuating weight, and my struggle to accept my body from a young age.
For as long as I can remember I would dread and anticipate July. It was the month when the rivers around Portland were warm enough to swim in; the weather finally hot enough. Come June, I’d become anxious, trying on my old pairs of shorts and feeling devastated when the fit was tighter. From the age of 11, I’ve always felt shame for my body. When I was 12, my older girl cousin said I looked 16. Instead of being flattered or happy about my changing body, I learned to feel scared and awkward. I thought: My thighs are too fat, I’m not skinny enough, my waist is too big. I figured if I dieted for two weeks, then all my dreams would come true. Growing up, I remember the ideal body type was being skinny - emo and goth looks were the thing, and those ideals always had skinny girls and boys as their poster children. Girls magazines had “heroine chic” skinny models (still do, of course), Photoshop making it worse, and “…the '90s presented the thinnest feminine ideal in history.” *¹
I would compare myself to one of my friends, wishing that I had her tiny frame and skinny thighs. I didn’t realize that she was naturally petite, and in reality we were both healthy weights for our respective body types. Today, being curvy and having a good butt is the ideal body type. Ridiculously, this made me feel better. I thought, “I could never be super skinny, but if I work out harder and eat right, maybe I could be curvy and finally achieve a desired Look™️”
I was always the “chubby” kid growing up; just a bit too big, ate a bit too much. I remember different family members hinting that I should eat less, or wear something different so that I could cover up certain parts of my body. Sometimes, I felt like the big and dumb friend in my friend group, especially when comparing myself to girls who were genetically skinny and with high metabolisms. Even today, I have people close to me who critique my body, and say things like, “Being size 12 is not ok”, when I’m a size 12.
Wearing my new swimsuit for the first time out to the river with my childhood best friend. She said I should borrow her hat and she’d take aesthetic photos of me with the sailboat. I joked that I’d have to be careful posing so my back rolls wouldn’t show up in the photos. I’m glad she offered to take photos though, because I would have been too self conscious to think of it myself. Normally when I go swimming I’m hyper aware of everyone around me; I feel like they’re all watching me and judging my body. But when we were together, I felt more confident than I had in ages. I think it was a number of factors: we both understood what it felt like to feel out of place in swimsuits; we were ready to finally spend time at the river after COVID-19 started; and the swimming area wasn’t crowded.
I have a hard time accepting compliments. I try not to live in the past, but I still struggle with the experience of my childhood: getting my period at age 11; developing early; always feeling critiqued and uncomfortable. When friends compliment me on my appearance, I’m honestly shocked. I don’t mean to fish for compliments, but sometimes I need reassurances. I hyper-focus so much on my qualities that I dislike that I forget about my qualities that love. My mental image of myself can become warped, false, and unhealthy.
I remember when I noticed that my body issues were verging on self-hate. It was while I was swimming during a family camping trip when I was a young teenager. I looked at every girl and woman there - skinny, slender, chubby, curvy, tall, short, etc - and thought that they all looked beautiful. I told myself that every woman and girl there was better looking than me, that they all had something I could never achieve - a unique element of beauty, beautiful hair, a nice smile, a good pose. That’s when I realized that it wouldn’t matter how much weight I lost, I would never be happy with my body until I learned to love it and all that it has done for me.
When I’m feeling really down, I pick one of my features that I love and focus on that. For me that’s my lips or my eyes. But because of the rise of lip filler and filters on Instagram, I realized that my lips aren’t even - my upper lip is slightly smaller on the left side. I thought, “If I had a successful influencer’s income, I’d probably get some work done, too”. I realized that during my darkest times, it’s easy for me to hyper criticize even the favorite parts about my appearance. And sometimes, I can’t find anything to be grateful and to like about myself - I would look in the mirror and feel like I was a waste.
During times like that, I try to remind myself that just me being here today is a miracle. I sometimes look at my hands, how the fingers on my left hand are almost identical to my right, and think about how life itself is a miracle. How is it that my thumbs are almost identical? If you think about it, the very essence of being you is insanely unique and infinite.
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.”
I know now that my motivations for exercise and a healthy diet should not be for society, a boy, or my family, but for me and only me. I think self-love and acceptance is a constant practice - I have to consistently remind myself to appreciate my body, to focus on the good versus the bad. Just like choosing to do good everyday and consciously practice self-awareness, so do I choose everyday to learn to love myself. We’re meant to do more than look beautiful. I once had a thought, “Maybe I’m just ugly” and I’ve never felt so relieved and self-empowered! Yes, I want to be beautiful - maybe that can be vain, but I want it. But I will never satisfy everyone’s idea of beauty, and that’s ok. I will have days where I look tired, or bloated, or have an acne flareup. And that’s fine because I am human, and I am put on this Earth to do more than look pretty everyday of my life.
*Further Reading
¹How women's 'perfect' body types changed throughout history - link to article
