So, while I'm nowhere near Thinville, I'm not overseas anymore at least. As I've lost weight I've started to actually see myself again. When I got fat I kind of dissociated myself from my body, I guess because it wasn't really ME. I became my worst nightmare - a frumpy, fat, invisible, completely unattractive, wife and mother. Jeans and a baggy t-shirt every single day, hair in a pony tail (meh, that's always been me, but it added to the mess), never a stitch of makeup; truly I figured "why bother", you can put lipstick on a pig, well, you know. I always saw really pretty heavier women with flattering outfits, nice hair and makeup, but it wasn't something I felt comfortable with doing at my size. I'd often go through old pictures from around 2005/06, when I was at my thinnest, and feel so angry with that stupid girl in the pictures because I knew she still thought she was fat. Yes, she was much more confident, but she was not happy with her body, and the fat me could not comprehend that!
Today. Oh, today. Today I can understand her again. Some days I actually feel WORSE about my body than I did at my heaviest. How can this be!? It's hard to explain exactly, but it's kind of like -- I knew I looked like crap when I was that fat, I had no misconceptions of being cute, I had given up; and now I have some semblance of a female figure instead of just a body of lumps and bulges, but (honestly I'm sitting here trying to put this into words that make sense and am having a hard time) now I actually LOOK at myself. Instead of avoiding the mirror, I'm constantly looking at myself, pinching my fat, trying to notice differences, trying to see myself again. I actually wear some makeup, wear my hair down sometimes, wear shirts that aren't quite as baggy; I actually try. I think that's where it starts to come in -- I TRY to look good, and still don't, whereas before I didn't try and didn't look good so no harm no foul. The effort doesn't change the results. Oh yes of course I can see a change in my face, and I know my body is smaller because of the measurements I've taken and the fact that my clothing size has gone down a couple sizes; but the more I lose, the harder I am on myself.
All these memories are flooding back to me about never feeling good enough no matter what. This is a problem! This is a very, very, big problem. This needs to be fixed! I can't do this again because this is exactly why I ended up fat again, even fatter in fact. I have to figure this out. I didn't get fat because I liked pizza too much and enjoyed cake a little more than the next person. I didn't become obese because I was simply lazy (ya, I was, but that's not all there is to it).
How the hell am I supposed to figure this out!? How do I not become this girl again? This girl who got to her goal and yet still wasn't happy? I honestly can't even remember what it felt like to look like this...
Ya I totally believe I can look like that again (except a few years older), but I know very well that I will be in the same damn place I was back then, not being happy, not giving myself credit, feeling like it will never be good enough, and inevitably then ending up obese again, unless I figure out why I feel like this. This is definitely a journey of self discovery, the main thing I have up on that girl in the pictures is that now I know that it IS NOT just about getting to a certain number on the scale. Also another thing I have up on her is that I don't take forty thousand pictures of myself everyday to put up on myspace. What an idiot. Although I am certainly glad I have all these fabulous self taken pictures to look back on. Awesome.
Hi Stephanie! OMG, you don't have any idea of how much I relate to your post - and, yes, you made yourself very clear! On most of my days I feel the way you just described. It's the first time in my entire life that I weigh 40 pounds more than usual and, yet, I don't remember feeling happy about my body, never! On my thinnest, when I was 30 (I am now 35), I weighed 135 pounds and I remember being so self conscious about the clothes I would wear and the way I looked on the mirror. I hated taking pictures 'cause they made me feel "fat" compared to my crazy skinny friends!! Today I weigh 187 pounds and I just do not look at myself anymore - as simple as that. I do struggle with my fatness, but it's different... this time I KNOW for a fact that I am so far away from what I consider a desirable appearance, that I just don't waist time checking at the mirror or trying to look attractive (clothing, make up, etc). I still wanna lose weight and get back to my 135 lbs, but I guess I would be less cruel to that 30 yo woman, you know? Knowing how hard it is to be 40 pounds overweight - and how invisible I feel now - I believe I would be more kind and warm with that young woman who had all in her hands and still lived as if she was incomplete.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post. I feel normalized.
All the best to you!
- Monique