The Rant Book

la anatomy

HELLO HELLO HELLO!

i updated this really quickly but i just needed to get this out of my system (hey whaddya know the reason i have a rant book go figure) SO today i just really wanted to rant about some body stuff- mainly body image.

so obviously body image contributes a bit to self image as it is the stuff on the outside that can effect what's going on inside.  

now personally i have had a massive struggle with my body image.  i'm curvier, and it took me years to get comfortable in my own skin.  most of my female classmates were confident in their bodies and there was no time worse than in gr. 7 where i truly felt so bad about myself that i thought i was ugly.  it was hard to consider myself even decent at the time because i was surrounded by skinny, straight-haired, perfect makeup done girls and gr. 7 was a hard enough time in itself.

i've had problems for years also battling something called trichotillomania, a hair pulling disorder.  i picked out my eyebrows and eyelashes and it was often fuelled by stress.  obviously, whenever i got stressed or frustrated or sad about my image, i ended up hurting myself even more by continuing to pick.  it was a never-ending cycle of hatred.

truth is we've also been given such high expectations.  we have to be a size zero, we have to have a butt, we have to have boobs, we have to have clear skin, we have to have long hair, we have to have good teeth. we have to, we have to, WE HAVE TO.  that's all it's ever about.  and we're forced to compete with models who end up wearing piles of makeup, and get even more edited by photoshop to achieve "perfection"

but lemme tell you something

perfection?

that thing doesn't exist.

it's bullshit.

cause that model in the magazine doesn't even look like that in real life.  no one's gonna look like the model in the magazine.  hell, i was once told that if Barbie was made into real life, she would have to crawl on her hands and knees because her body proportions were so out of whack.  yeah.  that Barbie doll figure can't really happen.

and truth is, I have had to battle for years to try and find a way to love my body.  let me tell you this: nothing was more tramautizing for me then discovering that i wasn't skinny.  it was in the seventh grade.  i went shopping for jeans, since i needed a new pair and i remember i went into garage cause i had began to fit into their clothes.  so i walk over to the jeans and i see some that i like.  because i was still in the seventh grade, i figured some of the stuff could be a little big, so i get a size zero, size one (just in case) and a size five because it was the only other size besides those.

so i go into the changeroom, and i'm actually pretty excited.  nothing would've been better than being able to slip into a pair of size zeros.  i felt like it would mean something.  i could tell all my friends i could fit into a size zero.  the perfect size.

so i try on the size zero but i run into a problem: i can't even get it past my knees. i figure it's just that i haven't pulled them up, but despite the tugging, it didn't budge.  i figure, ok, maybe if a size zero doesn't work....maybe the size one will!  but even when i looked at the size one jeans, i could feel a pit of dread form in my gut, knowing that it barely looked anymore promising. 

so i get into the size one.  unlike the size zero i can get it past my knees, and with a lot of struggling i'm able to get it up fully, but of course i run into ANOTHER problem: i can't zip it up.  despite the fact i sucked in as much as i could, as hard as i could, and i forced the zipper as hard as possible- those jeans were not zipping up and it was final.

at the time it was so DEVASTATING.  i mean, i had grown up thinking i was pretty normal, thin at least.  i thought i wasn't that different from the other girls but it wasn't until that very day that i realized i was not like the other girls in my class.  although a couple of my friends are curvy like me, it was a majority of stick thin girls that dominated my class- and nothing hurt me more than knowing i couldn't even fit into something of their size.  heck, as stupid as it sounds now, i started crying because it hurt so much.

so eventually i pulled myself together enough to try on the size five.  and thank god.  it fit.  but when i put it on something changed.  i felt happier.  i was hapy with what it was.  it was more of a relief kind of happy but, i felt a bit better since i felt so confident in those jeans. 

even today it's a struggle for me to try and be confident with my body.  for example, my friends often come after me because at my school we have kilts and of course- we roll them.  mine is pretty short, showing off a lot of leg (we wear tights with them tho) and i feel a little bit more confident about my legs because i know that they're not necessarily "fat" they're just muscle and they add to some curves.  plus i have some booty and some boobs.  and i don't think it's right to chase after someone and telling them that they can't show off they're body.

CAUSE GUESS WHAT HONEY

IT'S

MY

BODY

AND IMMA DO

WHAT I WANT WITH IT

CAUSE IT DOESN'T CONCERN YOU AT ALL

AND I'M SORRY THAT MY LEGS OR MY BUTT OR WHATEVER IT IS IS BUGGING YOU BUT THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM SWEET PEA

ALSO

please don't compare yourself to anyone. cause ya know what?  someone's always gonna be better at whatever it is, someone's always gonna be thinner, or smarter, or more talented or whatever.  

BUT THEY WILL NEVER BE YOU.

now that i got that out of my system....

now i'm a lot more confident in my body cause ya know, i realized my curves aren't all that bad and that it's ok to have those curves anyways. i've begun to accept myself a lot more and you know what, i've stopped caring about other people's opinions unless they're positive.  if they're positive i use them to help me work towards a positive self image. cause i don't wanna live my life just picking at my skin and moping about how i hate my body.  i'd rather have that little bit of flub and be ok with it.

SO

with that over and done with, hopefully you guys have begun to accept your body image too and if you haven't i just want to let you know:

YOU IS KIND

YOU IS LOVED

YOU IS BEAUTIFUL

peace out girlscouts! 

xx