[TW: self-critical body distaste? i don’t know if this should have a TW or not, but emotion-filled body rants can sometimes be triggering to read, and that is what this is :3]

My body image is so weird, blugh. I just feel like I need to talk about it right now. First of all, I know I have a certain amount of thin privilege because I am on the thin side of curvy. It’s just really hard for me because sometimes I think my body is beautiful, and sometimes I completely hate it, and it is so constantly back and forth. Being on the thinner side but having a belly and curves I often feel shame that I’m not trying hard enough to be thin enough, that if I just tried harder I could be “right”, I could look “right”. I have a lot of shame around softness, like when I sit down and my belly looks bigger or I see my hips puff out a little in some pants, when I notice that my thighs have some extra softness, sometimes it just makes me feel so disgusting, I’ve spent hours looking at it, poking it, squeezing it, sometimes as an act of self love but also often as an act of self hate. And since I’m kind of in between it’s really confusing because I can’t really identify as fat or thin. Which shows how pervasive that dichotomy is, even in groups promoting self love or self care or whatever. (not that I think it’s a bad thing to identify as either!!) I’ve just always had this feeling that there’s a little too much of me everywhere, I’m tallish, i have a biggish nose, I have a belly, my thighs seem too big, i even hate how big my boobs are (this has been a reeaally hard thing for me to work on because of the body shaming i learned from being in ballet when I was younger and my body was just starting to grow into a more “womanly” shape). I used to hate myself so much and so constantly, it was crippling. Of course body image was just one part of it, but it was a big one, and still is. I struggled with cutting and purging for a million reasons including this for a while, and it’s a battle I’m still fighting. At times it’s still hard for think about anything other than the way I look. It’s so heartbreaking to me that so many people have learned to feel so much hate and guilt and shame and sadness just because of the way their bodies are, when it’s so obvious that from birth, human bodies are meant to be wonderfully diverse.  The good news is, it is getting better, I’ve become more able to catch myself when I start self shaming whenever I see a thin person, diet pills, fat shaming in any form, etc. And for the record, those moments when I catch myself and realize I don’t need to feel that way anymore, that I can replace that horrible guilt with love, the sense of freedom and joy and peace is just… beautiful.