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pixietasticSpawned by a conversation I had yesterday at works bikini car wash...
I am tired.
I am tired of hearing how ok mother's should be with their bodies, boasting in photographs with faces removed about how proud they are of their stretch marks.
I'm tired of being told I'm "vain" "ridiculous" "silly" or "stupid" for my eating disorder and body dismorphia.
I'm tired of people telling me I "just need to get over it" or "accept the fact that I've had three kids" or that I "look great for having had three kids".
It's as if in the throes of the "fat acceptance/body acceptance" movement, someone somewhere decided that bad body image and eating disorders would and should just evaporate, because now it's on trend to boycott the skinny, now it's ok to be ok with yourself.
Skinny isn't always healthy, neither is fat, and I would never claim to judge someone else on their shape or size, if you're cool with you and your doctor is cool with you, right on (wo)man, give yourself a hand, because the simple fact is, not all of us are.
I'd like someone somewhere to say to me "it's ok to be working on this" or "I get it, you're struggling" not "get over it, stop lusting after the body you had at the height of an eating disorder 10 years and 3 children ago", if it were just so simple as to accept my stretch marks, love myself, be ok with it all, I would have done it.
I've been heavier than this and been ok with it, loved my body, felt like a goddess and a warrior, I've been thinner than this and thought I was huge, ugly, and terrible.
It's not a size, it's not a number, it's an illness, and when it resurfaces it doesn't care if you weigh 80 pounds or 800, you are fat, and hideous and woth-less because of it.
It's not about a model in a magazine, or a slice of pizza or even the growing obesity epidemic, though certainly those things can be factored in somewhere for some of us.
It's an illness, and it would be really darn great if people would get on board with accepting that my not loving myself in my skinny jeans, isn't a reflection on "not accepting myself as a mother" or "being out of touch with reality" that anorexia goes beyond skipping meals and being a waif, that you can eat well, exercise, not count calories and not be "symptomatic" in a clinical sense, and still not be looking at the same reflection in the mirror that is revealed in photographs.
I work very hard to not behave bizarrely around food and my children, I work hard to eat whatever I want, when I'm hungry in portions that are reasonable, I work hard to enjoy my BLT or french fries, and I do my best to keep my own views and obsessions out of the eyes of my daughters, there are no scales in my home, I eat what I feed everyone, we go for ice cream, I don't exercise excessively in front of the children.
That doesn't mean I'm "better" it means I'm making an effort not to encourage another generation of eating disorders among my girls. We talk about bodies, how all bodies are beautiful in their own ways, how real women don't look like the girls in magazines, how they(my children) are beautiful as they are, we practice the "eat when you're hungry/stop when you're full" and "listen to your body" line of reasoning when it comes to food, we don't abstain from junk but we practice moderation.
None of this means I'm "cured" and I resent the implication that I'm less of a mother for having an illness that at present wont allow for me to "be proud of my stretched out tummy".
I am tired.
I am tired of hearing how ok mother's should be with their bodies, boasting in photographs with faces removed about how proud they are of their stretch marks.
I'm tired of being told I'm "vain" "ridiculous" "silly" or "stupid" for my eating disorder and body dismorphia.
I'm tired of people telling me I "just need to get over it" or "accept the fact that I've had three kids" or that I "look great for having had three kids".
It's as if in the throes of the "fat acceptance/body acceptance" movement, someone somewhere decided that bad body image and eating disorders would and should just evaporate, because now it's on trend to boycott the skinny, now it's ok to be ok with yourself.
Skinny isn't always healthy, neither is fat, and I would never claim to judge someone else on their shape or size, if you're cool with you and your doctor is cool with you, right on (wo)man, give yourself a hand, because the simple fact is, not all of us are.
I'd like someone somewhere to say to me "it's ok to be working on this" or "I get it, you're struggling" not "get over it, stop lusting after the body you had at the height of an eating disorder 10 years and 3 children ago", if it were just so simple as to accept my stretch marks, love myself, be ok with it all, I would have done it.
I've been heavier than this and been ok with it, loved my body, felt like a goddess and a warrior, I've been thinner than this and thought I was huge, ugly, and terrible.
It's not a size, it's not a number, it's an illness, and when it resurfaces it doesn't care if you weigh 80 pounds or 800, you are fat, and hideous and woth-less because of it.
It's not about a model in a magazine, or a slice of pizza or even the growing obesity epidemic, though certainly those things can be factored in somewhere for some of us.
It's an illness, and it would be really darn great if people would get on board with accepting that my not loving myself in my skinny jeans, isn't a reflection on "not accepting myself as a mother" or "being out of touch with reality" that anorexia goes beyond skipping meals and being a waif, that you can eat well, exercise, not count calories and not be "symptomatic" in a clinical sense, and still not be looking at the same reflection in the mirror that is revealed in photographs.
I work very hard to not behave bizarrely around food and my children, I work hard to eat whatever I want, when I'm hungry in portions that are reasonable, I work hard to enjoy my BLT or french fries, and I do my best to keep my own views and obsessions out of the eyes of my daughters, there are no scales in my home, I eat what I feed everyone, we go for ice cream, I don't exercise excessively in front of the children.
That doesn't mean I'm "better" it means I'm making an effort not to encourage another generation of eating disorders among my girls. We talk about bodies, how all bodies are beautiful in their own ways, how real women don't look like the girls in magazines, how they(my children) are beautiful as they are, we practice the "eat when you're hungry/stop when you're full" and "listen to your body" line of reasoning when it comes to food, we don't abstain from junk but we practice moderation.
None of this means I'm "cured" and I resent the implication that I'm less of a mother for having an illness that at present wont allow for me to "be proud of my stretched out tummy".
