Damn you, body dysmorphia
Body dysmorphia has been kicking my ass lately. She’s a swinger too.
She can knock me off my confidence pedestal, a pedestal that took years to build and climb, in one quick blow. I think it’s because I’m back to work now. Back in my work closet. No longer in my loungewear closet and I’m realising that nothing fits. Even the things that were too big are now way too small and this hurts my feelings. It hurts more than I would like it to. And when things hurt, I eat. That’s how I survived the pandemic, battling anxiety and postpartum depression. I eat my feelings. Food always filled the void and I would get away with it, but now…tuh.
Now it’s a disaster.
I’ve tried to work out but I hate that shit, I am yet to find something that works for me. I’ve never been good with consistency and discipline so it’s even tougher. And the general concept of working out is even more depressing, especially at that beginning stage where everything feels hard. It takes so long. It never ends. “Ohh it’s a lifestyle change, change your mindset” bitch shut the fuck up! I really can’t stand people that throw words on hard things and expect people to just magically follow suit, sometimes it’s harder and deeper than that so be quiet.
And truly, why does everything that’s supposed to be bad, make me feel so good? There is nothing joyful about kale, period! There is nothing joyful about starving yourself of the things you want. I’ve tried all kinds of stupid diets and I only gain more weight after the fact so I’m stuck in a rot. And I don’t have the mental strength to stay alive in this pandemic, juggle my career, manage my finances, maintain my joy in Buhari’s Nigeria, be a mom and wife and have the body of my dreams. It feels like too much. And I’m hanging on for dear life trying to have it all. I don’t. At least not today. Today my arms are too big. Today my tummy won’t go back in no matter how much I suck it in. Today is not my day.
I’ve tried everything. I tried to embrace being plus-sized, I pushed myself into modeling. It was a temporary fix because it has become much clearer to me how big this problem is. I didn’t realise how much value I placed on how I looked until I didn’t look like “me” anymore.
Can I take the heat off me for a second, can I do the cowardly thing and point fingers? I shouldn’t, I should take responsibility, but maybe another day. Today I want to wallow and cry and feel my feelings. I want to name and shame the people that ushered me down this path because I didn’t get here alone. Shout out to the weight watchers who have “cautioned” me all of my days. You see, genetically, this current body type I have found myself in was almost inevitable. A lot of the women from the side of the family that gave me my body type look like me. And almost all the women struggle with acceptance, out loud. So I’m really just in the family business of body dysmorphia.
Then there’s the way the world just celebrates one body type which is CRAZY TO ME! Just one type of body is acceptable? Just the one? Ever since puberty, it’s been one desirable body type and I drank the Kool-Aid. And I think because I had been blessed with that body for so long that I didn’t realise how much of my value was rooted in how I looked. The world would say. “watch it” and with minimal effort, I could right whatever was wrong. But I’ve had a series of major life events that have changed my body inside and outside, and getting things back to where I would like now requires maximum effort…and now I’m coming undone. Having a baby was one thing, I would say that I was even on my journey to getting my body back right after she was born. Breastfeeding helped me with weight loss at the beginning but it took its toll on my boobs. Then the pandemic hit and my anxiety went through the roof. I stopped working out and started stress eating and that’s where I find myself today.
I'm trying to put words to the feeling. I’m trying to unpack my body dysmorphia. It’s the biggest, most complex, the most toxic relationship I have with myself because its roots are loveless. I’m now realising there was never love in our history, I’ve never loved my body. Even when it looked like the world’s standard of perfection, I was still in edit mode. It’s hard to shine a light on a place that has never seen light. There’s so much crap to clean out. So much to get rid of and even then, I don’t see a proper and final way out of it until I’m back to where I once was.
Surely this isn’t the natural order of things. God didn’t set up body image like this. But as always, humanity specializes in ruin. Nothing is pure. Nothing is sacred. Everything is taken for granted. Everything sucks. The perfect gifts from God are sent back like food in a restaurant. The vanity of it all. I’m so sick of this. My body. This glorious, self-healing, protective, nurturing, pleasure-giving, human-making glorious body is what I’m treating like crap. I’m disgusted at my lack of gratitude. Imagine if I just felt gratitude. After all, I know what this body has been through, what it has achieved, what it has endured. I’ve never broken a bone, never had to sleep in hospital until I had my baby. I almost have zero allergies. I have never even caught COVID. So why can’t I find it in my spirit to love it, like really and truly? Out loud but most importantly, in private, alone, in my quiet moments.
I am not your body-positive queen, nor do I wish to be. I am honestly trying to figure out a permanent solution that works for me. Loving my postpartum, post-pandemic body is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Because I’ve tolerated my body for so long that loving it in this state is damn near impossible. I’m broken by the fact that I can’t get off this ride. Nothing prepared me for the self-loathing that will accompany my bodily changes. I cannot believe this has happened to me. I’m blindsided by myself. I’m looking to outside sources for help but like most things with me, I have to help myself. I have to dig deep into myself to help myself.
I’m going to try though. God is my witness. And when I have unpacked and unlearnt the madness that I’ve allowed myself to inhale and digest since I was 10 years old, I am going to double down on true honest self-love. I will build that shit from scratch. Root me and my daughter in it because this madness ends with me. We will celebrate her body, our bodies together, regardless of what they turn out to be.
I know it might be hard to believe after reading this but I don’t want pity, that’s not the point of this. Today is a bad day, I’m feeling my feelings out loud. Body dysmorphia won today. And maybe she will win tomorrow. But she won’t win forever. I wrote this as a start. I wrote this to reach the bottom, to pull out the rot, to wallow and cry and feel defeat. It’s good. It will help me get to the sweet part.
The part where I fight.
https://youtu.be/f-NInWmiIG0
