wobbly cat
So I spent today doing wedding prep things with my mom and my aunt, who are in town for the weekend solely for the purpose of this. Today was the first day of wedding dress shopping, which means I spent a bit over an hour being pinned into various things and then staring at myself in a mirror.
I hate trying on clothes. I have very little patience for it, and it takes my always-tenuous forced sense of being okay with my body, and shakes it up and cuts some of its tethers and threatens to drive it away entirely. Most of the time I don't think about my body and its appearance or weight; when I do, I make myself redirect the nasty hurtful judgments about it that I know perfectly well I am socially trained to do.
But when I'm trying on very fitted dresses and my body is imperfect (as all bodies are) and I look at it and try to see past the blobby bits, it's really really hard to keep that tenuous enforced effort to not play the body shame game, to be like "my body is my body and that's okay." And, I mean. I could be in a lot better shape physically just in terms of activity level, stamina, and ability to run around and do cool shit, and I would like to do those things! Because I like my body when it is flexible and strong and doing cool things; back when I managed to do yoga almost every day I was like, holy crap, this body is actually pretty cool and bendy and doesn't hurt and is strong enough to do the things I like! that's awesome!
But right now my body is not that body, and while I'm completely aware of the various reasons why that is (some of them are winter-related, some of them are time-related, some depression-related, and some are quite frankly the product of me eating more calories than I require and not getting my ass out of the chair), my perception of myself narrows to unflattering socially-programmed commentary and a degree of self-loathing that intrinsically blames myself for everything.
Not cool, brain.
Today was made more wobbly by finding a dress that was gorgeous on me (Mom cried) that is so far outside my price range that I just can't even think about it. I went to the store today expecting that I was not going to be able to afford anything I saw there, and that was an accurate expectation. I just wasn't expecting to find the most perfect dress.
Oh well. The next two stores are less expensive; hopefully I can find a close-enough knockoff.
For now I think I need sleep, because I am tired and I can feel how very, very out of cope I am.
I've posted this at http://lassarina.dreamwidth.org/1067438.html and you may comment there or here. On Dreamwidth, this entry has
comments.
I hate trying on clothes. I have very little patience for it, and it takes my always-tenuous forced sense of being okay with my body, and shakes it up and cuts some of its tethers and threatens to drive it away entirely. Most of the time I don't think about my body and its appearance or weight; when I do, I make myself redirect the nasty hurtful judgments about it that I know perfectly well I am socially trained to do.
But when I'm trying on very fitted dresses and my body is imperfect (as all bodies are) and I look at it and try to see past the blobby bits, it's really really hard to keep that tenuous enforced effort to not play the body shame game, to be like "my body is my body and that's okay." And, I mean. I could be in a lot better shape physically just in terms of activity level, stamina, and ability to run around and do cool shit, and I would like to do those things! Because I like my body when it is flexible and strong and doing cool things; back when I managed to do yoga almost every day I was like, holy crap, this body is actually pretty cool and bendy and doesn't hurt and is strong enough to do the things I like! that's awesome!
But right now my body is not that body, and while I'm completely aware of the various reasons why that is (some of them are winter-related, some of them are time-related, some depression-related, and some are quite frankly the product of me eating more calories than I require and not getting my ass out of the chair), my perception of myself narrows to unflattering socially-programmed commentary and a degree of self-loathing that intrinsically blames myself for everything.
Not cool, brain.
Today was made more wobbly by finding a dress that was gorgeous on me (Mom cried) that is so far outside my price range that I just can't even think about it. I went to the store today expecting that I was not going to be able to afford anything I saw there, and that was an accurate expectation. I just wasn't expecting to find the most perfect dress.
Oh well. The next two stores are less expensive; hopefully I can find a close-enough knockoff.
For now I think I need sleep, because I am tired and I can feel how very, very out of cope I am.
I've posted this at http://lassarina.dreamwidth.org/1067438.html and you may comment there or here. On Dreamwidth, this entry has
comments.