on loving yourself, or why I love pookizegreat:
I don't care if it hurts. I wanna have control.
I want a perfect body. I want a perfect soul.
~ "Creep" (recorded by Radiohead; lyrics by Thom Yorke.)
OR: Hello, Livejournal. I just got out of the shower, I'm sitting down to some soup and some s1 House, and I want to talk about body image.
(or, "This is some stuff Kassie is going to use if she ever RPs as Millicent Bulstrode.)
So, uh. Warnings going into this: pretty explicit discussions of body image, body hatred, disordered eating, and so on. Triggers ahoy.
(this bottom one was taken for supermattachine's "take pictures of yourself unposed and unprimped" meme.)
Hi, people. For those who haven't met me, or don't follow my Twitter, where I usually post these pictures, this is what I look like. As y'all can see, I'm not skinny. Lately, due to skulking around feminist-y and fat acceptance blogs (and ontd_feminism), I've gotten more comfortable with the term "fat." It's not my favorite, but I don't hate it, and I can use it because it's true. I like the "healthy at any size" part of the fat acceptance movement, but right now? It doesn't apply to me. On the one hand, this is sort of, "cry more, fat girl," because yeah. There are life choices I need (and try) to make better.
On the other hand, the fat isn't a reason for the unhealthiness as much as it's a symptom of the underlying cause - and one of the things keeping me there. I have Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), which firstly means that I have issues losing weight (I've tried programs, diets, major lifestyle changes [inasmuch as I can when no one else in my family will change]; it's sort of non-functional when you look at a chocolate cake and gain ten pounds) and secondly means that I have insulin resistance, which means that if I don't eat the right amount of whatever I need on any given day, my blood sugar crashes and I become basically useless. Now, PCOS is easier to manage when you weigh less… which is fine and dandy, except for the "weight sticks to me like oatmeal to your ribs in winter" part. I've dealt with body image problems pretty much since I can remember, including outright body hatred and disordered eating (albeit not a "proper" eating disorder; if I had a gag reflex and could actually make myself vomit, which I don't and can't, I'd be very at risk of developing bulimia).
My aunt in North Carolina has PCOS too, which is the big reason why she and my uncle have been having trouble having children. (They adopted their ten-year-old son when he was three or four, and they want so badly to give him a little brother or sister, but that's another entry.) She had one of the weight loss surgeries (I forget which) a few years ago, and was bigger than I am now when she went in (heavier and on a shorter frame); it's literally changed her life, and I'm seriously considering having it too because, facts is, it's basically impossible for someone to PCOS to lose weight and manage her illness otherwise. The most success I've had there was losing fourteen pounds when I first started taking metformin, after spending a year yelling at doctors to get the right tests for my diagnosis. The positive end results of surgery, as far as I can see, would be immense and, at this point, I don't even care about looking different by being thinner; I care about the fact that PCOS has pretty much stolen my body from me since I was twelve and it first developed, and I might never be free of it, but to have life be even that little bit easier? I'd love that.
Then there's genetics to factor into things. I take very heavily after the women on my father's side of the family; we have enormous, thick bones and we're naturally heavy-set. My sister hardly eats anything and she's still a size 16, last I checked. My aunt is an 18/20 after having had said surgery. My dad and uncle are both big guys, and besides that, my mom's body type is best described as, "short, boxy, and powerful." Simple fact is that I'm probably never going to be skinny. I could live on celery sticks and water and I'd just be hungry and fucking up my metabolism. But I'm okay with that. The only thing I want is to have one less Thing making my life difficult, considering I've already got my sexuality, my gender identity, my depression, my anxiety, my OCD, my intermittent panic attacks, my ASD, my intellect and the difficulty it gives me with fitting in, ever, my "how the fuck am I going to pay for grad school," etc. Not having to deal with PCOS anymore would make me so happy.
So. That's where I'm coming from here. Proceed with that in mind.
And now I want to share the stuff that really got me thinking about all of this, because I value having it in my life and I think it does need to be shared.
The 'Leggings Are Not Pants' Manifesto: a conversation, a graphic, and a rebuttal.
A conversation: transcribed from Twitter, with links.
Me: Thesis: leggings are not pants and should not be worn as if they are. @
Igpy: I reject yr thesis. @
Me: I love you, dearheart, but precious few people can work "leggings as pants." the lady I saw in them today? was not one of said few. @
Igpy: But when people CAN, it is a fine, fine thing. I will wear leggings as pants as I please. @
Me: And, you, I won't stop because I trust that YOU do it responsibly. Ladies who are around my size, though… that's irresponsible. @
Igpy: I'm about to make you a tumblr post. @
Igpy: I love you, but this is my counter: it's up to individuals to decide how they want to dress, no one else. http://bit.ly/93qSEw @
Igpy: Looking at the posts tagged "body image" on tumblr makes me really, really fucking sad. #LoveYourselves,DamnIt @
Me: I'm making you something in response. It just made me cry, so I hope it's actually worth it. @
Igpy: Sweetness. I don't like this crying. @
Me: It was just a little bit! It stopped! @
Me: .@igpykin / in response to: http://bit.ly/93qSEw - I am a creature of immense self-loathing. Immense. Not... http://tumblr.com/xwwdg65zw @
Chel: i understand. while i disagree, i understand. FULLY. i suggest a slow flowering. like, this summer i decided to stop wearing 3/4 length cardigans in 95 degree weather. i finally decided that my arms would not cause nuclear armageddon. i am wearing short skirts and cute vintage tops. next summer, i will venture shorts. it's a slow process. you don't have to go straight to leggings. you can do what's comfortable for you at at the time. i'm going to buy a pair of stovepipe jeans. :) @ @ @ @
Igpy: I love you both so much. & um. I am writing you an email, Kassie, and I will forward it to you perhaps Chel. @
Me: My sister liked a confessional tumblr post of mine. I don't know how I feel about this but I know that I love @igpykin & @blahlovely v much. @
Chel: I don't trust skinny Ben Gibbard. @
(Okay, random asides here: the last comment isn't at all relevant. I just found it and thought it made a punchy ending. And… I only just remembered that Chel's and Igpy's twitter posts are locked, so uhm. If either of you want me to take those down, tell me so and you bet I will. ♥ …And THAT SAID. DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO DIG THROUGH 2/3 MONTHS OF TWITTER POSTS FOR THE RELEVANT ONES? The answer is very. XD)
And now, the manifestographic:
made by Igpy, featuring Beth Ditto, of The Gossip.
And my rebuttal to this:
I am a creature of immense self-loathing. Immense.
Not even immense. That word doesn't go far enough. Let's, instead, try humongous. Brobdingnagian. Elephantine. Interminable. Infinite. I'm serious about that. I really think that my self-loathing knows no bounds.
I have been seeing a psychiatrist since I was seven; I probably would have started seeing her sooner, had anyone been astute enough to notice that my emotional disturbances were not "just a phase" I was going through, or sensitive enough to think something other than, "She needs to buck up and stop taking everything so personally."
This is the third time I've been on antidepressants, the second time I've been on an SSRI, and the first time I've had a prescription bottle of anti-anxiety medication still hasn't ended - I've had this "three-month" supply of Xanax since January and I could probably still get through October without getting it refilled, because it takes a seriously debilitating amount of stress to make me take any.
In part, this is because I don't want to be an addict. I already need caffeine to get through the day; the thought of depending on another substance makes my heart skip beats and my lungs writhe around. In a large part, it is because I don't like playing around with my brain, which is the only part of me that has ever consistently been deemed worthwhile.
But mostly it is because having psych meds makes me feel broken, like I was born wrong and must now overcompensate in order to make up for that. I remember to take my Zoloft on a daily basis because, brokenness aside, the alternative is worse. I've been on psych meds on and off since I was eight, and I've been suicidal on and off for about as long.
Shame is not a part of my wardrobe either; it is a part of who I am, and at this point, I can only assume that it's an integral element of my earthly existence. I could blame my mother, who has, since I can remember, made me feel worthless and unwanted. I could blame growing up Catholic, because as human being, I was held up to the standard set by Jesus (which, regardless of his divinity or lack thereof, is pretty high) and because as a girl, I had to live up to the standard set by Mary (which, virgin or not, is also pretty high).
But the reasons why aren't as nearly important as the effects.
Beth Ditto makes me feel uncomfortable. Because she does things I would never dream of doing. I think of her as the disembodied voice that sings songs that I like because dealing with the reality of someone who does everything that I wish I could but can't threatens what microscopic, shaky sense of self-worth I have. I don't feel empowered when I see her do what she does; I feel guilty, and envious, and angry.
My parents do not know that I'm bisexual, or that I've been seriously thinking about my gender identity and wish that I could just be trans, because some days I feel feminine and some days I feel masculine and some days I feel neither, and if I could just want to be a man all of the time, it would be easier to understand. And they still would accept me only through gritted teeth, and my sister would still call me a dyke and a "womyn, meaning a fat lesbian" pejoratively, as though I'm supposed to take this as a joke when, really, it just makes me feel singled out and wrong. Not even all of my friends know this about me, because at several points, I've confided in people and gotten hurt.
I'm a primary candidate to develop an eating disorder. If I didn't have polycystic ovarian syndrome-related insulin resistance and didn't end up whacked out and nonfunctional if I don't eat, I'd probably have one and I wouldn't want to get help for it because, if I had any "success" with it, then it would be something in which I'd take pride.
I hate myself. I'm dependent on the opinions of others because, despite all of the medication and the encouragement I've ever been given, despite the fact that my professors (all crazy respected in their fields) call me an intellectual powerhouse, I feel like I am nothing. I hate my body, but it wouldn't matter if I knew how to put on makeup without looking like a clown, or if I were as conventionally beautiful as I've often said I would trade my intelligence to be, because I hate my body as an extension of myself.
(And there are days, many of them, when I would definitely trade my intelligence for beauty. I know that this would be a stupid trade. I know that beauty is only temporary, and that if I'd been beautiful, my life would be different, and I would probably be one of the people that I, right now, can't stand. But one of the most consistent things I've ever gotten out of my intelligence is an overpowering sense of isolation. At best, it's just been a semi-constant reminder that I think about things in ways that other people don't, and that because of this, I intimidate people and do not fit in. At its worst, it's been actively being degraded and made to feel worthless because I'm smart. I would love to be a conformist, because then I could feel like I fit in.)
I have cried twice while typing this, because emotional honesty hurts me. Confronting and acknowledging all of these things makes me feel weak. I put up walls and ego defense mechanisms and I hide behind them. My sarcasm and my humor are the most common ones. They make it easier for me to pretend that everything is fine, that nothing lies beneath my self-deprecation (not least a sense of self-esteem in the pits of the Mariana Trench), and that I don't look at all of the above as things that are irreparably and fundamentally wrong with me.
And I agree: my reaction to leggings is based on fear, fear of how much I wish that I could be so liberated. But there is another element to it, that of envy. I envy the women who think they can wear leggings as pants, and more often than not, I would rather lash out than admit this because admitting it means admitting the following: I love so many people - even my mother, whose approval I still want, beyond all reason - but I am not one of them. I project the love I can't feel for myself onto other people, and I over-extend myself for other people, because doing anything for myself makes me feel selfish, and unworthy of the air that I breathe, let alone my friends, or my education, or the glowing reviews that I bust my ass to get, all while telling myself that I'm not working hard enough. It is not just envy of other women's bodies; it is an acknowledgment of the fact that I am not brave, I am not self-confident, and I do not believe that I am worthwhile.
Intellectually, I look at your response to my cattiness and I know that I am in the wrong, and that I am propagating things I shouldn't, and that I am doing crimes unto my fellow women. But emotionally, I can't stand behind it. And unless I ever learn to love myself, I won't. Doing so would be the ultimate hypocrisy, because it would be telling other people to do things when I myself don't. And I do enough of that as is.
TL;DR version: I agree with every point you raised to counter me, but I am too much of a chicken-shit coward to fully support you.
And now, some reflections from a few months on: first thing that I can think of to change is that I came out to both of my parents, at least about the pansexuality/panromantic-but-sexually-confused-ness (I phrased it as "bisexuality," just because that's easier for them to stomach right now). My dad was awesome about it; my mom is acting like it never happened and I never said anything. Which, to be fair, sucks but is still better than I expected from her. Aside from that, though, I have gotten more comfortable in my skin. I'm still not perfectly so and I'm probably never going to be, because that's just a part of life. And I can live with that. At least, I count the fact that the things I want to change about my body now aren't surface things that can and will go away, but the more important ones.
(And, incidentally, my primary interest, as above, would be fixing my PCOS, but making life easier on my knees, after one of them needed to be surgically put back together when I was ten and when the other got so badly dislocated last year that I'm still trying to get all of its strength back without fucking it up again? That would be pretty sweet.)
I don't regret the time I've spent hating my body, firstly because it inspired a NaNoWriMo project that then grew a mind of its own and I still haven't finished it, and then because I like to think that my experiences with feeling bad about myself have made me more empathetic. Maybe they have, maybe they haven't. I know that they've helped foster this need that I have to make sure that, when I can help, no one else has to feel like that, especially not the people I care about. I regret not being called out on my shit sooner.
What I regret more than that, though, is that as a part of my process to get here, I was kind of a dipshit to thin people - generally not to their faces, which is probably even worse than doing it to their faces, but… at the end of it all? It's still body policing and body shaming, and fact is? Women are pretty much damned if we do, damned if we don't. Skinny women do have a kind of privilege, in that they're closer to what society considers "normal" and "acceptable," but even so, it's not privilege in the same institutional, widely spread and sanctioned (in action, if not in name) by governments, mass media, and so on sort of way that white privilege, cisgendered privilege, heterosexual privilege, et al are. It's not so, I think, because of two factors: 1. overwhelmingly, there aren't laws that favor thin people over fat people (there are policies, held and put in place by private corporations, and I may disagree with them, but frankly? American society is capitalist and we say that it's the private corporations' right to make policies as they see fit); and 2. skinny women are still subject to all kinds of abuse and scrutiny from people. Fat women are too, and on a more widespread basis (that I've noticed, which is biased because I am a fat woman), but that doesn't take away the fact that skinny women are also scrutinized and also suffer.
For example, think of the phrase, "Real women have curves." There was a point, when I was sixteen and doing the summer play-and-screenwriting thing for high school students at NYU, when there were PSAs with that phrase and a silhouette of a generously curved woman plastered on buses, cabs, benches, and everywhere else. You couldn't escaped it. On the one hand, yes, the intent is to, make fat girls feel better about their own bodies in the face (a tokenistic move at best), but what about the girl who is 5'11" and naturally very thin? Who has little to no curve to speak of, and a build usually called boyish? What about the 4'11", skinny, pixie-ish girl who also has little to no curve on her? Are they not "real" women because they don't have curves? How are they supposed to feel about that? (A similar case: Lane Bryant has a coupon sort of thing called "Real Woman Dollars," which I like because... well, it's discounts on comfy jeans, cute panties, nice bras, and more 'professional'-looking clothes. But, again: are women who don't shop at a clothes-for-fat-women store not real women? Did I miss something here?)
Likewise, we're all shamed about eating and food and our bodies: fat women get weird, judgmental looks from people (by strangers as well as by people close to us, by which, in my case, I mostly mean my mother) when we eat anything, much less when, God forbid, we eat a cookie or something; skinny women routinely get told to eat a sandwich. When you're fat, it's all but impossible to get diagnosed with an eating disorder if you have one, and even if you do get a diagnosis or permanently screw yourself up in ways that can't be ignored, good luck getting someone to believe you because the perception is that only thin people have eating disorders (and it's based on research that is pretty much limited to thin, upper-middle-class-to-affluent white populations, so it's faulty, but that doesn't stop it from being held up as infallible); when you're skinny, everyone and their mother will wonder if you have an eating disorder or not, and will scrutinize you at every meal. Fat women get called pigs, and hippos, fatties, trolls, giants, and so on; skinny women get called Twiggy, Mary-Kate, flimsy, scrawny, anorexic, Skeletor. Fat women have to deal with the notion that they should be happy, funny, and accommodating because they're already making the world deal with their fatness; skinny women are often called bitches, or presumed to be such, just because they're thin and oh my god, how dare they be so enviably close to our beauty standard. We all get told, by our mothers, our sisters, our friends, TV, magazines, movies, etc., what we can and can't wear based on our body types, what will make us look "prettier" or what will "flatter" us more, which has its roots in the same exact thing that caused the ridiculous linebacker shoulder-pads of the 1980s: making us fit into some arbitrarily decided mold of what is or isn't popular and attractive. Everyone gets harassed, be it verbally, physically, or sexually.
And all of that (excepting the harassment, which is a problem on its own but can include some of what I mentioned)? That's called body-shaming. That is what Igpy was calling me out on doing, and I am so glad that she did so. As for trends and negative influences (be they familial, in the media, or whatever): this too shall pass. The big thing that we can change is ourselves and our actions and reactions, our thought processes about things, our level of informedness, and our ability to love ourselves.
So, I guess, what I want to come down to after all of that is, as my Igpydear said: society sucks and mistreats everyone in different ways. Also, the medical institution and a lot of research done about eating disorders suck. Love yourselves, damn it. Think about what's going on around you, and stop letting other people make you feel inferior over doing what you love or, even worse, over superficial shit. And I love you all, whether you read the full rant or not. ♥
(Also, I don't mean, with this post, to say that men aren't subjected to similar experiences; I'm writing about specifically female experiences because, for all I write fiction about guys, female experiences are what I know personally. Guys? You have to deal with different variations on this same theme. I say different because our experiences are different and we deal with them differently and need to acknowledge this. But, either way: you are wonderful, and you should love yourselves too. ♥)
I want a perfect body. I want a perfect soul.
~ "Creep" (recorded by Radiohead; lyrics by Thom Yorke.)
OR: Hello, Livejournal. I just got out of the shower, I'm sitting down to some soup and some s1 House, and I want to talk about body image.
(or, "This is some stuff Kassie is going to use if she ever RPs as Millicent Bulstrode.)
So, uh. Warnings going into this: pretty explicit discussions of body image, body hatred, disordered eating, and so on. Triggers ahoy.
(this bottom one was taken for supermattachine's "take pictures of yourself unposed and unprimped" meme.)
Hi, people. For those who haven't met me, or don't follow my Twitter, where I usually post these pictures, this is what I look like. As y'all can see, I'm not skinny. Lately, due to skulking around feminist-y and fat acceptance blogs (and ontd_feminism), I've gotten more comfortable with the term "fat." It's not my favorite, but I don't hate it, and I can use it because it's true. I like the "healthy at any size" part of the fat acceptance movement, but right now? It doesn't apply to me. On the one hand, this is sort of, "cry more, fat girl," because yeah. There are life choices I need (and try) to make better.
On the other hand, the fat isn't a reason for the unhealthiness as much as it's a symptom of the underlying cause - and one of the things keeping me there. I have Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), which firstly means that I have issues losing weight (I've tried programs, diets, major lifestyle changes [inasmuch as I can when no one else in my family will change]; it's sort of non-functional when you look at a chocolate cake and gain ten pounds) and secondly means that I have insulin resistance, which means that if I don't eat the right amount of whatever I need on any given day, my blood sugar crashes and I become basically useless. Now, PCOS is easier to manage when you weigh less… which is fine and dandy, except for the "weight sticks to me like oatmeal to your ribs in winter" part. I've dealt with body image problems pretty much since I can remember, including outright body hatred and disordered eating (albeit not a "proper" eating disorder; if I had a gag reflex and could actually make myself vomit, which I don't and can't, I'd be very at risk of developing bulimia).
My aunt in North Carolina has PCOS too, which is the big reason why she and my uncle have been having trouble having children. (They adopted their ten-year-old son when he was three or four, and they want so badly to give him a little brother or sister, but that's another entry.) She had one of the weight loss surgeries (I forget which) a few years ago, and was bigger than I am now when she went in (heavier and on a shorter frame); it's literally changed her life, and I'm seriously considering having it too because, facts is, it's basically impossible for someone to PCOS to lose weight and manage her illness otherwise. The most success I've had there was losing fourteen pounds when I first started taking metformin, after spending a year yelling at doctors to get the right tests for my diagnosis. The positive end results of surgery, as far as I can see, would be immense and, at this point, I don't even care about looking different by being thinner; I care about the fact that PCOS has pretty much stolen my body from me since I was twelve and it first developed, and I might never be free of it, but to have life be even that little bit easier? I'd love that.
Then there's genetics to factor into things. I take very heavily after the women on my father's side of the family; we have enormous, thick bones and we're naturally heavy-set. My sister hardly eats anything and she's still a size 16, last I checked. My aunt is an 18/20 after having had said surgery. My dad and uncle are both big guys, and besides that, my mom's body type is best described as, "short, boxy, and powerful." Simple fact is that I'm probably never going to be skinny. I could live on celery sticks and water and I'd just be hungry and fucking up my metabolism. But I'm okay with that. The only thing I want is to have one less Thing making my life difficult, considering I've already got my sexuality, my gender identity, my depression, my anxiety, my OCD, my intermittent panic attacks, my ASD, my intellect and the difficulty it gives me with fitting in, ever, my "how the fuck am I going to pay for grad school," etc. Not having to deal with PCOS anymore would make me so happy.
So. That's where I'm coming from here. Proceed with that in mind.
And now I want to share the stuff that really got me thinking about all of this, because I value having it in my life and I think it does need to be shared.
The 'Leggings Are Not Pants' Manifesto: a conversation, a graphic, and a rebuttal.
A conversation: transcribed from Twitter, with links.
Me: Thesis: leggings are not pants and should not be worn as if they are. @
Igpy: I reject yr thesis. @
Me: I love you, dearheart, but precious few people can work "leggings as pants." the lady I saw in them today? was not one of said few. @
Igpy: But when people CAN, it is a fine, fine thing. I will wear leggings as pants as I please. @
Me: And, you, I won't stop because I trust that YOU do it responsibly. Ladies who are around my size, though… that's irresponsible. @
Igpy: I'm about to make you a tumblr post. @
Igpy: I love you, but this is my counter: it's up to individuals to decide how they want to dress, no one else. http://bit.ly/93qSEw @
Igpy: Looking at the posts tagged "body image" on tumblr makes me really, really fucking sad. #LoveYourselves,DamnIt @
Me: I'm making you something in response. It just made me cry, so I hope it's actually worth it. @
Igpy: Sweetness. I don't like this crying. @
Me: It was just a little bit! It stopped! @
Me: .@igpykin / in response to: http://bit.ly/93qSEw - I am a creature of immense self-loathing. Immense. Not... http://tumblr.com/xwwdg65zw @
Chel: i understand. while i disagree, i understand. FULLY. i suggest a slow flowering. like, this summer i decided to stop wearing 3/4 length cardigans in 95 degree weather. i finally decided that my arms would not cause nuclear armageddon. i am wearing short skirts and cute vintage tops. next summer, i will venture shorts. it's a slow process. you don't have to go straight to leggings. you can do what's comfortable for you at at the time. i'm going to buy a pair of stovepipe jeans. :) @ @ @ @
Igpy: I love you both so much. & um. I am writing you an email, Kassie, and I will forward it to you perhaps Chel. @
Me: My sister liked a confessional tumblr post of mine. I don't know how I feel about this but I know that I love @igpykin & @blahlovely v much. @
Chel: I don't trust skinny Ben Gibbard. @
(Okay, random asides here: the last comment isn't at all relevant. I just found it and thought it made a punchy ending. And… I only just remembered that Chel's and Igpy's twitter posts are locked, so uhm. If either of you want me to take those down, tell me so and you bet I will. ♥ …And THAT SAID. DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO DIG THROUGH 2/3 MONTHS OF TWITTER POSTS FOR THE RELEVANT ONES? The answer is very. XD)
And now, the manifestographic:
made by Igpy, featuring Beth Ditto, of The Gossip.
And my rebuttal to this:
I am a creature of immense self-loathing. Immense.
Not even immense. That word doesn't go far enough. Let's, instead, try humongous. Brobdingnagian. Elephantine. Interminable. Infinite. I'm serious about that. I really think that my self-loathing knows no bounds.
I have been seeing a psychiatrist since I was seven; I probably would have started seeing her sooner, had anyone been astute enough to notice that my emotional disturbances were not "just a phase" I was going through, or sensitive enough to think something other than, "She needs to buck up and stop taking everything so personally."
This is the third time I've been on antidepressants, the second time I've been on an SSRI, and the first time I've had a prescription bottle of anti-anxiety medication still hasn't ended - I've had this "three-month" supply of Xanax since January and I could probably still get through October without getting it refilled, because it takes a seriously debilitating amount of stress to make me take any.
In part, this is because I don't want to be an addict. I already need caffeine to get through the day; the thought of depending on another substance makes my heart skip beats and my lungs writhe around. In a large part, it is because I don't like playing around with my brain, which is the only part of me that has ever consistently been deemed worthwhile.
But mostly it is because having psych meds makes me feel broken, like I was born wrong and must now overcompensate in order to make up for that. I remember to take my Zoloft on a daily basis because, brokenness aside, the alternative is worse. I've been on psych meds on and off since I was eight, and I've been suicidal on and off for about as long.
Shame is not a part of my wardrobe either; it is a part of who I am, and at this point, I can only assume that it's an integral element of my earthly existence. I could blame my mother, who has, since I can remember, made me feel worthless and unwanted. I could blame growing up Catholic, because as human being, I was held up to the standard set by Jesus (which, regardless of his divinity or lack thereof, is pretty high) and because as a girl, I had to live up to the standard set by Mary (which, virgin or not, is also pretty high).
But the reasons why aren't as nearly important as the effects.
Beth Ditto makes me feel uncomfortable. Because she does things I would never dream of doing. I think of her as the disembodied voice that sings songs that I like because dealing with the reality of someone who does everything that I wish I could but can't threatens what microscopic, shaky sense of self-worth I have. I don't feel empowered when I see her do what she does; I feel guilty, and envious, and angry.
My parents do not know that I'm bisexual, or that I've been seriously thinking about my gender identity and wish that I could just be trans, because some days I feel feminine and some days I feel masculine and some days I feel neither, and if I could just want to be a man all of the time, it would be easier to understand. And they still would accept me only through gritted teeth, and my sister would still call me a dyke and a "womyn, meaning a fat lesbian" pejoratively, as though I'm supposed to take this as a joke when, really, it just makes me feel singled out and wrong. Not even all of my friends know this about me, because at several points, I've confided in people and gotten hurt.
I'm a primary candidate to develop an eating disorder. If I didn't have polycystic ovarian syndrome-related insulin resistance and didn't end up whacked out and nonfunctional if I don't eat, I'd probably have one and I wouldn't want to get help for it because, if I had any "success" with it, then it would be something in which I'd take pride.
I hate myself. I'm dependent on the opinions of others because, despite all of the medication and the encouragement I've ever been given, despite the fact that my professors (all crazy respected in their fields) call me an intellectual powerhouse, I feel like I am nothing. I hate my body, but it wouldn't matter if I knew how to put on makeup without looking like a clown, or if I were as conventionally beautiful as I've often said I would trade my intelligence to be, because I hate my body as an extension of myself.
(And there are days, many of them, when I would definitely trade my intelligence for beauty. I know that this would be a stupid trade. I know that beauty is only temporary, and that if I'd been beautiful, my life would be different, and I would probably be one of the people that I, right now, can't stand. But one of the most consistent things I've ever gotten out of my intelligence is an overpowering sense of isolation. At best, it's just been a semi-constant reminder that I think about things in ways that other people don't, and that because of this, I intimidate people and do not fit in. At its worst, it's been actively being degraded and made to feel worthless because I'm smart. I would love to be a conformist, because then I could feel like I fit in.)
I have cried twice while typing this, because emotional honesty hurts me. Confronting and acknowledging all of these things makes me feel weak. I put up walls and ego defense mechanisms and I hide behind them. My sarcasm and my humor are the most common ones. They make it easier for me to pretend that everything is fine, that nothing lies beneath my self-deprecation (not least a sense of self-esteem in the pits of the Mariana Trench), and that I don't look at all of the above as things that are irreparably and fundamentally wrong with me.
And I agree: my reaction to leggings is based on fear, fear of how much I wish that I could be so liberated. But there is another element to it, that of envy. I envy the women who think they can wear leggings as pants, and more often than not, I would rather lash out than admit this because admitting it means admitting the following: I love so many people - even my mother, whose approval I still want, beyond all reason - but I am not one of them. I project the love I can't feel for myself onto other people, and I over-extend myself for other people, because doing anything for myself makes me feel selfish, and unworthy of the air that I breathe, let alone my friends, or my education, or the glowing reviews that I bust my ass to get, all while telling myself that I'm not working hard enough. It is not just envy of other women's bodies; it is an acknowledgment of the fact that I am not brave, I am not self-confident, and I do not believe that I am worthwhile.
Intellectually, I look at your response to my cattiness and I know that I am in the wrong, and that I am propagating things I shouldn't, and that I am doing crimes unto my fellow women. But emotionally, I can't stand behind it. And unless I ever learn to love myself, I won't. Doing so would be the ultimate hypocrisy, because it would be telling other people to do things when I myself don't. And I do enough of that as is.
TL;DR version: I agree with every point you raised to counter me, but I am too much of a chicken-shit coward to fully support you.
And now, some reflections from a few months on: first thing that I can think of to change is that I came out to both of my parents, at least about the pansexuality/panromantic-but-sexually-confused-ness (I phrased it as "bisexuality," just because that's easier for them to stomach right now). My dad was awesome about it; my mom is acting like it never happened and I never said anything. Which, to be fair, sucks but is still better than I expected from her. Aside from that, though, I have gotten more comfortable in my skin. I'm still not perfectly so and I'm probably never going to be, because that's just a part of life. And I can live with that. At least, I count the fact that the things I want to change about my body now aren't surface things that can and will go away, but the more important ones.
(And, incidentally, my primary interest, as above, would be fixing my PCOS, but making life easier on my knees, after one of them needed to be surgically put back together when I was ten and when the other got so badly dislocated last year that I'm still trying to get all of its strength back without fucking it up again? That would be pretty sweet.)
I don't regret the time I've spent hating my body, firstly because it inspired a NaNoWriMo project that then grew a mind of its own and I still haven't finished it, and then because I like to think that my experiences with feeling bad about myself have made me more empathetic. Maybe they have, maybe they haven't. I know that they've helped foster this need that I have to make sure that, when I can help, no one else has to feel like that, especially not the people I care about. I regret not being called out on my shit sooner.
What I regret more than that, though, is that as a part of my process to get here, I was kind of a dipshit to thin people - generally not to their faces, which is probably even worse than doing it to their faces, but… at the end of it all? It's still body policing and body shaming, and fact is? Women are pretty much damned if we do, damned if we don't. Skinny women do have a kind of privilege, in that they're closer to what society considers "normal" and "acceptable," but even so, it's not privilege in the same institutional, widely spread and sanctioned (in action, if not in name) by governments, mass media, and so on sort of way that white privilege, cisgendered privilege, heterosexual privilege, et al are. It's not so, I think, because of two factors: 1. overwhelmingly, there aren't laws that favor thin people over fat people (there are policies, held and put in place by private corporations, and I may disagree with them, but frankly? American society is capitalist and we say that it's the private corporations' right to make policies as they see fit); and 2. skinny women are still subject to all kinds of abuse and scrutiny from people. Fat women are too, and on a more widespread basis (that I've noticed, which is biased because I am a fat woman), but that doesn't take away the fact that skinny women are also scrutinized and also suffer.
For example, think of the phrase, "Real women have curves." There was a point, when I was sixteen and doing the summer play-and-screenwriting thing for high school students at NYU, when there were PSAs with that phrase and a silhouette of a generously curved woman plastered on buses, cabs, benches, and everywhere else. You couldn't escaped it. On the one hand, yes, the intent is to, make fat girls feel better about their own bodies in the face (a tokenistic move at best), but what about the girl who is 5'11" and naturally very thin? Who has little to no curve to speak of, and a build usually called boyish? What about the 4'11", skinny, pixie-ish girl who also has little to no curve on her? Are they not "real" women because they don't have curves? How are they supposed to feel about that? (A similar case: Lane Bryant has a coupon sort of thing called "Real Woman Dollars," which I like because... well, it's discounts on comfy jeans, cute panties, nice bras, and more 'professional'-looking clothes. But, again: are women who don't shop at a clothes-for-fat-women store not real women? Did I miss something here?)
Likewise, we're all shamed about eating and food and our bodies: fat women get weird, judgmental looks from people (by strangers as well as by people close to us, by which, in my case, I mostly mean my mother) when we eat anything, much less when, God forbid, we eat a cookie or something; skinny women routinely get told to eat a sandwich. When you're fat, it's all but impossible to get diagnosed with an eating disorder if you have one, and even if you do get a diagnosis or permanently screw yourself up in ways that can't be ignored, good luck getting someone to believe you because the perception is that only thin people have eating disorders (and it's based on research that is pretty much limited to thin, upper-middle-class-to-affluent white populations, so it's faulty, but that doesn't stop it from being held up as infallible); when you're skinny, everyone and their mother will wonder if you have an eating disorder or not, and will scrutinize you at every meal. Fat women get called pigs, and hippos, fatties, trolls, giants, and so on; skinny women get called Twiggy, Mary-Kate, flimsy, scrawny, anorexic, Skeletor. Fat women have to deal with the notion that they should be happy, funny, and accommodating because they're already making the world deal with their fatness; skinny women are often called bitches, or presumed to be such, just because they're thin and oh my god, how dare they be so enviably close to our beauty standard. We all get told, by our mothers, our sisters, our friends, TV, magazines, movies, etc., what we can and can't wear based on our body types, what will make us look "prettier" or what will "flatter" us more, which has its roots in the same exact thing that caused the ridiculous linebacker shoulder-pads of the 1980s: making us fit into some arbitrarily decided mold of what is or isn't popular and attractive. Everyone gets harassed, be it verbally, physically, or sexually.
And all of that (excepting the harassment, which is a problem on its own but can include some of what I mentioned)? That's called body-shaming. That is what Igpy was calling me out on doing, and I am so glad that she did so. As for trends and negative influences (be they familial, in the media, or whatever): this too shall pass. The big thing that we can change is ourselves and our actions and reactions, our thought processes about things, our level of informedness, and our ability to love ourselves.
So, I guess, what I want to come down to after all of that is, as my Igpydear said: society sucks and mistreats everyone in different ways. Also, the medical institution and a lot of research done about eating disorders suck. Love yourselves, damn it. Think about what's going on around you, and stop letting other people make you feel inferior over doing what you love or, even worse, over superficial shit. And I love you all, whether you read the full rant or not. ♥
(Also, I don't mean, with this post, to say that men aren't subjected to similar experiences; I'm writing about specifically female experiences because, for all I write fiction about guys, female experiences are what I know personally. Guys? You have to deal with different variations on this same theme. I say different because our experiences are different and we deal with them differently and need to acknowledge this. But, either way: you are wonderful, and you should love yourselves too. ♥)