Upward Spiraling Out of My Body Dysmorphia

Image by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

trigger warnings: body dysmorphia, suicide, mentions of disordered eating, illness

If you remember what your body looks like, I think you’re one of the lucky ones. If you don’t, then I’m not so glad this is what we have in common. Coming from an older West Indian family, my body was always a discussion. No matter how many soccer practices I showed up to, salads I ate, nor how well I did in P.E. class, whenever an aunt approached me it was always “You’ve gotten bigger!” Even throughout my adulthood my body has gotten bigger. I know I’m big, but I wish they knew that I didn’t need to be reminded every second of my life.  

I think it’s important to note that I wasn’t always fat, but I still struggled with food and dieting at a young age. Having to deal with cholesterol issues during elementary school was the start of my long, relentless relationship with food. I remember sitting in the doctor’s office with my uncle, his eyes glazed over, listening to every word my pediatrician said. My relationship with food not only originates in this moment, but also with my family’s history of heart disease, diabetes, and many other debilitating diseases. By the time I reached high school, my uncle had a coronary angioplasty, stent insertion, triple bypass heart surgery, and several other surgeries for various kinds of cancer. He never wanted me to suffer like he did.  

For as long as I can remember, my uncle micro-managed everything that graced my plate. There were even times we fought at the dinner table so he could see whatever takeout I’d brought home. The stress of bringing home any form of food that he would scrutinize started to transfer into other aspects of my life. In middle school I discovered how uncomfortable it made me feel to eat in public spaces. In high school I even went as far as to become the library aide so I could escape the daunting task of consuming food in the adolescent-filled cafeteria and tried my best to retreat back to the library every lunch break. The library was my safe haven, a place of structure for the moments where I felt the most vulnerable. This is still a habit I have today, I always look for security.

It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I started my first romantic relationship. He was beautiful, smart, and even had a piercing on one ear that was the jackpot of my teenage girl fantasies. Being with him was the first time someone told me I was pretty. For someone that had only dreamed of having a boyfriend, that meant the world to me. I naively thought that feeling would last forever. As the pandemic raged on, and quarantine forced us into our isolated nests, there became an evident strain on our relationship. Still, we continued to stay with each other. I never noticed when his demeanor changed or that I couldn’t fit into half of my jeans anymore, or even that I was getting bigger than him. I made a huge mistake. You know that horrible mistake people make when they get lost in a relationship because they already have constant bodily validation? Yeah, that one. I gained the “happy weight”, I let myself go. People hate happy weight because being fat makes you feel empty and alone after a relationship. Nobody thinks that you’re attractive anymore and it feels like now there’s this huge responsibility that you have to get back to when you were skinnier. I fucked up.

Coming out of that relationship I became extremely depressed. I moved back in with my family, back to a space I never felt secure in. Endless nights spent scrolling through Tinder, a space where your body is always being perceived, felt completely invalidating. I was a completely different person. And I didn’t feel that way because I had loved and learned valuable lessons about navigating relationships, but it was because I was fat. Everytime I looked into the mirror, a devil appeared on my shoulder pointing out every flaw on my now monstrous body. It’s like my ego had turned against me. 

I didn’t want to live in my body anymore. I thought I was nothing without the comfort of another person telling me I was good enough. I can’t say that I never feel that way today, but I’ve worked on it. I’m not about to go on a spiel about how much it matters to love yourself, nor about how self-love is a journey and not a destination… but would love really be worth it if it meant that I had to be skinny, athletic, or fit any of the aesthetic qualities guys on dating apps wanted? Probably not. But I want to be better, because I know that the moments in between these feelings of doubt and despair are much more important than these superficial views of my body. Though, how I never saw myself changing is still a phenomena to me.

In the end, I’m still trying to upward spiral out of this feeling called body dysmorphia.

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder?

Nowadays, we often find ourselves letting society define what is acceptable/not acceptable, or what is beautiful/ugly, e.t.c. So a while ago I was speaking with my friend and she tells me that she wants to go for a swim, but that she can’t go because of the fact that she has a lot of stretch marks on her thighs and stomach. She is not the first person that I have come across that talks about how they feel ashamed and ugly because they have stretch marks. I have also come to realize that this thought process is often associated with women.

In my opinion, this is absolutely nonsense/absurd, just like scars I find stretch marks to be rather beautiful and I feel like it’s one of the things that defines you as a person. This to me also shows our cultural differences because in my country (Nigeria), a woman having stretch marks is actually celebrated. To Nigerians it’s a sign of wealth and healthy living. Society (mostly men) needs to do a better job in giving people the opportunity to be themselves. No one should be insulted/attacked/harassed for having stretch marks because if anything, stretch marks enhances a persons beauty.

A for effort?

My brother and I were driving to school on Friday last week and on the radio they were talking about Obesity. Obesity is a huge problem in the United States of America. More than one-third (35.7 percent) of adults are considered to be obese. More than 1 in 20 (6.3 percent) have extreme obesity. Almost 3 in 4 men (74 percent) are considered to be overweight or obese. These are just numbers and there is more to it than that. But we cannot ignore the amount of health problems that comes with obesity.

So apparently right now some companies are trying things out to reduce the level of obesity in America. I heard them talk on the radio about how companies are considering taxing and also reducing the sugar quantity in all these soft drinks or beverages, in order to get people not to buy it as much and also drop a couple of pounds.

In my opinion, while these sound like interesting methods to cut down the obesity level in America, I just don’t think they would really be effective. Like how much tax are you really going to be allowed to put on something like soda to get people who really want it not to buy it? Maybe reducing the sugar quantity might help, but I feel as though a lot of people might be angered by this.

 

Alright, Let’s Be Honest America: Black Women’s Bodies Are “Inappropriate”

I know what you’re thinking.

“Oh my god, how could to title your post that?”

The Relationship to Labor in Sex Work

When we speak about laboring bodies in class I am instantly aware that my relationship to labor is vastly different than that of my classmates. While I have worked in retail, food service, and other odd jobs, the majority of my work experience has been in sex work. I want to flesh out some of these differences, specifically in my experiences of being a stripper for the past four years.

Gymtimidation.

One of my favorite things to talk about is gyms. Not because I’m a hardcore “gym rat” or that I consider it a hobby

The Struggle with PCOS and Weight

Last March I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, otherwise known as PCOS. When I heard this, I felt like not only were things starting to make more sense, but like I didn’t have to blame myself for my weight gain.

Underweight is also a problem

Underweight is mean you have a body mass index that is below 18.5. Many folks think being fat is a health risk, they might think being too skinny is good. But being overly skinny carries its own health risks,too.

About four years ago, I happened to have poor absorptions of nutrients. At that time, my weight was unintentionally dropping, and I was overly losing weight. I lost almost 20 pounds in just one month. In school, classmates and teachers started to give me dirty looks. Even when I go to the grocery stores with my mom, people ooked at me like I was from a differernt planet. I felt so bad. I did not try to lose any weight, and I was eating as much as I used to, since then I even tried to eat as much as I could everytime till I throw up. My family started to worry about me because I eat so much, but still did not gain any weights. They forced me to stop exercise and rest, at that time, they would just put me to bed after dinners. Finnally they took me to the doctor. The doctor said that I might suffered with an eating disorder. But after he arranged the blood test and all of those long examations for me, he told my family that I was diabetic, and I had to go on drugs to control it. Because diabetes affects the way my body uses the blood surgar, I would lose weight if my body do not get enough of suger to generate, even I might be eating as much as usual.

For most people, losing a few pounds without meaning to could be a good thing to them. But it’s important to know when unexpected weight loss is a serious cause for concern. And sometimes, unexpected weight loss can be a sign of a depressive illness, many cancer cause unintentional weight loss as well.