Body image and polyamory: an exploration

It’s endlessly intriguing to me how our view of certain things can be changed completely by new experiences. I have been thinking about this a lot lately, because after 11 years together, my husband and I have taken an unexpected (but very positive) step with our marriage — we are exploring polyamory. Something I took for granted over the course of more than a decade in a stable relationship was how many things I didn’t have to think about, especially when it came to my body.

Can you be considered fabulous when you’re fat?

Several days ago I came across a show with a woman crying during an interview. She was crying because she was talking about how people make fun of her for being over weight. I immediately stayed on the channel to learn more about this woman. What I learned in that one hour gave me confidence in myself that I desperately needed.

Let Yourself Forgive Your Body, Just As It Forgives You

I want to start off with a trigger warning: I am going to be discussing self-harm in this.

Through the ashes of heartbreak… I rise with triumph.

Not long after I turned 18, I came home from class one day to find that my mom was home early from work.

I walked in the door to find that she had several bags packed in the kitchen. I asked her what was going on and I got this response:

“Honey, I got fired today. I knew there was a risk of this for a while now, but I didn’t want to worry you. I’m just going to stay at Sean’s house for a week to clear my head. I’ll be back in a week with a plan okay?”

Sean was her boyfriend that lived on the water somewhere near the Eastern Shore. He had cheated on her and broken her heart before, so I wasn’t a fan of him at all, but after watching several boyfriends leave or break her heart, and after watching her struggle constantly with online dating, who was I to stop her from being with him?

Growing up, my mom was constantly dating, and she was very open about it. My whole life had been taking care of her, because it was never in her head that she was supposed to live alone. Sure, she was incredibly strong, but she was also incredibly confused and depressed. She grew up wanting a husband and kids, and while she got the kids, she never got her perfect husband, and my sister and I had to constantly live with her disappointment. My mom went to stay with Sean, and never came back. I got a text message from her that she got married, and she made a life for herself. Since I was 18 I was technically an adult, so technically she did nothing wrong, but you don’t realize just how young you still are when you’re 18 years old.

I didn’t no how to cope with such an enormous empty feeling, so I replaced it with what I learned to do: have a lot of sex.

I went from sleeping with one person, my first love, to several people, in a span of months. It was awful. I had some really great guy friends, and when they showed interest in me, I automatically assumed I needed to sleep with them in order to receive love from them. I’d wake up in the morning feeling filthy, wrong, and quite frankly very unfamiliar with myself. Who was this person that suddenly slept with every man that moved? This wasn’t me! I put these guys before everything, including school and work, and it all came back to haunt me soon enough.

One I ruined my GPA, had no job, and lost nearly all of my guyfriends fro obtaining quite a reputation and getting heartbroken from nearly all of them, I hit rock bottom, and felt the emptiness all over again. None of this was solving any of my problems, but actually just severely avoiding them. I had to find out who I was and what I wanted to do with my life.

I’ve spent this past few years really finding myself, and who I want to be. Sex is faaaarrr in the back of my mind (unless I’m watching a scene of Lord of the Rings with Aragorn), and I’ve dedicated my time to a fresh start. I transferred to UMBC, turned to therapy and acupuncture, started playing the banjo, and have been working as a barista for nearly two years.

I didn’t tell you my story to get sympathy, or to show off who I am today. I just wanted to share the difficult lesson I learned. Sex does not promote your self-esteem, and it doesn’t solve problems. Also, it’s really, really, really okay to hit rock bottom sometimes. As Kurt Vonnegut said: “I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center”

Namaste

Recently, I have started going to yoga classes at the RAC twice a week with my roommate and one of my suite mates. After going to a few sessions, I realized how much yoga makes me aware of my body in different ways.

First class: I walk into the room where the class is held, and I see a slew of medium-height, slender girls (and a few guys) with perfectly toned bodies who gracefully rolled out their yoga mats and sat down and stretched their perfectly formed muscles.

Fictional Reality: the Danger of Matter over Mind

I think at this point in my life, I can safely say that I owe most of my coping mechanisms to the vast amounts of fantasy fiction that I’ve read. Cartesian dualism has been an integral part of the way in which I built my world, and up until this point has been the only way in which I know how to reconcile what happens inside of my head and what happens in the outside world.

Smiling

After some careful thought, I’ve decided to release my deepest body-related secret onto our class blog.  By now I don’t mind that my anonymity is basically gone, unless you haven’t connected the dots between the girl who complains about her knee problems on the blog and the girl who complains about her knee problems in class.  (There, I just did it for you.)

It’s something I’ve never discussed with anyone, and my hands feel weak and jittery as I write this.

Lets Make Girls Unstoppable

Have you heard about Dove’s campaign called Lets Make Girls Unstoppable? It aims to help girls build self esteem. I first heard about this on Access Hollywood’s morning show when Jess Weiner was a guest on the show. Please take six and half minutes to watch the clip from the show.

I love my body (most of the time)

Sometimes when I look in the mirror I don’t always like what I see. Sometimes my jeans are too tight, sometimes my thighs jiggle too much, sometimes I just feel downright ugly.

Leaving The Labyrinth of Self Loathing

I was recently perusing the world wide webs when I came across an article entitled “7 Things To Look At When You Feel Bad About Your Body“. I encourage everyone to go read it now. Right this minute and then come back here…Go ahead…I’ll wait… (Warning: Contains bodies, in various forms and fashions)