A Girl With a Body

: Me, age 1

I’ve believed I was fat for as long as I can remember. I think I was 6 the first time I set a goal to “be able to wear a bikini” like the girls I saw in the catalogs. I cannot remember a time when I didn’t look at a picture of myself and think, “God, I look so gross.” I grew up full of self-hatred and guilt and shame about my body.

: Me, age 10

Now I feel confused when I look back at photos of myself growing up, or even photos from 5 years ago. I wasn’t fat. I was just a girl with a body. And now I’m just a woman with a body. Yes, I have fat. Maybe more than others. But that is not who I am nor is it what defines my body.

: My cousin and I, about age 16. I’m on the right.

My feelings about this are so complicated. It’s quite hard to write about. I feel so angry at the culture that was designed to make me hate my body and sad for the tiny human that grew up full of shame for the body that simply made me human. And if I’m honest, I still feel a lot of shame about my body.

20140712_122812 — Me, Age 25 (2013) I remember looking at this picture and feeling completely disgusted by it. Now I look at it and wonder why on earth I would have felt that way. Why did I not feel proud that I had just CLIMBED A FUCKING MOUNTAIN?

It is so important that we heal our relationships with our bodies as adults so that our children do not inherit body shame the way we have inherited it.

: Me , on my wedding day (2018, Age 28).; When I first looked at the pictures of my wedding day, I had to work SO HARD to focus on the joy that had been captured and not what I felt was shameful about my body.