Dear diary,
Probably a more poignant entry but today I came to a crazy revelation. My entire life some of my youngest memories include my body being commented on. From my aunt’s girlfriend lifting me up and telling me “I don’t have to try to look pregnant” or when my friends said they didn’t want to give me a piggy back because I was too fat (in fairness I was chubby but never obese a year above boy could most certainly lift me, but that’s beside the point), or to when my babysitter told me she reckons that I could eat a massive pizza by myself at the mere age of 8. Even in ballet I always felt ashamed of my body and I was comparing myself to other girls, wondering why my stomach stuck out a bit more, or why my thighs touched. Note I mentioned a life-changing revelation, and that is that all those comments, every single word that took a jab at my body, I would manifest on them, I cared what people thought, and I could never forget each time, from the most minute thing said to the worst thing anyones ever said to me. The revelation is this; these comments have formed a crippling sense of body dysmorphia, and I’ve never felt more disgusted by myself than today. I’m still young, 17, I can change my body and I’m aware but I’ve never felt motivated. I see myself as obese, but my friends think I’m curvy or ‘thick’, I finally feel confident and then look at my friends and begin to compare my body, why isn’t my waist that thin and why aren’t my boobs and bum that big. It’s awful, in my childhood up until now, I’ve never once hated my body, I’ve never once felt comfortable and confident whilst out, I get anxious at social events, I make sure to suck in my tummy whilst sat, if I feel a lack of control over my stomach I stand, tiny fears come to me and destroy my self esteem. I’m frustrated and I’m tired, I want to be like the girls online, I want to be pretty or to at least feel it. But the most heartbreaking part is I know I can’t, I just need to learn to accept myself. yet I wish I didn’t have to resort to settling, and I wish that I could just understand what it feels like to be pretty. I’m surrounded by pretty people and I just wish I could be them for a day, experience all the perks and advantages, I want boys to like me and not just friend me, I’m fed up of being that girl, and I hate this term but I’m fed up of being coined as the DUFF. I want a break, I want to feel free from this but I’m stuck, like I’m suffocating, I can’t win.
P.S: I am not trying to drag the body positivity movement back by 100 years, and I wish I was confident and could love my body for how it is, but if I don’t want to embrace the way I look, isn’t that okay too?
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