What have I got That makes you want to love me? Is it my body? Or someone I might be?

 This essay will feature discussions surrounding abuse and body image, including discussions of self-harm and disordered eating. If this is not the conversation for you, please come back next time. xo.

I have almost always hated my body. If the hatred did not come internally as internalized shame from having been abused, it was externally projected on me by people who were outraged by my body's mere existence.  And, mind you, a lot of these really terrible comments and body shaming instances came from people who are well-aware that I have these issues with my brain, and that setting me off on a spiral could literally kill me.

I don't know how old I am in the above photo, but I remember being absolutely miserable. I hated any kind of attention being paid to me or being brought to attention, because it made me feel vulnerable and scared. I was being forced to smile, forced to sit still. Already, I was *visibly uncomfortable* with my body, to the point where I was sitting a certain way to minimize it. 

I know I get a lot of critical comments from my family about how I am retroactively changing my tune, revisionist history, if you will--but the actual truth is, I was absolutely miserable. I was just not allowed to be miserable. I had to be quiet and take up as little space as possible because I "ruin everything," am "so whiny,"  "so selfish" for expressing any kind of needs. Their version of me where I had "a happy childhood"--the one where I was quiet, invisible, docile, complacent--is actually the version of events that is not true. I was not a happy child. I had happy moments, but I was not a happy child.  I was routinely shamed and punished for not putting on a happy performance, was called "selfish" for expressing basic needs.

My relationship with my body now is the best it has ever been. Even now it is not perfect. Even now I still feel bad about taking up space in public. Even now, I try to cover my body as much as possible. Even now at the happiest and healthiest I have ever been (minus health issues and chronic pain), it's not perfect.

It also stands to reason mentioning that when I was coming up as a pre-teen and teenager, it was the body image hellscape of the early 2000's.  Calling the "standards" of the time "toxic" is even being polite. Of course, the body positivity movement has changed a lot of this (and I am not, as a thin person, going to take up space in the bo po movement or make it about me, I am just giving credit where it's due). We also, unfortunately, have the Kardashians to thank, and their popularizing of body types that Black and Indigenous women have always had. I get comments, mostly from other women, on "how lucky" I am now that my body is "trendy." I correct them by saying that my body is going to be my body no matter what is trendy.

*Twilight Zone guy voice* Imagine, if you will, being a pre-teen, having been abused as a child, and then developing early, during the early 2000's Hellscape of Body Image Disaster. Yeah. GREAT STUFF.

Anyway.

I know that it's probably unnoticeable to anyone but me, but you can see here in this photo the crease in the front of my pants were my lower abdomen protrudes. I know this seems insignificant to other people, and I am sure it is barely noticeable. However, it is to me, and when I feel shame, I physically feel it there.

I hate the way this pinafore looks on me.

I often blame my body when things go wrong. 

Part of this, of course, is due to the fact that my chronic health issues/ pain/ failures are seen as "annoying" and "attention seeking" great inconveniences. Sorry that my inflammation which makes me feel like I am repeatedly struck by lightening is annoying you, inconveniencing you so much. Again, how dare I occupy any little bit of space ever.

The other part of it is existing in a world that has created a false scarcity mindset. You know, being in a business where they call you in to audition, an audition you pay for, and knowing they don't need you, but taking your money anyway, when they know already they're going to give it to someone thinner. Taller. Lighter skinned. Intellectually, you know that there is nothing wrong with your audition, you sang your best, and it wouldn't have mattered how good you were or were not, because they had already picked someone else. But there is a part of your brain, and emotional and traumatized part of your brain, that tells yourself that your body was a distraction, that your body wasn't good enough, that you wore the wrong thing. That you dared to take up space in a world that doesn't want you and wasn't meant for you.

Yet another part of it is being constantly objectified, but that objectification just not being enough. OF COURSE, someone who care about is going to choose the thinner person, who isn't as attractive as you, who doesn't sing as well as you do, who isn't as smart as you. But they're thinner, and that's all the world cares about, isn't it? You were good enough to be objectified, to be some weird, creepy rac!al f3t!sh, but not good enough or enough-enough for personhood. I mean, how dare you think, in any way, you were going to be afforded any space, let alone any personhood. Who do you think you are?

I am part of an industry where looks should not matter, but they absolutely do. I want to believe that I am more than my face and more than my body--but, in all actuality, am I? If we are being perfectly honest, am I? And in my case, am I even worth that much? 

My entire life, I have been made to feel as though my body is offensive and disgusting--like my body, like I, should not exist, least of all in a public space. Whether it's people in my family making disparaging comments, or other women openly scoffing me for daring to wear a tank top in 105* heat. Or sometimes it's internal feelings instead of the external distain--sometimes it's me hating my body because of the horrible things that have been done to it, my body which feels disgusting and foreign, my body which is objectified, r@c!lly f3t!shized and denied personhood. The little body that little me sliced into ribbons to make it even more repulsive so that no one would ever want to touch me again. The little body that little me punished for developing by denying it food.

And, I know, I know. A lot of it is "just comments." I know some people could easily ignore them.  But the comments are relentless. They come externally and internally. They also come coupled and informed by a history of trauma.

I know that we only get to live one life, we only get one body, and that my body will not look like this forever. I am choosing to enjoy it in whatever capacity I have while I can. This, of course, remains imperfect. I still don't want to to wear shorts or swim suits or anything else that will draw attention to my body or take up space. I still don't want to be in photographs. I still don't want attention, least of all male attention.

But I am trying. I am always trying to be nicer to myself, in a world that still refuses to be nice to me, or my body.