Learning from it. Accepting it.

So, this is a follow up from my blog post a few days ago about self acceptance and body image.

Firstly, I cannot express how much writing it down has made me feel so much better. It was a piece I have been wanting to get down in writing for many, many years but haven't felt ready to talk about it or admit all my issues. Mostly because some evil part of me hoped that I could still, in the future, shrink down again and keep all my demons a secret, as most people who suffer with eating disorders do.

But no. I have written and shared and admitted and I feel different now.

I make a promise to myself from here on in to love myself.
That is a scary thing to promise when you've dedicated your whole life to punishing yourself for not having a body that resembles an air-brushed barbie.
I had a lot of responses to the blog both online and also over the telephone, all of which have been helpful and interesting and allowed me to accept that it's all out in the open now. I thought that I should put what I've learned into a plan of action, both to help me stick to it but also to help anyone else out there who may be in a similar, recovering postition.

Here is how I promise to love myself:

1. When I look at the mirror at myself, or at photos of myself, I will not immediately look at myself from a place of judgement. I will smile, un-screw those brows and just look at myself as a person. I will not compare the width of my arm in a photo to the width of the girl stood next to me. I will see myself naked and be thankful for what I have. I am not skinny, but I am BANGING. You heard it here first, back off all those who think otherwise.

2. Eat what you want, when you want and stop when you are full. You are damn right I'm going to eat that cake but I'm not going to wolf it down and pretend it didn't happen, I am going to enjoy everything mouth-watering gulp and stop when I am satisfied. If I restrict myself or make myself feel bad I know that I will later binge and feel worse. Eat what the hell you want. If you tell yourself you can have pringles every moment of every day, very soon you will not want pringles anymore and you will be reaching for that salad. I love healthy food, I bloody thrive on cooking and eating it. No more good and bad foods. Just food.

3. Wear clothes that make you feel good. We all have those items that we love but that don't fit us properly. Whether they are too big or two small or just the wrong shape for us GET RID. Sell, donate, throw away but don't keep them in your wardrobe haunting you. The hardest but ultimately most satifying thing to do is to give them to your friends who they do fit. At work we have a bit of an ongoing swap-shop in our dressing room. Yes, it is hard for me to give away an awesome pair of trousers that don't fit me and see them looking incredible on someone else but look at how happy that person is with their new trousers? And if you love that person then surely it should give you a sense of pride that you made them look that good. Which brings me to my next point...

4. Stop comparing. The comparing game is an easy option but it will NEVER make you feel good. NEVER. If you spend your life picking out people's good and bad bits and not looking them in the eye truly then you will be unhappy. WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT. Look around honestly, beauty is confidence not waist size. EVERYBODY has hang ups. I share a dressing room with 9 other women. I see 9 other women naked every day. It's really hard not to compare yourself. But thankfully these 9 incredible women and I have implemented a safe place to be. The compliments are flowing in that room I tell ya. So much so that I dance around butt naked at least once a week. I think this helps too. Get naked. Get comfortable. Embrace yourself.

5. Stop reading beauty magazines/fitness magazines/reading pop-up stories about weight loss or gain. CUT IT OUT. Do not support an industry that is making you and your future children feel inadequate. Get angry at adverts that make you feel bad, tweet about it, post about it. These adverts are not the truth, they are selling a product. Be the change you want to see.

6. Exercise for your soul not your butt. I know that I feel bloody fantastic after a good session. Much like I feel fantastic after eating great food and not sluggish. Relearn what makes you feel good and introduce variety and excitement back into your exercise regime. Don't go to spin if it makes you hate yourself and want to vomit, go to dance class. Don't go to dance class if it makes you feel insecure, go for a breezy run in the sunshine alone. Go to yoga and stretch and learn about this body that you have a new respect for. Respect your body and it will respect you right back with strong muscles and a long healthy life.

7. Treat yourself as you treat your loved ones. No more negative self talk. You have to implement this now and work on it slowly. Just simply don't allow any negativity. I realise this is hard, especially on those days when you are due on, your belly is an angry football and you've eaten an entire packet chocolate eclairs. But talk to yourself as you would talk to your daughter, husband, mother. A few women talk about how having a child can make them see a younger version of themselves. Remember that you were a young person once. Treat that person nicely.

8. Shake what ya mama gave ya. Walk with confidence, head held high, shoulders back, smile on face. Sometimes when we're stuck in a rut we need to work from the outside in. Believing in your own confidence will build it up. Accept the compliments that will undoubtably come, store them in your brain bank and most importantly BELIEVE them. Other people don't need to compliment you, be glad that they have, be thankful.

9. Finally, you must share. Whether that be writing like me or calling a friend or coffee chats or whatever. You have to talk about how you feel. Otherwise the negativity inside you will fester and grow. We are all excellent puppateers and the puppet shows in our head are crazy, negative, spiralling stories that only get worse not better. Talk openly and honestly to your chosen friends or family, it is good for everyone. You will feel better for sharing and your chosen person will feel special for being trusted and will be more likely to come back to you to share in the future. Compassion and connection is what we all need and thrive on. Give yourself the gift of truth.

And that's that. This won't all happen overnight by any means but at least I see now what I need to do. And I hope you do too.

Good luck!
xxx

Self. Body. Acceptance.

So usually in my blogs I try to give advice through my own experiences. Before, I have posted personal advice about dealing with depression, anxiety and everything else that goes with being an overly complicated and over-thinking millennial. But this time, I think it is me who is asking for advice, for help.

My name is Joanna, I am 27 years old, and I cannot accept my body.

No, I don’t have a disability. Yes all my limbs work. I don’t have a degenerative disease slowly taking away abilities. I am not overweight (at least not by average everyday standards – I don’t think). I can even dance a little.

I just simply cannot love my body.

Sure, there are days when I look in the mirror and I think ‘ooh, that bit looks nice today’ or ‘wow haven’t my legs improved with all this exercise I’ve been doing’ but as soon as you can shout ‘HORMONES-A-COMIN!’ I am staring at myself and poking my wobbly bits, convincing myself I have cellulite for days, fat gigantic arms and a stomach that resembles a 5 month pregnant lady.

It frustrates me so because in every other aspect of my life I seem to have brought myself to a place of peace, of acceptance, of euphoric and celebratory weirdness.

When I was younger I suffered from eating disorders. I used to starve myself for say, a couple weeks, drop lots of weight, be overwhelmed with hunger and stuff myself silly with everything I could find. One day I would pouring crumbs of cereal into a bowl and a dash of milk and leaving it in the sink so my poor mother would think I had eaten breakfast and the next day I would be eating icing sugar with a spoon. I used to throw away my lunch, be ‘too tired’ for dinner and eat a pint of ice cubes at my evening am-dram rehearsal. I tried making myself sick for a while and it worked but I didn’t enjoy it much and it made my voice red-raw so I opted for taking the Cadbury’s chocolate mini rolls into the toilet with me and chewing them up and spitting them out so that I could ‘just get the taste but not the calories’. I ate kitchen paper, smoked cigarettes, became a diet coke addict, all so that I could have a body like Britney Spears. Her super low-slung jeans and her oiled-up stomach haunted my dreams at night and my every waking thought. It was all I wanted. And if I got it, I told myself I could achieve everything I ever dreamed.

Now, I’m sure a few people out there are utterly shocked at this and a few others (including close friends of mine) are unfortunately thinking ‘that’s nothing, I was hospitalized, I couldn’t stop myself and I nearly died’ and here’s where it gets really horrible. I was JEALOUS of those people. I wanted to get so thin that I might break. I hated anyone who could resist eating for just a day longer than me. I went on pro-ana websites and printed off images of seriously ill women and pritt-sticked them into a sketch book next to lyrics I’d found that encouraged me to keep going. If I caved and ate anything I was a failure. So you can only imagine how I felt after an almighty binge. A dear friend of mine told me how she was hospitalized when she was young and how horrific it was and all I could think was ‘I’m so jealous, she is so much stronger than I am to get to that point’.

Yep. Totally fucked up.

Anorexia is an illness that affects more of us than we realize. But unfortunately until that person is literally dying from starvation no one really has the guts to do anything about it or help. It seems, to most people, that it’s not really a problem until it is REALLY a problem. And up until that point it is mostly attention seeking. I never got help. It’s not that my parents weren’t loving and attentive – my Mum certainly noticed the fluctuations at times. But I was a well functioning kid. I got good grades, I never passed out (much to my disdain) and to be honest, apart from a few brief moments in time, I would usually have been described as more ‘chubby’ than thin.

It didn’t get easier on my move to drama school. Now there were boys. Proper boys that lived in their own house-shares and could party all night with us at our house with no curfew. I had only just turned 18 and I came from Somerset. This was big news. I fell in love rapidly with no chance to stop myself. I told him everything. I wrote terrifying poetry about my need to be thin and my unhappiness in my own skin. Obviously the poor sod thought this was a bit full-on and quickly broke up with me (while I was naked in his bed – thanks mate) and so I was heartbroken and the cycle continued. At this point I got very thin. An average day’s food intake would be about 30g of frozen veg quickly zapped in the microwave. People started to show concern. Family and friends would seem alarmed and be checking that I was ok. Teachers, on the other hand, would congratulate me on my fantastic weight loss and ENCOURAGE ME TO KEEP GOING.

And, here’s the kicker, I STILL didn’t like my body. I felt awkward and un-womanly. I looked at myself in the mirror confused about who I was and what I was supposed to do with this strange and gangly body.

I spiraled back and forth for a number of years. Shortly after this thin period I suffered 4 losses in my life (yes, 4) and I got very fat. Crisps are a brilliant comforter. Returning to drama school I was told that I was ‘too pretty to be fat’ and that I needed to change. On and on it went through graduating, working, comments from older actors advising me that I would work more if I lost a few pounds (like this wasn’t already consuming the inside of my brain day in, day out), through breakups and house moves and unemployment, back and forth I would go. Constantly trapped in a never-ending self-hatred.

This was my main overriding thought: I do not want to be the type to conform to an ideal body size in order to obtain leading roles. But, I do not want to never fulfill my dreams because of my body size.

Just over a year ago, a friend suggested a wonderful book to me called ‘Intuitive Eating’ and I can, hand on heart, say it changed my life. The ideas in the book are perfect and would help anybody. I’m not going to tell you what they are, you just need to read the book. But anyway, the book changed my life, I have formed a relationship with food that is mostly healthy, I rarely binge, I NEVER starve myself and most importantly, the idea of crazy crash diets has long been thrown out the window. So, all’s well that ends well, right?

Well…..

I tried on my wedding dress the other day and I thought I looked fat. Now this is the most beautiful dress I have ever seen, let alone spent a lot of money on (thanks parents, Grandma). Why the FUCK (sorry parents, Grandma) did I think I looked fat?

I am not a size 8. And my ass is not a size 10. I think I am taller than I actually am. I look in the mirror and I CANNOT SEE WHAT I AM. I cannot tell if I am fat or thin or just right or in proportion or if I have weirdly large thighs, thin arms, fat arms, tiny waist or just tiny because the rest of me is super large. Am I pretty? Or am I just alright at make-up? Are my boobs banging or are they flobby pieces of lard that hang unattractively from a not-as-bony-as-I-would-like chest?

I am sick to death of it.

Hello, my name is Joanna, I am 27 years old and I can’t even SEE my body for what it really is, let alone accept it.

So what do I do? Well, old habits die hard. I exercise twice daily and put myself on a calorie restrictive diet. I become obsessed and hostile towards other people’s perfect bodies. I become angry. All the while in the back of my head, a resilient little voice is going ‘you don’t need this, you’ve come so far and you KNOW this isn’t right’. At the end of a torturous week I step on the scale to see I’ve GAINED half a pound.

Next thing I do is throw it all in the pan, eat 2 plates of curry and a chocolate bar and buy several self-help books on amazon. Yes, I realize I am a walking cliché. No, I don’t know what to do about it.

The thing is, I think, unless I torture myself, this is the shape and size my body is supposed to be. But I still yearn for something that it’s not. It begins to consume me and it bloody wastes my time. Most of me realizes that the only answer is to just keep going. Keep exercising (for your health) and eating fresh (for your health) and the rest will just fall into place. Most of me understands this. But there is still a large part of me that aims and wishes to be something other, something unachievable.

I need to learn to ACCEPT myself as I am, right now.

I don’t want to be the old lady that regrets that she spent her entire young life worrying about how fat she looked in high-wasted skinny jeans.

How do I do it?

I am at my wits end. I want to love myself. I want to embrace myself. I want to walk with confidence and not feel uncomfortable in every outfit that I have lovingly and elegantly put together. I want to walk into a room and feel that I’m being greeted with love, not everybody inwardly commenting about how chubby I am. I want to feel beautiful. I want to accept my body shape. I want to change my undying and unconscious opinion of what beauty is.

If I want all of this so badly then why can’t I find a way in?

Answers on a postcard, please.

Love,

Woman writing at laptop with cute cat sat on her slightly too wide lap. 

xxx