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