Taking up space, apologetically.

It's strange how the brain works. You'd think by now, I'd know better, as a therapist, as someone who helps others work on things like this daily. And yet, I catch myself doing it often – being my own worst enemy before anyone else gets the chance.

This happened to me recently with a dress. A simple, flowing, sleeveless dress. I'd packed it for this trip to a foreign country specifically for moments where the eyes watching me didn't belong to people I'd known since childhood. Away from the people whose judgements had somehow become my own internal monologue.

I put it on freely that morning, and I liked what I saw. I felt pretty. Genuinely happy in my own skin for a once.

I took a bunch of selfies that day. Twirling in the mirror, grinning in the lift.

The best photo was one that wasn't even planned though.

It was later, in a cafe I randomly stopped at, that their had pet dogs roaming free. One of them decided I was his person and wanted belly rubs. I'm in the picture, laughing, unbothered, completely present with this excited dog. The cafe owner took the photo and it was beautiful. No posing, no strategic angles.

Just me, happy, alive, free.

I went home and opened the photo to post it.

And everything changed in my head.

Suddenly, it was ugly. The dress was wrong. My arms were huge. You could see my belly sticking out, and my double chin. Why on earth did I think I could post that?

I started picking apart every detail. Started hovering over the editing apps, fighting the urge to make myself smaller, smoother, less visible. All the usual stuff.

Here's the conflict though: I don't hate myself. I don't hate my body. I respect it, even love some parts of it. But I've spent so long internalising judgement from people around me that my inner critic is on autopilot now. I attack myself before anyone can. I don't even see it as an attack most days, just me keeping myself safe.

I keep myself locked away, hurting myself, to make sure that no one else gets the chance to hurt me first.

I created an Instagram page at the start of my journey, making it public, to force myself out of this.

To learn to exist without constantly apologising for my body, to post things that scare me, to prove that I could be visible even when it terrified me.

But the moment it actually came time to do that – posting to zero followers, just an audience of strangers scrolling past – I wanted to shrink.

I had to sit with that for a while and ask myself how honest and authentic I could really allow myself to be.

If my page was really about wandering toward me, then wasn't I supposed to give myself permission to do exactly that?

Isn't that exactly where that photo deserved to exist?

I sat with it for 2 days. Editing, un-editing. Cropping, filtering, undoing changes.

And then, I allowed myself to post it. Forced myself, to be honest.

I posted it unedited and unfiltered.

The photo isn't perfect. I don't look flawless. I haven't miraculously conquered my insecurities.

But I posted it because the photo is real.

It's a moment of pure happiness. It's a capture of something true. I was happy, and present, and I deserved to remember that.

I posted it because I don't want my memories to be filtered through the lens of whether I looked small enough to deserve them.

So I posted it anyway.

It's out there.

I am out there now, taking up space. Being seen. Working towards being unapologetic.