Body Image Issues

Negative body imaging is real for many people, especially women.

I have struggled with it my whole life. I remember as a kid growing up, people would call me chicken legs. Even as a kid that made me self-consious.

I filled out into my teens, had thick thighs and decent sized boobs, bigger than my other group of friends had. It always made me feel poorly about myself, I felt fat. But growing into an adult, and looking back at pics of myself, I had a great body! What was I thinking??

It didn't stop though, and I've gone through periods in my life where I have been overweight, but then I have been in phases with healthy weights, and I still felt fat and ugly.

I just had an realization last night that I've been doing it again. See. I have believed that the whole 6 months I've been dating my boyfriend, that I was bigger than him. I mean, his legs are for sure a little skinnier than mine, but I thought I was even fatter than him up top (especially with my having boobs). And so last night at his house when I mentioned I wished I had more than just my work shirt there, he offered me to use one of his that were too small for him.

I hit panic mode.

All I could think of was the utter humiliation of him having me try this shirt on just to see it was even smaller on me than it was him.

I tried to back out but it was too late, the ball was already rolling and he insisted.

The amount of anxiety and shame I felt in that moment was really alarming to me, and very sad in all reality.

What blew my mind though was when I tried it on... and it actually fit well.

It literally shattered the image I have been holding onto myself about forever now. I really was speechless, and it made me really think about how morphed us women make ourselves in our minds, especially in these times with all the photoshop and filters all over the media and social media.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still about 18 pounds over what is considered a healthy weight for my height. But the way I saw myself in my head was disgustingly over weight.

How much do we that with ourselves on a daily basis, not just with our weight, but with our looks in general? It's sad to me to know how common this is, and that we are all doing it to ourselves to one extent or the other.

I think body imaging is very important, and we need to be aware of how we see ourselves, because it can affect how we move through the world as people. I know it has for me. I've avoided buying certain types of clothes that now I see would have looked just fine on me. But I walked through life every day with very little confidence in myself, and that affected how I even interact with other people and the way I feel comfortable in being myself.

I'm writing this to bring awareness to anyone struggling with body imaging issues to let you know that you are more than likely very much being too hard on yourself!

I am still a bit overweight, but my god, I am actually still pretty good looking! And there are steps I am starting to take every day to make myself be and feel even better.

So if you're being hard on yourself, take a step back and realize your probably not being fair to yourself. Give yourself a little more credit and definitely a bit more love. It can't hurt! It's a really liberating feeling if you can just alter your mindset just a bit more to the positive side.

We all deserve it!