What Nourishes me Destroys me

Not many people know me online anymore. I have stayed well hidden for quite some time. I'm only now starting to become 'vocal' again. I'd like to start with something that I am very serious and passionate about. Something I don't want to joke about at all.

We all see and hear it daily. Stupid promotional pictures and videos about being so thing and being perfectly skinny. A bunch of sick pictures of people with their hip bones sticking out or carving things like, "I need to be skinny" onto themselves. All kinds of obscene and disturbing things. Things that should most definitely not be normalized or glamorized.

Looking through my daily feeds on different platforms, I came across a video or a very thin youtuber. One who enjoys posting "makeup videos" where the sole focus is getting the audience to see her collar bones or rib cage. Some people care about this person, others are aspiring to have her "flat stomach". Some of the people who commented on this video had some horrible usernames. Names like Starving4perfection, bingexpurge, and ana4eva. They were all glorifying this insanely emaciated body and expressing their desire to have one just like it. So, I posted my own comment about how it's wrong to glorify eating disorders. I then got hated on for calling out these sickos because apparenbtly we should all be in favor of "thinspo".

You do know what thinspo is, correct? It is content made up by someone who probably does have an eating disorder or a mental illness in which they think that being skinny is the number one most important thing in the entire world. They just sit and reblog pictures of thin people and write horrible things about themselves and other people. Things about how terrible it is if you are not a size double zero.

I want to talk about my own weight because that's something that alot of girls don't feel comfortable talking about... including me Basically, my weight has fluctuated and haunted me my entire life. I'm not gonna lie, it does suck that I can't wear a certain dress because my chest will pop out and they can't zip up past my boobs. It does suck that I feel like I have side stuff going on or it just doesn't look right.

I used to be so ashamed of my feminine body because of people making some not so nice comments on it. Especially in regards to my chest. It was (and still is) a sin to have breasts in my family. During my teen years, I got alot of grief about it. It used to make me so uncomfortable to the point where I wouldn't even want to be around family or friends. Eventually, I got to the point where I didn't want to eat anything at all.

It was bad.

My weight has been one of those things that is very sensitive to me. It takes alot to really get under my skin, especially if I don't know or like you. However, saying something directly about my weight... that is one thing that really does get to me. I grew up with two sisters who loved using that to hurt me. If they wanted to hurt my feelings or make me feel bad about myself, or even just to make themselves feel better about their own flaws, out would come the comments about how someone would only like me because I had a big chest. That or how I was jealous that they could wear something that I couldn't. Hearing something like that isn't something you wanna hear from anyone, let alone your own sister.

Constantly having to see pictures of these super thin girls and the people that are so obsessed with looking like them is just another thing that will make you feel unworthy. They are a size zero or a size two. You are a size ten or an eight, (which by the way is totally healthy!) The height of my own issues came while I was pregnant with my first child. I gained five pounds in four months and a nurse commented on it. She warned me I was gaining too much weight and told me that I could be at risk for gestational diabetes or that I could kill my baby. I was a first time mom. I was terrified.

I was already only eating once a day, if that. I was still struggling badly with my own issues. After hearing that news, I began to skip meals for days. Which was hard as a pregnant woman. If I did eat, I would make sure to eat something very easy to recognize before eating an actual meal. Then after eating the meal, I would purge. Getting rid of everything I could before seeing that recognizable food in my vomit. I would stop and keep that in there for my baby. It usually consisted of something healthy like carrots. Does this make sense? No. But to someone with a mental illness, it made perfect sense.

It wasn't glamorous leaning over a toilet day after day, making sure everything was gone. Hunger pains, cramps, bile shooting out of my throat for no reason. It was miserable. To see all of this glorified is sad. Eating disorders are vile and can quite literally take your life. My organs began to fail. I lost an extreme amount of weight in a short amount of time. I almost died delivering my baby. Somehow, she was perfectly healthy. I on the other hand was left anemic, flushed, and with a failing liver and kidneys.

I'm doing much better now. I still have days where I beat myself up. I eat pretty normal now, but still feel guilt. I hope that anyone struggling with this can pull out before it is too late. There is hope. You are worth more than any number on the scale. When it comes to weight, YOU are your own worst enemy. Your mirror and your mind are the enemy. The world around you doesn't see you as you see yourself. Trust me, I know this because it still happens to me. I will walk past a mirror and think, "Oh my gosh, I look terrible! I am so fat!" I will feel like I look about 300 pounds. The reality? I weight 140. I work out almost every day. I eat well and wear a size medium and small in most things. My brain tells me other wise. It tells me my clothes are stretching out. Not that my body is normal sized.

It really sucks that everybody is constantly striving to be thinner and that celebrities, models, people on instagram, and fashion feed into all of that. But, it also has alot to do with the people that you surround yourself with. If you're going to surround yourself with a bunch of thinspo blogs and videos in hopes of losing weight in a healthy way, you're pretty much going to starve yourself to death. There is absolutely no way to eat healthy and be confident by staring at a photoshopped person with an eating disroder who probably doesn't eat anything.

Basically, what I am trying to say is there is nothing wrong with accepting your body for the way that it is, regardless of what society and anyone else wants you to believe. They make money off of you hating yourself. I mean, if you're obese to the point where it is effecting your health, that's one thing. Being skinny, chubby, curvy, or bodacious if we want to take the Tyra Banks route is fine. There is nothing wrong with it. Not everyone is born with the body frame of pixie and the ability to stay paper thin. Not everyone is able to look like a photoshopped super model. No matter how much weight you try and lose and no matter how many different diets you go on, not everyone is meant to look like that.

I have tried different diets, I eat healthy, I work out. I've toned up quite a bit in the past few months especially. But, I know that I will never ever be super skinny like those girls. I will always have a little extra something. This is how I was built. No one should ever feel subpar to fit into society. if that's what society wants, then screw society! Do what makes YOU happy! You do not have to be super skinny. There are people out there who love you for other things.

People out there probably don't even notice your size the way you do. People probably don't look at you and think, "She/he would never fit into my size two jeans. " It's more logical that they think, "That person is a snazzy artist!" or "They are the most amazing singer!" I bet they look at you and think that you are the best writer in the universe or are so proud of you for graduating at the top of your class.

It doesn't matter what size pants you are. It doesn't matter what you ate for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It does not freaking matter. I just hope that the time is coming that we are not all forced to see it in our feeds. We shouldn't have to see pictures of torsos with bones poking out everywhere. It isn't glamorous. I really hope the time is coming that people all start to realize that being skinny is one of the least important things in the entire world.

So, that cupcake you were thinking about earlier? Go eat it. You deserve it.