“Right. I look fine. Except I don’t,’ said Zora, tugging sadly at her man’s nightshirt. This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn’t be able to protect them from self-disgust. To that end she had tried banning television in the early years, and never had a lipstick or a woman’s magazine crossed the threshold of the Belsey home to Kiki’s knowledge, but these and other precautionary measures had made no difference. It was in the air, or so it seemed to Kiki, this hatred of women and their bodies– it seeped in with every draught in the house; people brought it home on their shoes, they breathed it in off their newspapers. There was no way to control it.”
Zadie Smith, On Beauty
Do you ever look at the ads for slimming groups or the front of magazines which show the “before” and “after” of the person’s figure. A lot of us have them. The old photos that you don’t know why you keep except perhaps as a warning of what you don’t want to go back to. The sense of achievement that you don’t look like that anymore.
I hate them.
In recent years I’m very aware of the fact that I have gained weight and reverted to my own “before” image and it makes me think of them. In a way they are strangely comforting. I did this before-I can do it again.
All my life-from primary school onwards, I’ve been labelled because of my weight. I can remember it being commented on by a friend’s mother at the age of 10 and from then on the idea was planted firmly in my head and regularly reinforced, that not being thin was a failing. I was labelled, taunted, criticised and patronised for my weight but no one set me apart more than I did. Especially at times when I used the same weapons against myself.
When you are or have been overweight it becomes the thing that people comment on when they see you-often before even saying hello-whether you have lost, gained or are dieting. Phrases such as “you’re keeping the weight down” become so commonplace that when they don’t appear you know that sadly, you’re yet again letting the side down so to speak.
So yes…I am again the image in the photos of my early twenties that I wanted to forget about because I was “never going back to that” and suddenly I look at those stuffed away photos in a new light. Did that girl really deserve to be hidden away? If so, what does that mean for me now? I have put on that dreaded weight. Does that make me less of a person? If so, what about the facts? I am older. I am taking medication with a side effect of weight gain. I have been through a lot in recent years. I have working hard on piecing things back together. Does physical appearance really take all of that away?
I can look back on the taunting and teasing without any strong feelings but it’s my own fight with myself that is hardest to deal with.
I think we are all a series of “before” and “after” physically and emotionally-in ways of thinking, ways of coping, habits, work, families, things we’ve learned. But I don’t think the “after” can ever really cancel out the “before” and nor should it. The “after” whether to do with physical appearance, achievements or thinking is to be celebrated but there’s a strength in the before that can’t be overlooked. Who we were is the person who fought, the person who developed the motivation to change, the person who kept going before the insights or the catalyst.
I am tired of the self-loathing. Being tired of it isn’t enough to get rid of it-it’s been the habit of a lifetime. It’s the pressure to conform, the low confidence, the torture of clothes sizing, the feelings of inadequacy, the not fitting in and, worst of all, the legacy of depression.
Whatever roads have brought us to where we are today, our bodies are the vehicles that have taken us there. I have fought with mine in various ways my whole life and only sometimes, taken the time to acknowledge that it has survived battles and kept going when sometimes it might have been easier to give up.
I think this is a roundabout way of saying that if accepting ourselves as we are, right now, is too much of a tall order for any one of us than maybe it can be done as part of a group effort. We are not only who we are now; we are an eclectic mix of the visual, the internal, the past and the paths we are on towards the next series of “after” pictures.
Let’s look at those “before” shots in advertisements, magazines and in our own photo albums. Let’s acknowledge the existence of the figure in the picture and tell them that they are beautiful and an integral part of making it this far.
Who we are is made up of millions and millions of atoms of colour, personality, movement, words, flesh and bone. It’s not good enough that each generation, barely out of childhood, learns that a number on a scale is going to determine their self-worth for the rest of their life.
We might not know it yet…but we deserve better.
“It’s not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.”
Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot
“WHO
lives inside your skin? The outside belongs to others. Only you should decide for you –
WHAT
is perfect.”
Ellen Hopkins, Perfect
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