Body Love: R is for Roots
The way that we look at our own bodies is very much influenced by our experiences of other people’s approaches towards our bodies. If you come from a loving and non-judgmental home, you most likely have a more positive perspective. If you have been bullied for the way you look, you might struggle with body acceptance and have internalized a lot of those views. It can be difficult to change those perspectives, and even the smallest comments from the past can forever linger in the backs of our heads. I certainly struggle with this a lot and although I am aware of where the roots of my negative body image lie, I have a hard time cutting them off.
Throughout the A to Z challenge this year, it has probably become more than apparent that I don’t have a very positive body image. I have been working hard on learning to love all parts of my body, and being more accepting of that I don’t have and never will have the sort of body that society in general would deem as beautiful. But it is hard. I compare myself to others, and I can’t keep away the thoughts that a fat or overweight body is unattractive.
The interesting thing is that I don’t feel that way about others. I see something beautiful in everyone. Would I fuck everyone? No, of course not. But beautiful doesn’t need to be equal to being attractive. I don’t have to be attracted to someone to see beauty in them. Body shape is not important to me when I look at others. Personality, creativity, confidence and intelligence are what I find fuckable. Bodies don’t have much to do with sexual attraction, or romantic attraction, for me.
It is odd that I have been able to question and disregard the negative thoughts about fat bodies when it comes to others. I treat myself and my own body not with the same compassion and kindness. I seem to have a different gaze on myself than I have on others. And it doesn’t matter that I am aware of this, because so far I have done a pretty bad job with erasing those negative views that have been conditioned into my mind ever since I was a chubby kid.
Roots to my negative body image
So the roots to my body hate are definitely to be found in my childhood. They are linked to comparing myself to others, and to the premise that a fat body is unwanted. It all started when I was a small kid and I was a bit chubby. My parents started limiting my food intake and I felt unfairly treated because my siblings were still allowed the “bad” food, like chocolate, ice cream and the fries. My portions became smaller. And I got daily reminders of how a fat girl would never land a successful husband, and how I needed to be slim and beautiful to attract the other sex.
It was really weird. For my parents it was never really about being healthy. It was about being slim. I didn’t have to love my body. It was all about what others thought. So my goal was to become attractive to others. I am still fighting with the need for appreciation from others. It is not like I panicky crave compliments. But it is more like when others comment negatively, or not at all, I freak out. I think I am unattractive, unfuckable and I should hide my body.
When I am in a low mood, I might even disbelieve compliments I get. I try to find out what they really mean, if there is any sarcasm detectable, if someone is trying to manipulate me. So even though I have a need to get my worth as an attractive person validated by the views of others, when those views seem positive, I question if they are truthful.
I also constantly compare myself to others. I know that comes from my parents’ constant reminders that I am not as slim as my sister, not as beautiful as my cousin. It was always about that I was the ugly fat daughter that will probably end up alone. So this has led to that I compare myself to others. I look at other people’s bodies and I see how shitty, fat and disgusting I look in comparison to them. It is almost a form of self-destructive behaviour for me, to look at beautiful women, and to hate myself for being a fat ugly blob.
Bullying
A lot of my body hate also derives from the bullying I had to go through. I was bullied for being fat, for being short, for looking Persian, for my big eyes, for my boob shape, for my belly. My body seems to have always been under scrutiny from my peers at school and later also in some friend circles. I was called some vile names, and some nicknames stuck with me for years. Rude names that basically described the way I looked in a very negative way.
The bullying of course got to me, and it is still something I can’t just shake off. I have a difficult time talking to old peers because they often bring up either those nicknames or they comment on how I have such a beautiful face in some of my pictures now. I remember one guy calling me the ugly duckling who has grown into a beautiful swan. And then hit on me. He used to really make fun of me. I blocked him.
All those things I got bullied for, are the things I hate most about my body. I hate that I look Persian from certain angles. I hate that I am fat, that my belly is fat. That my boobs have an odd shape. I don’t hear those words in my head, but I can sense their echos. And I don’t know how to totally ignore them, because it is not like they are wrong. I have a big nose, big eyes, droopy boobs, a big belly. I wish I could understand that those things don’t mean that I am ugly though. They can be beautiful too, or at least intriguing. Or okay.
One thing that has me confused is how selectively I only focus on the negative things that have been said about my body. It doesn’t matter that I basically never was without a partner. That I had people hitting on me. That I had people telling me I am beautiful. All those positive experiences seem to mean nothing in comparison to the bullying and negative comments. I guess we always remember pain more than we do happy moments.
I wish people understood how much hurt one comment can cause. How one nickname, one joke, one look, can forever be stuck in someone’s mind, and make it impossible for them to embrace body love, or even body acceptance.
I am doing the A to Z challenge during the month of April (and apparently beginning of May). My theme is Body Love. So you will get 26 posts from me, following the alphabet, related to the topic body love. You can check out more about the to A to Z challenge by clicking on the banner. You can find a list of sexbloggers participating in the challenge on Mrs Fever’s site.
Personality, creativity, confidence and intelligence as you’ve said are the most important in a person for me also. And please don’t forget that you are awesome, Devie! take care
Yes, I agree! Thank you, Lisa!
oh, dear Devie, I’m so sorry about that bullying you had go through… Kindly beleive that you are awesome!
Thank you, Mary, I appreciate it!
My Queen often hates her body. I tell her she is beautiful and she tells me I’m biased so my opinion doesn’t count. Her ex husband used to say mean and nasty things all the time to her. He’s still in her head and I can’t seem to rid her of him.
I think every woman I ever dated had issues with some parts of their bodies. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it is. I do my best to be positive because like you, I see beauty wherever I look. So I tell people that. I’m not lying—I’m being totally honest. Still I know the compliments are often taken with a grain of salt—“he’s just saying that!” But I’m not!
There’s a Stan Rogers Song called “Lies”. Give it a listen and listen to the words. It says it all for me. I wish my Queen could see herself through my eyes. She’d be full of confidence in all situations then.
It is very difficult to listen to the positive comments from others when the old negativity is always in the back of one’s mind. And we often compare ourselves with others too, without realizing that they might have some body image issues too.
You are a kind person, Michael. I shall give the song a listen!
Let me know what you think! I think it is beautiful—about the best we can experience in life!
I’m similar to you in that bodies don’t have much to do with sexual attraction for me either. And while I have this a lot less nowadays, I relate or related? to how I can see beauty in everyone else but when it comes to myself it’s different, and I think most people can relate to that.
It frustrates me so much hearing from people that parents did something like this, making you feel insecure about yourself and pressured to look ‘amazing’. It has such a long, or forever lasting effect because it happened in your developmental stages.
And then having the bullying on top, which has the same effect (kind of as if you were double bullied really, at home and outside). I wish the same as you. I wish that people would just pause for a second and think about what they do and say, consider how it would make them feel if someone else said it to them. I hope that you’ll be able to appreciate your body more someday. I hope you know that my comments are always genuine, I think you’re beautiful.
I think we look at ourselves with a much stronger critical eye than we do with others. The things that bother me with my own body, I can find attravtive in others. It is really odd.
You know, I don’t think people should in any way open their mouths when they only have something negative to say about other people’s bodies. How hard can it be to just shut up and leave someone be? All he assumptions about health, about why someone is a certain weight or body shape, they are rarely helpful.
Thank you so much for your kind words, ML <3
If you come from a loving and non-judgmental home, you most likely have a more positive perspective.- this hit me right off the bat as something i relate to, my family was not a kind or welcoming one and as a reaualt i have always struggled with liking myself. However, i tottally agree and feel the same in the sense that i think everyone has a beauty to them. Yet i almost dont apply the same logic or rulling to myself. I will never see myself how i see other people and i cant give you a reason for that.
Bullies piss me off in a sense that they use things that are not considered the norm as in the norm for attractive is this or that and if you dont fit there box they come after you, however when its happening inside and outside the home in ways that you almost cant escape it can sometimes get etched on to you like carving in to a stone that is then hard to rub out.
If your told all your life your a carrot your not gonna wake up one morning saying im a turnip even if you are one.
What i can say is that your post really touched me in how much i resonated with it in so many ways from veiws to others to personal expeirencses. Plus from what i have seen of you i would say your beautiful in body as well as in character and your writting speaks for itself in how well constructed and attractive it is to read thank you so much.
I’m sorry to hear that your family wasn’t very kind and it has affected you as well. It makes sense though: it is as children we are supposed to develop a healthy sense of self and self-confidence and if no one teaches us that, then it is very difficult to learn as adults. And as you said, when we meet the same unkindness outside of the home, then it is almost impossible to ever believe differently.
It is so odd that we somehow exclude ourselves from how we see bodies in general, we somehow make ourselves the exception.
Thank you so much for your kind words, I very much appreciate your comment <3