doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
self portrait
self-portrait, week #4
05 years ago
I wanted to do self-portraits every week. However, that doesn’t always work out for me and, quite honestly, I can’t say that I really want to take my own photo every week. It really isn’t all that appealing to me.
There is, afterall, a reason why I am on the other side of the camera.
There is a new movie coming out on HBO this week. Laura Greenfield has created Thin, a look into the lives of four women who are battling eating disorders. I’m looking forward to watching the film. Laura has a history of delving into women’s body images and how society encourages us to look at ourselves and other women in a very critical way.
I’m curious, however, if they saw evidence of body images being taken to the opposite extreme due to how society looks at thin women. For instance, I had been thin my entire life. In my twenties, I got the wrong kind of attention due to the way my body looked and dealt with a lot of violence from men because of it.
To deal with it, I gained weight. I have been told by therapists that I have an eating disorder because I use food and my body for control – just in the opposite way of how people typically use them. Once I gained weight, I was no longer as attractive to men and didn’t get the bad attention that I seemed to get previously.
I used the weight as a mechanism. I used the control of my body and my food intake to control things that were beyond my control otherwise.
The problem with all of this is that the weight I gained so easily isn’t as easily lost. Overcoming the issues that helped me gain weight is an ongoing process. It’s safe being overweight. Who wants a fat girl? I don’t have to worry about being hurt – or hit. I can hide away and not worry about any of that.
But I’m confused, aren’t I? Because I do want to have someone in my life. I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life. In order to do that, do I need to be thin?
I do want to be healthy. And I am working hard to lose weight. I’ve lost some and still have a ways to go.
I’m not actually doing it to be in a relationship. I’m doing it because I want to be healthy. Because I care about myself enough to do it.
Because I am worth it.
self-portrait, week #1
05 years ago
by dawn
in self portrait
I recently read an entry on daisies’ blog about self-portraits and self-assessment. It made me think about a lot of things.
I’m currently working very hard on dealing with some body issues that I have with myself. You see, I love food. I don’t love it in the way that it makes me happy. It’s more of a love-hate relationship. I think about it all of the time. I eat whenever I’m sad or worried or stressed. I eat to take the worry out of eating and then eat more when I become stressed over eating so much.
I’m working on dealing with some of these issues. I’m working on repairing a self-image that has been torn down by plenty of people telling me how ugly or fat I am. The saying goes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But so is ugliness. One person’s ugly is another’s beauty.
I need to remember that.
When I was 16, my aunt (an aunt by marriage, not by blood) told me that I would always be girlfriend material and never wife material because I just wasn’t beautiful enough. My nose is too big, she told me. My body was not the kind that men wanted for the long-term (whatever that means). And I should have ignored her.
But I didn’t. I can still remember the day, the place, and the look in her eye. It was mean. She was delighting in tearing me down. It was gleeful to her.
And when the next person who came along, another person who was supposed to love me, and told me that I was stupid and ugly and fat, I believed him. If two people who supposedly love me say this to me, it must be true. Right?
Wrong. And even if it was true to them, it didn’t need to be my truth.
I’m taking back my life. It’s mine to define, not anyone else’s. I get to decide about myself. I get to feel good even if I’m not perfect. I get to be happy about the small goals that I meet or the little hurdles I cross.
Yes, it’s nice to be patted on the back or told that someone is proud of me (especially if it’s someone I trust). But, in the end, my opinion of myself is the one that counts the most.
And, truthfully, I’m worth so much better than what I’ve allowed myself to have.
I’m taking me back.