Not Counting the Calories

A few weeks ago, Laura wrote about how she had begun counting calories as a means of losing weight. I was really interested in this piece as calorie counting has often been employed by me so that I can try and lose weight or at least maintain a healthy weight. However, since the beginning of May, I have neither weighed myself nor actively counted calories.

“I am an eater of numbers. I prefer packaged foods, foods with a bar code, because they make the math simpler in counting calories and that gives me a sense of peace. It’s just an illusion of control, really, but that illusion is everything.” – Melissa Broder

As someone who has very polarised views, as well as being wholehearted and putting my all into everything I commit to, I could probably rightly claim to have an addictive personality. This clearly has its downsides. If I’m trying not to worry about what I’m eating, I might eat too much and put on weight in a short period of time. The biggest problems for me come If I’m intent on losing weight, however. 

I will weigh myself daily and count every calorie that enters my mouth. I become obsessive. I have been in tears if the final meal of the day puts me seven calories over my recommended daily allowance. I will avoid any packaging that shows food that contains a large portion of a particular food group. I will spend ages in front of a supermarket chiller, trying to find the lowest calorie sandwich. If, after all this deliberating, I have still put on weight, I will reduce my intake the next day. My meals, in those moments, have become about numbers instead of nourishment.

I’ve been overweight and in that period of time, I really didn’t like the way I looked. I was desperate to look like I thought I was supposed to, forgetting that at 5 foot 10, I’m unlikely to ever be a size 6. I was appalled at myself and yet, even then, I knew that losing weight wouldn’t change the way I saw myself. Alas, now within the healthy range again, I still dislike what I look like. I’m learning that weight doesn’t equate with happiness.

So what does this mean for me?

 I want to be healthy. This is so that, as Laura said, I reduce the risk of disease later in life and my body works well. I want to be eating a balanced meal, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t have the occasional cake or a tub of pick ‘n’ mix if I feel like it. I want to treat myself respectfully and this means both not overeating, but also not under-eating as well. Food is meant to nourish us and give us the energy to live our lives. I want to know that I have the capability to do what I want to do, without being hindered by myself. I want to be happy because who I am is enough, whether that person fits into a smaller pair of jeans or has a little bit of flesh overhanging.

The more I practise eating in a way that allows me to keep fit and still enjoy food, the easier I hope it will become. I think I will gradually continue to adjust to what works for me in terms of portion sizes and the food I eat, but I don’t want weighing or numerical values to be a part of that. Having my happiness decided on by something as changeable as a digit means my mood and my self-worth are likely to be all over the place and we all know that’s not helpful.

I'm excited to try and find a place where food isn't another addiction for me. I’ll let you know how I get on in the months ahead!

Read More

How Loved Ones See Us

In general, people don’t see themselves very clearly. We put ourselves down, suffer with self-doubt, or just don’t think very highly of ourselves. But when this happens, our friends and family rally behind us, feeding us positivity and encouragement. This is because they can see us for who we truly are. They see us, whereas when we look at ourselves, it’s through the reflection of a distorted mirror, like at a funfair, that our negativity becomes.

For today’s group post, the friends and family of Jo, Jess, Faye and Ray will introduce you to the people they see, know and love, with our responses; compared to their description of us, how distorted is our view of ourselves? And how does it feel that these people they see are actually us?

Jo’s Best Friend Adam (who calls her Red due to her hair colour):

Red is a very close friend of mine. She's smart, funny and a lifelong reader. She loves the occasional drop or two of tequila. Always there if I need to rant a little, or a lot, and doesn't judge.
She's a cool geek and we can talk about everything from Doctor Who, to classic literature. She puts herself down a lot. But I suppose we all do. I've always thought she has no reason to, though. She's kind and loyal and I don't hold the fact that she's English against her [Jo: He’s Irish *eye roll*].
Mainly though, she's my friend. I trust her with anything. And I can't imagine life now without her in it.

Jo’s Reaction:

So I read what Adam wrote and mostly smiled. The tequila, the cool geek, the English comment. Things we've joked about quite often in our six year friendship. I was surprised to read I put myself down a lot. I actually thought I was doing pretty well in how I talk about and view myself. Perhaps I put myself down more than I actually realise, unconciously, without even thinking. Perhaps it's becoming habitual, that I don't even consider it putting myself down, and rather just something I do - or something that's not considered at all. That's really, really sad. I intend to be more aware of how I talk about myself, the words I use, and my thinking behind them. It might be hard, but I really think I need to do better.

But... that very last line made me pretty emotional. And I guess here is where I see Adam's point about me putting myself down, because, well, I've always considered that in our friendship, I benefit more than he does. I've had a tough time over the previous couple of years, and to be honest, I don't know how I would have got through them without leaning on Adam. I've leaned on him a lot. I've had a lot to cry and rant about, and a lot that scared me. It left me feeling our friendship was unbalanced, that Adam wasn't getting as much from me as I was from him. I put down my ability to be a friend, and although I knew Adam valued our friendship, I couldn't help worrying that maybe our friendship would peter out when he got tired of me leaning on him and having to hold me up. So reading that last line... it made me super happy, but there was this huge sense of relief. 'He does want to be my friend!' I thought. It sounds pathetic typing that (there I go again, eh?), but it's what I thought. I had no real reason to feel our friendship was rocky, but that last line reassured me of how solid our friendship is. But even without how I worried about our friendship, that last line is pretty amazing, huh? 

-----------------------------------  
Jess’ Best Friend Ray:

How do I even begin to describe Jess? Eight years ago we were two Twilight fangirls who started mutually stalking each other on various bookish threads and now here we are – best friends, soul twins, Threadsisters (ask me about that reference), two peas in a very weird pod who can’t imagine life anymore without the other. I could reel off an enormous list of superlatives that still wouldn’t cover who she is to me. Kind, generous, whip-smart, passionate like you wouldn’t believe, supportive, loyal like only a Hufflepuff can be, STRONG AS FUCK- I’m not messing she is cuddly and wonderful on the outside but ruffle this Hufflepuff’s feathers then you’re in some serious shit and you’ll know it.

Jess pours so much of herself into her work online and sometimes when doubt creeps in and makes her question whether all that time and effort is worth it, I want to snatch those thoughts away so they won’t bother her because she works incredibly hard and *so* many people love and appreciate her for what she does. She hauls me back up when I’m feeling crap and I do everything in my power to do the same for her. Jess will also boss me around like a long-serving spouse in such a way that I can’t ever get mad at her. Which she totally knows and is proud of because she is living that Hermione Granger life like a BOSS.

Jess – you know me better than I know myself half the time and I am endlessly awed by your magnificence. You are magic.

Jess’s Reaction:

Wow, reading this was very emotional and by the time I reached the end I had tears trickling down my cheeks. I’m going to have to get this printed out and framed to put in my bedroom so that I can look at it on days when I’m feeling sad or doubting myself. I think that what I love most about what Ray has shared is that as well as all of the good things she sees and loves about me, she also loves the not so great traits just as much (I am bossy as HELL) because they make me me, her best friend. It’s so nice to know that I have someone in my life who sees me so clearly and who loves all of me not just the good parts.

-----------------------------------   Faye’s Best Friend Michelle: 

I met Faye through twitter when I started my book blog at the end of 2014 and we have become good friends ever since. I feel like I have known Faye for years and years. All my life. This is a credit to her kind, caring and welcoming nature. I see Faye as loyal and loving to her friends and family. She is always there to listen and to give you a hug when you need it in real life or a virtual hug. Faye listens and gives good honest advice when needed. To me Faye’s smile and laugh brighten up any room and her snuggles make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I also know Faye in a professional capacity. She is organised and enthusiastic about everything she is involved with and her ideas are always bright and imaginative. I also see that sometimes Faye can lack confidence in the things she does, but everything she does is amazing so I am going to take this opportunity to say Faye, you are a brave and wonderful human being, believe this and carry on being you! I love you very much!

Faye’s Reaction: 

First of all, I have to say that this paragraph about me made me cry. Because I would never have said any of those things about myself. I know that I care deeply about others and that I’m loyal, it almost physically hurts when someone I love is hurting and there’s nothing I can do to help. But I would also say I’m hard to get along with, shut off from the world, and can be a very infuriating person. I also feel like I go over the top with enthusiasm and that my laugh and hyperness is annoying and I’m so self-conscious of how awful my laugh sounds. But I do admit, I love big bear hugs. She definitely has it right on about my professional self, I definitely lack confidence, and even as I read those compliments I am still sitting here doubting they’re true but appreciating that she sees me that way. Maybe one day I’ll believe that it’s true.

-----------------------------------
Ray’s Boyfriend Mark:

Rachel is a person of two halves.

The first, a backseat driver. Happy to stay in bed late; put things off as long as possible; avoid responsibility whenever possible; and downplay her own achievements.

The second, a practical superwoman. She reads at the speed of light; is incredibly intelligent; absorbs knowledge like a basking lizard; and picks up new skills first try, aiming to master them instantly. She is incredibly empathetic to those in need around her, always ready to lend an ear and shouldering the burdens of others. She can be incredibly active; happy to go on long walks, camping, swimming, climbing (potentially) and generally open to wacky and wonderful activities such as indoor sky-diving.

Rachel's biggest flaw is that she has a tendency to leave her superwoman costume in the closet, happy to take the path of least resistance. With a little dusting of the costume she could achieve pretty much anything she could ever want. A little more confidence and faith in her abilities and she could have her own army of fans.

Ray’s Reaction: 

Hoo boy, there was a few emotions leaking from my eyes just then. Wow. I would be the first person to agree with everything in that first paragraph, there is no denying how much I love my sleep and if my tweets from the last year were used as evidence I’d be convicted of extreme procrastination in a heartbeat.
The second paragraph is what got me misty-eyed, I have never entertained the notion of me as some kind of superhero so having that said about me is incredibly moving although I have to work pretty damn hard to stifle that voice that seeks to deny every wonderful thing mentioned.
I’d like to try wearing that superwoman costume more often, I might just need a reminder every now and then that I still have it.

-----------------------------------
I think all four of us learnt something about ourselves through this experience. How about you take the leap and ask how your loved one see you, too? If this is something you'd like to do, but feel nervous or don't know how to approach it, take a look at Danielle LaPorte's Ask-a-Friend Survey, and maybe send the questions on to someone who loves you. I hope you learn to see yourself in a better light, just like we did.

-
If you enjoyed this post, you can find more on:
Bloglovin' | Twitter

Read More

Reclaiming Myself - One Strand at a Time

I have a weird relationship with my hair. For the last eight years I’ve had the same hairstyle keeping it long and alternating between blonde and red in colour, that may seem pretty normal for some people but I used to be someone who worked in a hairdressers and would constantly change my hairstyle, just for fun. I’ve experimented with pretty much every hair colour going (it was even hot pink at one point) and have played around with styles and different types of hair extensions but that all changed in my late teens when I lost my hair from stress caused by being in an abusive relationship. It would fall out in clumps when I washed it and would literally snap off when I tried to brush it, the long thick hair that I’d always considered to be my best feature ended up breaking off into a thin and wispy bob that reached my chin. It stayed that way for a good couple of years until I eventually broke away from my ex and it slowly became healthy again and began to grow.

I haven’t dared cut it or change it too much since then, always preferring to play it safe in case it got damaged again. It finally grew back to the length it was before it all fell out and I swore that I would never have short hair again. I didn’t want to look in the mirror and be reminded of that time; I didn’t want to see the person I was then reflected back at me. I’d even go as far as to say that my hair became a safety blanket that I could use to hide behind letting it hang over my face as I walked down the street. Having long hair was proof that I was healthy, strong and out of that toxic relationship, that I wasn’t the same girl that I was back then because I didn’t look like her.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to cut my hair. I’ve been admiring shorter hairstyles (I’m looking at you Taylor Swift) for the past few years and thought about how I’d love to have my own hair that way but was too afraid to, not because of how it would look but because I wasn’t sure how I’d react to seeing myself that way again mentally. This year, with the help of my counsellor, I’ve been reconnecting with the old me who I shunned when I came out of that relationship. It was like I couldn’t deal with being that person anymore so I let her go and created a new identity so that I could move forward. In therapy I’ve been working on reclaiming those parts of myself that I cast aside and placing them back into my personality, kind of like a jigsaw. Being adventurous with my hair is just one of the jigsaw pieces.

                     

Before and After My New Haircut

For me cutting my hair was about so much more than simply wanting a new style, it’s being okay with who I was back then and even allowing that girl a little room in my present, it’s also about embracing a new chapter in my life. It’s doing something I really wanted to do and not letting anxiety or bad associations hold me back. It’s about taking what once was a bad experience that was out of my control and turning it into a positive experience where this is completely my choice.

My family do this thing where when they see me making progress they say “we’re getting the old Jess back” for years I rejected and even hated that statement because I did not like the old Jess. She was the girl who was hit by her boyfriend, she was the girl who was manipulated, she was this version of myself that I hated being. For many years I’ve blamed her for the abuse and rejected her, rejected me. Now after a lot of therapy I look at that young girl and realise that It. Was. Not. Her. Fault. I realise that I even like her, she was strong and intelligent and got us out of a shit situation before it was too late. I might not be here writing this without her.

That day when I cut my hair was me accepting that girl back into my life with open arms. It was me picking up a heart-shaped, dusty old piece of jigsaw and putting it back into the space where it has always belonged.

If you enjoyed this post, you can find more on: 

 Bloglovin' | Twitter | Jess Hearts Books

Read More

Make-up as I go along

Last Friday looking fine

Something you might not know if you don’t see my face in real life (Instagram pics are not exactly true representations of my appearance) is that I hardly ever wear make-up. In a month I might only put on make-up once or twice and that will inevitably be for some kind of occasion like last Friday when Jess and I went to a book launch in Nottingham. I was actually wearing foundation, eyeshadow and mascara that day which for me is quite a lot, I only bought the foundation a month or so ago on a whim because it seemed like it might look less weird on my skin than foundations I’ve tried previously (fair warning, the last time I owned foundation was probably around 2004 when that Dream Matte mousse stuff was all the rage so I’ve got rather limited experience).

I have fairly dry skin (probably need to drink more water that hasn’t had a teabag in it), so when I tried foundation when I was younger it looked super flaky and awful so I just stopped wearing it. I wasn’t all that taken with the idea of coating my face in a layer of foundation and powder when I was in high school and if it meant I had to get up 30mins to an hour earlier in order to apply it all I was like “nah”. If you don’t know – I am *big* fan of sleep and my bed, it would take a much bigger incentive than having a superficially flawless complexion to get me waking up at 6am or some shit like that.

First time wielding the liquid liner

Inherent laziness is a massive contributing factor to my bare-faced ways but there’s also the simple truth that I don’t really know what I’m doing. I never had someone showing me how to apply make-up, I literally only tried liquid eyeliner just before last Christmas and considering how naff the eyeliner I had was I thought I did quite well. My mother hasn’t worn daily make-up for more years than I can even remember so I never had the whole “stealing Mum’s lipstick and smearing it on my face” experience. The only thing I figured out to do was plonk eyeshadow on my eyelid and run a mascara wand through my lashes. I was also rather fond of taking a black kohl pencil to the lower waterline and I’ll be honest it worked for me so why do more?

While I was in high school I did wear eyeshadow & mascara most days but after I moved up into Sixth form I drifted away from wearing make-up and I’ve never really got back into it. I still prefer that extra time asleep and rely on some moisturiser to save my face from looking truly awful when I go to work. I don’t have great skin, my cheeks have a fair bit of redness to them all the time and my jaw and chin are a goddamn mess and are not showing signs of clearing up any time soon. I’m aware I could mask all that with foundation and concealer if I really wanted to but I just don’t like the feeling of a full face of make-up.

My god that eyeshadow O_O

The only time I’ve had someone else apply make-up for me (other than that time I was in a theatre production which we’re not talking about) was for my Year 11 Prom and boy, did I hate it. I was deeply uncomfortable that entire night, not just because my face felt like it was caked in make-up. My hair, which had been curled at the hairdresser’s had dropped by the time I got home, I was wearing a stick-on bra thing because the dress was backless and these ridiculous tummy-tuck knickers that stopped on an awkward part of my hips and were so fucking visible under my satiny dress. I wanted to strip it all off and hide.

I’m now in a weird kind of limbo where I’d *like* to wear make-up to even out my crappy complexion but at the same time I don’t care enough to spend time and money applying it every day. For years the idea of buying products to essentially throw it away one day at a time just didn’t make economic sense to me and now I’m so ingrained in this mentality that it’s hard to cast it aside for the sake of feeling better about my appearance. It’s not even that I have outside pressure to look more aesthetically pleasing, no one in my life is telling me “oh you’d look so much prettier if you wore more make-up” but they will compliment me when I do wear it.

From following a lot of very cool women on social media I see some of the most bitchin’ make-up styles which frankly makes me super envious. I’m not brave enough to try attempting massive eyeliner wings, pastel lips or filled-in eyebrows without some kind of friend nearby to help me fix it when it invariably goes to shit. I also am in serious need of someone to properly assess my skin and say definitively what kind of products I ought to be using and what sort of make-up styles are just gonna be a no-no on my face.

That’s where Jess is gonna come in. Yes *that* Jess – Safe Space creator extraordinaire and my bestest friend nugget in this whole world (if you didn’t know, well now you know). We’ve talked about her helping me experiment with make-up and work out what suits me over the next few months. I have even given permission for her to do my make-up at some point, so look out for some hella awesome insta-pics in the future.

It’s a weird journey I’m on with make-up that keeps changing and evolving so maybe in a year or so I’ll feel more comfortable applying and wearing make-up or maybe I won’t. Who knows? We’ll have to see. I'll probably be back with another post about it if I have a break-through.

Read More

Being Large and Loving Fitness

One foot. Another. Breathe in. Breathe out. You can do this. You've got this. You're nearly there.

These are the kind of thoughts that rattle through my brain when I go running. Sometimes other thoughts get in too, sometimes I just count, one, two, three, breathe, one, two, three, breathe, and sometimes I sing along to the music blaring into my head. When I swim, I count my lengths as I go and sometimes count my breaths but often I then just think about what I'm doing or just about life in general. But mostly, I focus on what I'm doing. I can easily let worries escape me when I'm exercising and it's one of the biggest reasons that I love it.

Another reason is that I just love being active. It's hard to describe but there is something so freeing about exercising. A release of endorphins. A build up of muscle. A wave of emotion. I can't really describe how it feels when I finish a run with a personal best, or if it's a run I'm struggling with, how good it feels to push through until I feel satisfied. I love so much about exercising. I have always been a very active person. Even as a child. I was always the first one to run off, to climb the monkey bars or do the hop scotch. I loved PE, especially Netball and Rounders. Ironically I used to hate cross-country running when I was a teenager, but that's mostly because I was always the last person across the finish line.

And I still feel that way. Because no matter how much exercise I do, no matter how hard I push myself and beat my own personal bests, I have never been the fastest. I've never won a race or a swim, I've never been able to go to gym classes and do everything for the whole hour. It does not matter how much I do, I have never been better than other people. But I'm okay with that because despite that, I still love it. And it's probably why I'm one of those odd sport lovers who is the least competitive person ever.

But the problem I really find with exercise is that no matter how much of it I do, I find it incredibly difficult to lose weight. This essentially means that I'm a fit individual* who can run without stopping for over an hour but I still fit in the "obese/overweight" BMI category. It means that I feel, ultimately, self-concious every single time I walk into the gym or an exercise class because it feels like everyone is judging me. It means that I, essentially, hate the way I look. I hate that I can't seem to do anything about it either.

The biggest way I feel insecure while exercising, aside from feeling like everyone looking at me and thinking it must be my first time in a gym, is the fact that it is very difficult to get exercise clothes in the right size for cheap. Apparently when it comes to fitness clothes, they only make clothes for people who are already skinny, not for those who are just trying to shed a few pounds. I have never been able to find clothes larger than a size 16 and this is completely demoralising. And it sends out a horrible message as well. I really hope that one day soon this changes because everyone deserves the chance to workout in clothes that actually help you exercise because they're designed that way.

And then there's that look I get when I tell people how much I exercise. That dubious look. Because surely there is no way I look the way I do and still go to the gym three times a week. I can't possibly be honest when I explain that I have an active job that has me going up and down four flights of stairs for the majority of the day. Because if that were the case, I'd look slimmer. I should be slimmer. But I'm not. And I've come to the stark realisation that I also probably never will be. I do fluctuate in weight and I know that at the moment I'm more on the heavier side than I have been, but it means I will probably never have a flat stomach and look model-thin. And I'm okay with that. I just wish other people could be as well.

*This may not be entirely true any more due to currently not being as active as usual for personal reasons but I'll be talking more about this in a few months. Let's just pretend it's correct for now. ;)

Read More

Because I'm Worth It

Over the last few weeks I've been noticing more and more that I put myself down.

I got invited to an event and the organiser replied to my emailed RSVP saying she was looking forward to seeing me and would save me a space in the front row. I thought "she doesn't mean it." about the looking forward to seeing me part, assuming she was just being polite. Then got part way through emailing her that I'd rather sit at the back in case my wheelchair blocked other people's view before I realised that was stupid and deleted it unsent.

An acquaintance said my blogs were really funny and I was a good writer. I should have just said thank you. I didn't believe them though so I was dismissive "oh it's nothing."

I was asked for my opinion on a project - option A or option B. I said what I thought and followed it up with "sorry, that's probably no help whatsoever."

My journalism tutor told me I'm doing well and am on track to pass the course. "You can't say that yet."

Recently a friend wrote on my facebook wall that he'd been wanting to call and congratulate me on a finished writing project (a group one that several people contributed to and I put together) but he assumed I was too busy to take his call. That made me laugh. It wasn't something to be congratulated on. It was just something I'd done. I commented back that he'd made me laugh. And he asked "why do you never believe me?"

Yeah. That made me stop.

I do put myself down often. I don't believe compliments I'm given. And I belittle my achievements.

It's crap. And I annoy myself each and every time I catch myself doing it.  I think (I hope) I'm probably more aware of my negative self talk since my friend called me out on it.

I would never talk to anyone else the way I talk to myself. I wouldn't ask for their opinion and then say it was "no help at all." And if someone else had told me I couldn't sit at the front in case my wheelchair blocked the view I'd have gone apeshit at them because it's not OK to talk to me like that.

So why do I act like it's OK to say those things to myself?

I'm now trying harder to catch myself before I say or think these things about myself but it's really hard.  They slip out before I can help myself much more often than I'd like.

But I do need to stop putting myself down and start believing in what others tell me.  My journalism tutor said I'm doing well because she's marked my work and knows I'm doing well. Same for being on track to pass.  The compliments about my blog being funny are because it made the reader laugh.  They aren't being polite, kind, or nice and it's not because they see my wheelchair and feel sorry for me.

It's because they believe it and  think I'm worth it and it's true. I need to keep repeating that even though it sounds silly to me until I believe it.

Because I AM worth it.

*L'oreal style hair swish*

Read More

You're Amazing. Just The Way You Are.

I can’t remember the last time I felt beautiful. I can’t remember the last time someone told me I look beautiful. But I can remember the last time I felt ugly (about two minutes ago standing in front of the bathroom mirror naked). And I can remember the last time someone told me there was something wrong with my body.

In fact when I think back over my life so far, there are very, very few times in my life when I’ve felt beautiful. Even as a teenager I felt ugly and disgusting compared to everyone around me.  I vividly remember having to try and find a dress for our sixth form leaver’s ball… It was a chance for all the girls to dress up in floating gowns and for the boys to don a suit. However the dress searching resulted in me cowering in the corner of my then boyfriend’s bedroom, hiding from the mirror in a flood of tears, crying out that I felt ugly and that I’d look so awful compared to everyone else there. Luckily he was gentlemanly enough to hug me and tell me that I was beautiful but even on the night of the ball itself I felt ashamed and just wanted to cover myself in a huge blanket so no one could see me. I had honestly never felt so ashamed of how I looked in my life.

I guess my body loathing started at secondary school where I imagine it probably starts for most people. I was called ugly; I was teased about my bushy, frizzy hair and thick eyebrows. I felt incredibly self-aware when I was getting changed for P.E that I didn’t have big boobs encased in lacy bras and I certainly didn’t have a thong on (it was cotton knickers all the way for me.) I felt ashamed that I had a thin trail of hair down my stomach because everyone else had such smooth, hairless tummies. I was made to feel bad by ‘friends’ for not wearing make-up. And, one of these ‘friends’ once said, particularly loudly in front of my crush at the time, ‘don’t you think it’s gross when girls have hair on their tummies?’ To which I flamed like a tomato and as soon as I got home that evening shaved it all off. And don’t get me started on that time I realised I was supposed to shave my pubic hair. For some bizarre reason I thought it was natural and was supposed to be there but duhhhhh you have to shave it all off because…you just do?

So, really, I was sort of handed a whole barrage of insults on a plate that my mind quickly digested and started shouting at me every time I looked in the mirror.

‘You’re fat’

‘You’re ugly’

‘You’ll never be beautiful’

‘You’re too hairy for a woman’

‘No one will ever look at your body and think they’ve got lucky’

And for the last ten years I’ve been in a vicious cycle of self-loathing. Even now when I look in the mirror I feel my heart sink and my stomach turn over uncomfortably. Why do I look so vile? Why have I got such large thighs? Why do I have stretch marks and cellulite on my legs and hips? WHY AM I SO HAIRY? Why do my boobs look so bored of life? Why have I got a tummy that sticks out and rolls over when I sit down?

The simple answer is because I do. Because this is the body I have; the body I will always have.

Yes, my unhealthy relationship with food has certainly contributed to the fact I’m bigger than I want to be and weigh more than I want to (but that’s an entirely different topic.) And yes my lack of physical exercise every day definitely contributes to the flab and dullness of my body. But I just wish I could stop hating it.

In the past when I’ve come up with epic plans to lose weight, eat healthier and get back to a more comfortable and ‘happy’ size I’ve always ended up thinking ‘what’s the point?’ I’ll still have the same face, the same hairiness, the same stretch marks, the same everything… it might all just look a little bit smaller that’s all. I still won’t be beautiful.

For a long time my fear and hatred of myself was due to my perception of how other people would see my body, namely men. I felt that no man would like my body because it looks nothing like a woman apparently should look like. It’s not tanned, my boobs don’t touch my chin, it all wobbles, it’s hairy etc. And so many times I tried to drill it into my head that any man who didn’t appreciate my body wasn’t worthy of my time. Beauty is more than just looks…right? But why do I still feel compelled to see my body through other people’s eyes? Why is it when I look at photographs of myself I just see a dumpy potato and criticise everything I hate about it instead of looking at what I like about it? I used to take selfies quite often; it was a thing that made me feel better if I could just get the right filter and lighting. I haven’t dared take a photo of myself in at least half a year…I don’t even like looking at my face in the mirror. Let alone on a camera. All the photos I use for social media are old; some even from 2014…

I keep trying to ask myself WHY I feel such hatred towards my own body. Is it because I genuinely hate it? No, I don’t think so. Is it because society and those around me tell me I should hate it? Yes. My family tell me I’m a bit on the ‘big side’ and my mum loves to make a joke about the size of my thighs or bum. Society tells me I should look a certain way and be a certain size; because that’s what’s attractive and what men want.

I hate that I hate myself. I wish I could look in the mirror and think damnnnn gurl, you looking fine. But I don’t. Instead I say fuck. Look at my double chin, my spots, my horrible hair, my bushy eyebrows, oh god, you can see a fat roll under my jumper etc. etc. I verbally abuse myself on a daily basis. I tell myself I’m not beautiful. I stand in front of the mirror, sigh and say, you so ugly. And then walk away. That’s not normal or healthy.

I don’t have people constantly telling me I’m beautiful or gorgeous or they think I look lovely. And to be honest, even if they did tell me that I’d probably just think they were saying it to make me feel better rather than actually meaning it. See? Vicious. Circle.

I fear so much for the younger generations of women. If I ever have a daughter I will do all I can to make her feel like she’s beautiful every day of her life. That’s she’s perfect just the way she is and she doesn’t need to rely on anyone else to love herself. I wish every woman felt that way. I wish every young girl felt that way. I wish there wasn’t such a divide between what people think is normal and what is actually normal. Women come in all shapes and sizes. Some thin, some fat, some short, some tall and that’s OK. It’s OK to be the way you are. It’s OK to look in the mirror and like what you see. It’s OK to think you’re looking hawwwwt.

It’s OK to love yourself.

I wish I could go back in time and hug that sixteen year old me as she sat crying on her boyfriend’s bedroom floor. I wish I could tell her to wear whatever damn dress made her feel beautiful and screw what anyone else thought. I wish I could go back and speak to thirteen year old me and tell her that she doesn’t need to shave anything off and that cotton knickers kick ass and, most importantly, that real friends aren’t critical of your body. I wish I could go back to all the nights that I’ve cried in front of the mirror and just give myself a big hug.

I hope as I grow older I can learn to love my body…I want to look in the mirror one day and think ‘you are so beautiful.’

And I want that for every woman. I want every woman to look in the mirror every single day and realise just how gorgeous they are. We are all beautiful. Whatever our shape, whatever our size, whatever our height, our skin colour, our ethnicity, our religion, our age: We. Are. Beautiful. 

Read More

What Makes Me, Me - Joy

When I started to consider what makes me, me, I realised something. Who I am is personal; it doesn’t rely on other people to tell me who I am. Who I am isn’t determined by what others see when they look at me. If you spend more than five minutes with me, you will possibly be one of those people who tells me I’m quiet, as if it’s a character trait I’ve not noticed before. If you see me on a particularly tough day, you might think I’m overly sensitive or introspective. You could call me all sorts of things: an introvert, a creative, a loner, a listener. You might look at the diagnoses attributed to me and call me a service user, a patient, unwell. But still, that isn’t me.

I have spent more than three quarters of my life fighting against who I am. I thought that If I could deny who I was and what I experienced growing up, people were more likely to see me in a positive light. If I could pretend I wasn’t me and hide away from the world, maybe people wouldn’t uncover the part of me that I’m so ashamed of. If I could just be an extrovert, then I would be like everyone else and they would like me. But all that fighting and striving left me with was isolation, depression and even more shame.

My childhood saw years of sexual abuse and school bullying. My innate shyness grew into a refusal to speak in order to protect a little of myself. In doing so, I stopped creating a “me.” To have likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, would be to allow me to develop and grow. Having an opinion would mean that people could turn against me in disagreement. Staying silently absent, I thought, would mean abusers wouldn’t notice me. However, in doing so, I became a 20-something adult without the ability to hold a conversation and without a self that I was willing to acknowledge, let alone let other people see.

If you had told me, two years ago, that I would be writing to unknown people about what makes me, me, I wouldn’t have believed you. But things change. I still feel a lot of shame, I still want to hide more often than I want to be around people, and using my voice takes a day’s energy. But declaring who I am and deciding who I wish to be is a part of reclaiming my life. Ernest Hemingway once said: “The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong at the broken places.” That is where I now choose to stand. I am not what has happened to me. I’m not a victim, a survivor or a sufferer. I’m me, not because of what happened to me, but in spite of what has happened to me. Of course, life changes us, as Hemingway says, but it can make us better and stronger.

What remains at the core of me is tenacity. I am me because I refuse to give up. I screw up, I frequently question what I’m doing or what I’m aiming for, but I keep going. I am me because I am the only person in this world with my history and my future. No-one else is me. I may be quiet, I may be sensitive and introspective, but that is how I present, not who I am. I am me because my future is what I choose to make it. I am me because I am the author of my own life. I may not be able to control what happens to me, but I can choose how my story ends. 

Read More

What Makes Me, Me - Rachel

When Jess asked me to write this post it set off a pretty strange train of thought. What *are* the qualities or traits that could be reeled off and unequivocally make people think “Oh yea that’s Rachel all over!”? 

Can I be summed up in a neat list?

So without further ado here is a somewhat abridged list of my most Rachel-esque traits.

1. I’m 75% Tea – I don’t have the hard data to support this theory but considering how I tend to drink about 5-8 cups of caffeinated tea every day I’d say it’s a sound bet. I dare not contemplate what would happen if I ever decided to cut myself off from tea as it is the only substance that jump-starts my brain in a morning – seriously I am barely functional without it. I’m told by family members that I was drinking tea at the age of two so there’s that. This tea consumption also brings with it an obsession with mugs.

2. I have a slew of odd body-focused habits. Hair twirling – whatever length my hair is I’m going to be twirling it round and round my fingers, if it’s long enough I can actually tie knots it one-handed, which is pretty impressive to kids I’ve found. What effect this has on my hair & scalp I’m not sure but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was damaging. I’m also a bugger for picking at my skin, spots, scabs, round my nails, *peels dead skin off distressingly dry palms*, you name it. I have loads of little scars from where I’ve picked off a scab multiple times or squeezed a spot a bit too viciously. I know I shouldn’t do it but without wearing mittens 24/7 it’s hard to stop myself.

3. I’m a voraciously speedy reader. I love books and can devour them at a rate that is pretty shocking to people who don’t read much. For me to look at a book, see how many pages it has and say “oh that’s 3 hours reading” seems rather like witchcraft – particularly to my other half who regularly jokes that I can read books through osmosis. The only downside to how fast I read is that sometimes I have forgotten the main character’s name by the time I get to the end *awkward*.

4. Out of all the words that spew forth from my face at least a third of them are swearwords. Obviously I won’t be effing & blinding in front of kids & grannies but as soon as I step inside my house all bets are off and the fucks coming pouring out. It’s not that I’m perpetually angry (only frequently so) I just rather enjoy the cathartic feeling of reeling off strings of harsh Anglo-Saxon fricatives and plosives.

5. I am Queen of Procrastination. That is not even an exaggeration. If there is an important task or assignment that I should be doing for a specific deadline and I’m not feeling it 100%, I *will* throw all my energy into doing something else. Anything else. I taught myself to crochet in order to put off doing a French assignment in 2014. For all of my literature essays over the last four months I have left the actual writing of the assignment until the day before or more horrifyingly – the deadline day itself. Even now I should be doing reading for my next OU assignment yet I’m planning out all the room renovations I want to do in my house to the point that I’ve been sketching plans and making a Pinterest board & discussing paint colours with the OH. There is no known limit to the lengths I will go to in order to put off the things I should be doing.

6. My memory is paradoxical mess. I can spout gallons of random facts and trivia on a whole host of subjects. I can answer crossword questions that none of my family even had a clue about purely from having read or heard something, somewhere at some odd point in the past. I can be a watching a film or TV show and see an actor I recognise, then instantly reel off the tiny cameo in an episode of Stargate SG1 that I knew them from (that happens a lot when watching Supernatural since they film in Vancouver). I’m like a walking IMDB info kiosk. I can remember technical details from not just my current job but from one I left in 2012 and even earlier. BUT if you asked me what I did last night, or what plans I have next week or what you just said to me three seconds ago while I was looking a tad vacant, I can 85% guarantee that I will have no clue. I can’t remember vast swathes of my childhood & teens save for a few odd incidents (usually mortifying ones), the only reason I know anything about what I was like when I was younger is because of photos that spark memories or because I’ve been told stories by my family. My diligent use of my phone camera means I have at least a fairly comprehensive log of the three and half years I’ve been with my OH. I can’t say the same for my previous relationship. So if you ever hear me say that my memory is shit I mean my memory for my own personal history. Trivia & random facts I seem to remember even years later but yesterday is a blur (although that might be because I got rather tipsy around midday).

7. Lastly I feel I ought to make a serious comment on how most of the traits on this list are trivialised & humorous spins on aspects of my personality. Basically, I constantly use humour & sarcasm to mask the deeper, more insecure motivations behind the odd shit I do. --Point 1- I do sometimes think that if I didn’t drink tea first thing in the morning that I literally would not be able to function properly until about lunchtime – does that make caffeine-dependent? 

--Point 2 - All of my picking, scratching, plucking, hair twirling habits are exacerbated when I’m stressed or anxious as my skin breaks out more so I’m effectively attacking my own body, often to the point of making myself bleed slightly. I’m no qualified medical professional but that smacks a bit of self-harm however mild it might be. 

--Point 3 - My obsession with reading, and in particular my love for fantasy books ties into a wish of avoiding thinking about my own real-life issues by immersing myself in fantastical worlds utterly disconnected from my experiences. 

--Point 4 - As for my swearing habit, maybe it’s harder to stutter on four letter words if I’m feeling nervous compared to making reasoned arguments *shrugs*. 

--Point 5 - My procrastination is a serious problem that is both fuelled by insecurity & a fear of fucking up my life more than I already have. My brain tries to avoid failing by not even trying until just before a deadline when my hatred of getting bad marks or disappointing people kicks in and I scramble to finish whatever I need to do in a blur of caffeine & stress. To the general frustration of all my family, this approach to my studies miraculously hasn’t completely blown up in my face *yet*. 

--Point 6 – I don’t quite know why I can’t hold onto memories of things I’ve done or things that have been said to me during a day but believe me it results in some awkward conversations when I have to ask someone to repeat what they’ve said or remind what time they told me to present myself for a family occasion. This also goes for things I mean to tell other people – sometimes I *think* I’ve told my OH about when I’m going to see friends or if we’re going to visit my parents but then when I mention it a day or two before I get a blank look. Some of that could be his memory being as dodgy as mine but I can’t help but wonder if my brain is just chucking out these details willy-nilly, which is a bit scary.

As you now might be able to tell, summing up what makes me the person I currently am is a far trickier task than a first look might indicate. I have a lot of work to do unravelling thoughts and feelings that I’ve buried under layers of nonchalance and jokes so I can finally be honest with myself and others about whatever messes my brain doesn’t want to own up to. This entire list doesn’t even begin to consider how my experiences (limited though they are) have affected me as person, that’s a whole other mine that I need to attack with a shovel.

This post has proved to be *much* harder than I anticipated and when I came to edit this I had to fight a sudden surge of self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy. I considered not posting this at all and did start another more serious piece but that was even harder and I did have rather emotional hour or two mentally debating whether or not I deserved to be part of this blog. My OH pointed out that there was no small amount of irony in my worrying myself into tears because I didn’t feel like my problems were serious enough to blog about and that I didn’t have anything to say that people would be interested in. CLEARLY I have some self-worth issues that need looking into in the near future.

While I may not have any diagnosed mental health issues that doesn’t mean that I don’t have some shit to sort out in my head and in my life. But this is my safe space to do that. I hope you don’t mind the deconstruction, it’ll get a bit dusty around here for a while.

Read More