Here is a room so warm & blood-close I swear, you will wake & mistake these walls for skin.
CW: Gender Dysphoria, Body Image
My chest is heavy. No, like, it's actually heavy, and I am so tired of carrying it. I'm talking about my breasts, which is maybe TMI for you, but which is a topic that's haunted me since I was unlucky enough to be one of the first girls on the playground to grow them. I'm now twenty-six and finally finding the words to describe this weight, it's wrongness, and how it's impacted me. My grandmother once said to a kitchen full of the women in my family that after you have children they (boobs, not kids) should just shrivel up and go away. Their use (whether it was to entice a mate or feed your offspring) needed no longer, they become just a burden. For me, they have always been a burden. I want them to shrivel up and go away--cut them, hack them, mash them gone.
If you can't tell, I'm not in the greatest mood writing this. The thing is, my body is just so frustrating, and it's something that I don't really ever talk about, even to my closest friends. I took a big step a few weeks ago in opening up about this kind of thing, and to capitalize off of that momentum I want to share this, even if it's a struggle, because opening up like that felt so damn good. So here goes.
When I was twelve years old I hit puberty, and god puberty just fucks everything up. I was one of two girls in our grade who suddenly had boobs, ones too big for us, and body hair and we were already nerds. (Puberty gods, like, why tho?) I had a hard time with this change, as most kids do for one reason or another, because I already had had a negative view of my body. I felt like the fat girl, or rather, was the fat girl to my friends and theoretically anyone else who gave it two seconds to think about.
I remember a conversation with a friend in which I told her that I had weighed myself that morning, too, and we were the exact same weight. The image of this being that she was tall and fit: a track star, a farmer girl. She had muscles and height and shape. I was a lump in comparison. She looked me up and down and flat out refused to believe me. Now I knew that no matter what the number, I could never be her match. It was all about perception and shape and I had been saddled with these terrible, heavy sacks of fat and shame. I connected the size of my breasts with my weight, not just because of added pounds on the scale, but because they were front and center of the image of me.
Teachers noticed, too. You know that general discontent that teenage girls have with the school dress code? It's not because we want to be sexy for all of the fourteen year old idiots we share a classroom with. I never wanted to challenge the dress code, I'm not that much of a rebel to be honest. I just plain didn't want to be sexualized over an early development of mammory glands. That didn't stop my teacher from laying her hands on me and grabbing at my chest to tug my tank top up while I took a test. Yes, I was the classic example of a stressed-out student bent over their test in concentration: my leg bouncing as I worried over a question, chewing on the end of my pencil, one hand stuck through my hair with the focus of it. The last thing on my mind was my cleavage. I didn't want to have cleavage. I was in tenth grade, barely sixteen. I used to wear layers of tank tops (two or three at a time) with a zip up sweatshirt over the top as a way to hold myself in. I was trying to make them appear smaller and regardless of style, I needed the support. Bras made for young girls never gave me the support I needed. I had to layer, I had to buy clothing with extra elastic at the bust, I needed wires just to feel comfortable. But none of that mattered when she reached out her hand and scolded me and made me feel ashamed.
While teachers looked and gestured and focused on all of the wrong parts of me, my friends continued to count me as the biggest of the lot of them and my family teased me relentlessly. Shopping for clothing with a mother and sister that regularly shoved giant bras in your face and said it probably wouldn't be enough for one side is not a fun time.
Without even realizing it, I carried this with me into adulthood. I used to think that if I lost enough weight, they would get smaller and be more mangeable. Which, contrary to being a motivation, ended up being just another reason to hate myself when I inevitably failed in my weight loss goals. And for a very long time I lost myself in this self-hatred.
I just couldn't figure out why trying to lose weight or trying to love myself wasn't ever working out. I never made progress in either direction. My obsession with my weight got bad, but I was locked in a sort of stasis. I would stand in the aisle at the grocery store agonizing over a choice of snack food because I wanted so badly to just feel okay--either by ignoring the junk food and changing my lifestyle and getting the body I so long desired, or by embracing the size that I was and the cravings for something sweet in moderation, so long as I wasn't going to die of diabetes or a heart attack. At one particular low point, I remember an incident of classic sexism. It was recent. I was twenty-five. I had been doing well in whatever over-analyzed diet and exercise program I had concocted, and I was trying to reward myself for my effort. I thought about what damn junk food to buy at the store all day while I tried to do my work. I kept going back and forth between something chocolately and sweet, or something energizing like candy. I wanted it to count and to satisfy me so that I didn't lose the momentum I had. As I stood in the aisle silently imploding with depression, a man walked by, and he said "you should try smiling."
It's nothing groundbreaking, countless women have been told to "smile," but then I realized that the reason his comment felt so shitty was because it's something that I hear echoed all the time in the body positivity community. It comes at you when you're at your lowest. Just try loving yourself. If you smiled a little more, if you loved yourself a little more then you'd look better. The trick being that you'd think that you looked better and that's all that really matters. Which, I guess, but that's not how it works all the time. Most of the time. Loving yourself as you are is not always the answer, because sometimes the body that you have is not the right one.
It wasn't until I realized that, that I was finally able to acknowledge why my body image issues were such a struggle. This struggle was rooted in twelve year old me. It wasn't so much the amount of pounds on my body, or the way my face looked with full cheeks and chin. It was this gender, sprung out of my chest like dead weight, too early and too fast and not at all wanted or asked for. It was what breasts represented and the way that I was supposed to be, the image that I worked years to try and successfully present to the world despite never feeling comfortable doing so. I have tried to love this part of me, but it's hard. It's hard to love something that gives you so much pain.
Actual pain. My back hurts. My chest hurts. Underwire hurts when it pierces through the fabric and stabs into you for hours. Layers of sports bras and shapewear and binding hurt. But also the emotional pain of self-restraint. Where some women find their sexuality in their curves, I find something so uncomfortable I would rather just not be touched there so I don't have to be reminded that I'm supposed to like it, but don't.
Still though, there is a sort of freedom in finally knowing. There's a word for what I'm feeling and it's dysphoria. Theoretically, there is a solution if ever I am brave enough to reach for it. And the telling of it feels so much lighter, feels like magic.
*Title from "Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong" by Ocean Vuong.
My chest is heavy. No, like, it's actually heavy, and I am so tired of carrying it. I'm talking about my breasts, which is maybe TMI for you, but which is a topic that's haunted me since I was unlucky enough to be one of the first girls on the playground to grow them. I'm now twenty-six and finally finding the words to describe this weight, it's wrongness, and how it's impacted me. My grandmother once said to a kitchen full of the women in my family that after you have children they (boobs, not kids) should just shrivel up and go away. Their use (whether it was to entice a mate or feed your offspring) needed no longer, they become just a burden. For me, they have always been a burden. I want them to shrivel up and go away--cut them, hack them, mash them gone.
If you can't tell, I'm not in the greatest mood writing this. The thing is, my body is just so frustrating, and it's something that I don't really ever talk about, even to my closest friends. I took a big step a few weeks ago in opening up about this kind of thing, and to capitalize off of that momentum I want to share this, even if it's a struggle, because opening up like that felt so damn good. So here goes.
When I was twelve years old I hit puberty, and god puberty just fucks everything up. I was one of two girls in our grade who suddenly had boobs, ones too big for us, and body hair and we were already nerds. (Puberty gods, like, why tho?) I had a hard time with this change, as most kids do for one reason or another, because I already had had a negative view of my body. I felt like the fat girl, or rather, was the fat girl to my friends and theoretically anyone else who gave it two seconds to think about.
"I had been saddled with these terrible, heavy sacks of fat and shame."
I remember a conversation with a friend in which I told her that I had weighed myself that morning, too, and we were the exact same weight. The image of this being that she was tall and fit: a track star, a farmer girl. She had muscles and height and shape. I was a lump in comparison. She looked me up and down and flat out refused to believe me. Now I knew that no matter what the number, I could never be her match. It was all about perception and shape and I had been saddled with these terrible, heavy sacks of fat and shame. I connected the size of my breasts with my weight, not just because of added pounds on the scale, but because they were front and center of the image of me.
Teachers noticed, too. You know that general discontent that teenage girls have with the school dress code? It's not because we want to be sexy for all of the fourteen year old idiots we share a classroom with. I never wanted to challenge the dress code, I'm not that much of a rebel to be honest. I just plain didn't want to be sexualized over an early development of mammory glands. That didn't stop my teacher from laying her hands on me and grabbing at my chest to tug my tank top up while I took a test. Yes, I was the classic example of a stressed-out student bent over their test in concentration: my leg bouncing as I worried over a question, chewing on the end of my pencil, one hand stuck through my hair with the focus of it. The last thing on my mind was my cleavage. I didn't want to have cleavage. I was in tenth grade, barely sixteen. I used to wear layers of tank tops (two or three at a time) with a zip up sweatshirt over the top as a way to hold myself in. I was trying to make them appear smaller and regardless of style, I needed the support. Bras made for young girls never gave me the support I needed. I had to layer, I had to buy clothing with extra elastic at the bust, I needed wires just to feel comfortable. But none of that mattered when she reached out her hand and scolded me and made me feel ashamed.
While teachers looked and gestured and focused on all of the wrong parts of me, my friends continued to count me as the biggest of the lot of them and my family teased me relentlessly. Shopping for clothing with a mother and sister that regularly shoved giant bras in your face and said it probably wouldn't be enough for one side is not a fun time.
Without even realizing it, I carried this with me into adulthood. I used to think that if I lost enough weight, they would get smaller and be more mangeable. Which, contrary to being a motivation, ended up being just another reason to hate myself when I inevitably failed in my weight loss goals. And for a very long time I lost myself in this self-hatred.
"Loving yourself as you are is not always the answer, because sometimes the body that you have is not the right one."
I just couldn't figure out why trying to lose weight or trying to love myself wasn't ever working out. I never made progress in either direction. My obsession with my weight got bad, but I was locked in a sort of stasis. I would stand in the aisle at the grocery store agonizing over a choice of snack food because I wanted so badly to just feel okay--either by ignoring the junk food and changing my lifestyle and getting the body I so long desired, or by embracing the size that I was and the cravings for something sweet in moderation, so long as I wasn't going to die of diabetes or a heart attack. At one particular low point, I remember an incident of classic sexism. It was recent. I was twenty-five. I had been doing well in whatever over-analyzed diet and exercise program I had concocted, and I was trying to reward myself for my effort. I thought about what damn junk food to buy at the store all day while I tried to do my work. I kept going back and forth between something chocolately and sweet, or something energizing like candy. I wanted it to count and to satisfy me so that I didn't lose the momentum I had. As I stood in the aisle silently imploding with depression, a man walked by, and he said "you should try smiling."
It's nothing groundbreaking, countless women have been told to "smile," but then I realized that the reason his comment felt so shitty was because it's something that I hear echoed all the time in the body positivity community. It comes at you when you're at your lowest. Just try loving yourself. If you smiled a little more, if you loved yourself a little more then you'd look better. The trick being that you'd think that you looked better and that's all that really matters. Which, I guess, but that's not how it works all the time. Most of the time. Loving yourself as you are is not always the answer, because sometimes the body that you have is not the right one.
It wasn't until I realized that, that I was finally able to acknowledge why my body image issues were such a struggle. This struggle was rooted in twelve year old me. It wasn't so much the amount of pounds on my body, or the way my face looked with full cheeks and chin. It was this gender, sprung out of my chest like dead weight, too early and too fast and not at all wanted or asked for. It was what breasts represented and the way that I was supposed to be, the image that I worked years to try and successfully present to the world despite never feeling comfortable doing so. I have tried to love this part of me, but it's hard. It's hard to love something that gives you so much pain.
Actual pain. My back hurts. My chest hurts. Underwire hurts when it pierces through the fabric and stabs into you for hours. Layers of sports bras and shapewear and binding hurt. But also the emotional pain of self-restraint. Where some women find their sexuality in their curves, I find something so uncomfortable I would rather just not be touched there so I don't have to be reminded that I'm supposed to like it, but don't.
Still though, there is a sort of freedom in finally knowing. There's a word for what I'm feeling and it's dysphoria. Theoretically, there is a solution if ever I am brave enough to reach for it. And the telling of it feels so much lighter, feels like magic.
*Title from "Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong" by Ocean Vuong.
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