So here I am, sitting in my dad’s recliner, lamenting the loss of my usual mobility. I have a new appreciation for people who deal with chronic pain on a daily basis and somehow manage not to be raging assholes. I’m also thinking over the relationship I’ve had with my body over the years.

It’s been a rocky relationship. When I was something like six or seven years old, some shit happened to me that I’m just starting to remember now. It led to me being at odds with my body.

I learned the harmful message that your body was not something you should enjoy or even like, but rather something you should be ashamed of. In second grade I started gaining weight, and by third grade I began to be bullied for the size and shape of my body. 

You’re going to laugh, but I remember when I was in middle school I thought I was a horrible, sinful girl for masturbating. I was so convinced it was a sinful thing, that I felt the need to tell my parents so I could atone for that sin. I sat on the couch with a blanket curled around me, crying in fear.

When I told them, they had to choke back a laugh. They’d thought something horrible had happened. My parents reassured me that exploring your body was normal and nothing to be ashamed of. 

But over the years I continued to struggle to embrace my sexuality and my body in general. I hated going clothing shopping, having photos taken of me, being in a swimming suit in public. I can’t think of a single time I truly felt at peace with my body. 

Every time I’d feel like I’d made some progress in my fitness journey, I’d see other people who looked better than me. Who were prettier, skinnier, stronger, more athletic. I let the comparison fuel the anger towards my body.

There was the acne, the rosacea, the heavy periods of doom every month. My short, wide feet. My eyebrows that stopped too short on my face.

My senior year of college I gained more weight as I struggled to find my place in the world. That’s also when I started having acid reflux. I was miserable. But I kept pushing through, and just started myself on over the counter medications. 

Last year I was diagnosed with a precancerous lesion of my cervix on my latest pap smear. God I hated my body. What good was it anyway?

My body felt like a never ending source of shame and embarrassment. But when I hit a wall with my PTSD, I realized I couldn’t keep beating the crap out of myself anymore. It wasn’t working.

As I began to face the PTSD, other pieces of my life came back to me. I started to remember things from my childhood. These stories I’d carried with me my whole life weren’t really mine to carry. 

The memory of what happened to me when I was 6 or 7 started to come back. Part of me feels like maybe I’m just imagining it. But there was a sense of relief and grief that came with it.

My body gained weight to try to protect me. It was providing a buffer from the rest of the world. And yet I’d hated it instead of recognizing it was trying to help me.

It wasn’t laziness, lack of motivation, or stupidity that kept me from losing and keeping off the weight. My body was holding onto trauma for me until I was ready to process it. And in a society where processed food is easier to come by than fresh food, where high fructose corn syrup and wheat products are everywhere, and business is prized over wellness, it’s really not that surprising. 

Hating our bodies does absolutely nothing to help us. It only hurts us. They do so much for us, even when we don’t consciously see it. 

And whether we like it or not, as Sonya Renee Taylor points out, we experience our entire life as a body. We live and breathe and walk the planet in a body. There’s no getting away from that until we’re dead or scientists learn how to upload our brains into mechanical bodies.

So I would argue that one of the most important things we can do in our lifetimes is come to love our bodies exactly as they are. Fighting our bodies only puts money in the pockets of businesses that take advantage of our insecurities and try to keep us there.

It’s time to change that relationship. Every day I’m going to try to list the things I’m grateful for that my body does for me. My body lets me pet and play with my dog, hug my family and friends, see gorgeous views, smell delicious flowers, and walk along new paths. 

What does your body do for you?

And then came middle school. Does anyone really enjoy middle school? Boys and girls going through puberty, feeling awkward in their bodies, and having to interact awkwardly with one another.

In sixth grade I was told by a boy that I shouldn’t talk to him until I’d gone to a beauty parlor. Later that year an attractive eighth grader asked me to be his girlfriend in front of his friends and they all started laughing. Oof.

Let’s not forget the unique torture that was gym class. I’d huff and puff whenever I was forced to run thanks to my exercise-induced asthma and my face would turn beet red. Students and teachers always commented on how red my face was. Oh the joys of having rosacea.

I grew up watching my mother criticize herself and her appearance. Between observing how she treated her body and being bullied by my peers, I came to hate the reflection looking back at me. I despised my body, and in many ways, I came to despise myself.

I started wearing makeup every day to hide my splotchy red face. My relationship with food was out of whack. Eating sweets was one of the few things that would make me feel better in the moment, but I struggled to find moderation.

I tried countless diets, joined many different exercise programs, and recruited my friends or family members to be my accountability partners. I would start off really committed, but after a while I would fall off. Instead of getting back on the horse, I’d berate myself and just give up altogether. 

The older I became, the more conscious I was of the space my body took up in public. I avoided having photos taken of me, and I stopped going to the swimming pool because I hated how my body looked in a swimming suit. 

The summer before my junior year of college, I taught Zumba classes three times a week AND attended a fitness boot camp 6 days a week for 10 weeks…but I still didn’t think I was thin enough or pretty enough. I saw myself as this awkward, fat, ugly woman that was only passable when I wore makeup.

I was so envious of one of my friends. Guys flocked to her whenever we went out. She was bubbly and gorgeous. Everyone loved her.

Meanwhile, gentlemen old enough to be my grandfather would eye me or grab at my ass. Not cool, guys. Not cool.

Online dating in college was a mixed bag. One guy told me I was fatter in person than in my photos. Another man told me he was “into bigger women.” Every time my body size was brought up, I felt ashamed and disgusted with myself. 

When I was 27, I started reading The Body is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor. In the intro, Taylor writes about a friend who is disabled and became pregnant after having unprotected sex. The woman felt like sex was hard enough with her disability and she didn’t want to make it worse by demanding her partner wear a condom. 

At that moment, Taylor says to her, “Your body is not an apology. You do not use it to say ‘sorry for my disability.” With that conversation, the idea for her book was born.

Taylor argues we shouldn’t settle for measly self-acceptance, but strive for radical self-love. She makes many connections about how our advertising and media has led countless people to feel label their own bodies as wrong.  

Taylor writes that we are constantly comparing ourselves to the “ideal” body, which is often straight, White, land-owning, male, thin, and able-bodied. In all the ways we don’t meet that ideal, we think there is something wrong with us. And we will contort ourselves in any number of ways to get closer to that ideal.

But that ideal does not serve us. It doesn’t bring us more joy, love, security, or prosperity. It takes us farther and farther away from who we really are.

I am madly in love with the fact that many plus-sized femme content creators are showing themselves wearing whatever they want, from crop tops to bikinis. And masculine creators show off dresses, skirts, nail polish, and heels because it brings them joy. Watching these people love their bodies gives me hope that I can grow to love mine too.

While you won’t find me wearing a crop top (yet), you will see me rocking a tank top and shorts in the summer. Now I go to the pool when I want to rather than hiding away. This year I even took a few modeling classes, just because I could. 

I keep inching closer to the radical self-love Sonya Renee Taylor talks about in her book, but for now I will settle for a bit of self-acceptance. I love my smile, my bright eyes, and my thick caboose.

What parts of your body have you learned to love? Leave a comment below!