The pledge
Without doubt, this is going to be one of the hardest posts I ever write because everything I need to get out there right now is so unbelievably raw. It’s time to confront something I wish I didn’t have to. Deep down, I know I can’t heal or make any further progress until I do, so the fact is…
I hate my body.
Hate is such a strong word. It sticks out like a sore thumb in my life because I’m not a hateful person. Right now, I can’t think of anyone or anything else I actually hate. Sure, I know I can’t stand the taste of seafood and there are some people I thoroughly dislike but I would never go as far as hate. And yet, here it is…
I hate my body.
Shame
I’ve felt the effects of body-based shame my entire life. It’s horrendous to have to admit the first time someone made a negative comment about my body was under the age of 10 and then I was bullied for being fat all through high school too. As a result, I wore oversized clothes all the time, often resorting to the classic ‘fat guy’ combo of a t-shirt beneath an open shirt because that was the only way I could bear to be seen in public.
To this day, I rarely look in the mirror, I rarely take any photos of myself and there are, at best, only two photos of myself I can bear looking at. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve cried in changing rooms and bedrooms after looking at fabric being tightly stretched over my body, unintentionally showing off a sizeable spare tyre of fat which the clothes don’t cover.
Weight
I’ve seriously tried a weight loss regime maybe two or three times in my life and only one of those was actually vaguely successful. It was a while ago, well before I started training to be a psychotherapist, so I only just about remember the feelings of achievement and positivity I got from it. I think I managed to lose about a stone, maybe a stone and a half (between 6–9 kgs) and that I was probably the fittest I’ve been as an adult.
My weight continues to massively affect my self-esteem. I can honestly and sorrowfully say I’ve never ever felt truly attractive, at least not in terms of my body. I’ve worked hard in therapy to get to a point where I don’t beat myself up but the shame is still there to a certain extent. Come to think of it, it’s definitely been easier for me to fight those self-critical thoughts when they’re about something I can’t change like my sexuality or the fact that I’m bound to fail at some things in life. But this is different because it’s something I know I could change… but haven’t.
Dating
I recently started dating for the first time in over 10 years and things were going well until I was rejected and wrote what I believe to be one of the most authentic, painful poems I’ve ever written. However, it’s not the rejection that’s the problem here. It’s painful and unpleasant but it’s one of those life experiences where you have no choice but to go through it, to live it. The problem is where my head immediately went. Instead of thinking ‘it’s not a good fit’ or ‘can’t win ’em all’, the first thoughts that came to mind were ‘it’s because I’m fat’ and ‘I’m not attractive enough’. The inner critic which I thought I had silenced suddenly started to shout louder than ever before.
Here-and-now
I need to catch what’s going on for me as I write this. My brow is well and truly furrowed. I can tell I’ve got that all-too-familiar ‘full’ feeling, as if I’m about to cry but my eyes are bone dry. There’s too much tiredness and anger and injustice in my head to cry. It’s anger that’s never really had an outlet because sadness and depression has always sat on top of it, squashing it down until it’s silent. I’ve worked through the majority of that depression and cried countless tears so now there’s nowhere for those other feelings to hide. They’ve got to come out. They long to be felt.
Graduation
All this talk of photos and depression leads me straight to remembering when I graduated from my degree in music over 10 years ago. I was heavily depressed — it was the beginning of the end for the relationship I had with a girl (my first proper relationship) and I left university to move back home, with no plan and no hope in sight. I barely remember anything from graduation day apart from wearing the cap and gown, posing for endless photos, and desperately trying to force a smile and pretend I was happy. Unfortunately, those photos remind me of one of the busiest, most chaotic, most traumatic years of my life; a year I’d rather forget.
The pledge
It’s weird how I wrote this poem about my body over six months ago and while I’ve totally transformed the way I talk to myself and worked towards being less critical and more accepting of my thoughts and emotional life, that transformation hasn’t yet spread to my physicality. I still haven’t accepted how my body looks right now. I haven’t started treating my body better but I think the time has finally come. The sadness and depression that has kept me frozen and fat has melted. Anger has lit the touch paper and 2023 is going to explode in an inferno of transformational, ground-breaking change.
So with these fiery words, I’m making a pledge to myself… and it’s not just another New Year’s resolution which gets casually forgotten a week after it’s been made. I’m due to graduate from my Master’s degree in January 2024 and I’m determined that graduation is going to be poles apart from the last one. Those cap-and-gown photos of me are going to be genuine, they’re going to be ones I’m proud of, ones which reflect the insane amount of personal progress I’ve made over the past few years.
This is the last ‘big’ thing that needs to be fixed in my life, and I’m going to fix it.
Now is the time.
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