stophatingyourbody:I will begin this by admitting to having one form of an eating disorder or anot
stophatingyourbody: I will begin this by admitting to having one form of an eating disorder or another for as long as I can remember. To further complicate my body image concerns: just over seven months ago, I was in a car accident that caused severe head & facial trauma. I became a self-proclaimed feminist at sixteen, after having been exposed to Sylvia Plath, Bikini Kill, & Sleater-Kinney. “Finding” feminism was a turning point in my relationship with my body. So many conflicts arose, with bulimia nervosa yanking me one direction & The Beauty Myth pulling me another. I eventually found myself enamored with self-help, support groups, & group therapy. As a Feminist Studies student in a liberal forest-ocean-town, I have been exposed to so many positive books & theories & events & people that promote self-love, self-care, courage, bravery, & overall “radical” thought. I learned very quickly that the personal is political, that my relationship with my body is layered, perplexing, & intersectional (by now, I could write a 600 page memoir on the subject, but I digress). However, it wasn’t until, at 22 years old, on August 25th 2010, when my face was pounded into an incomprehensible pulp, that I truly learned to love what I had once (almost, at times) abhorred. I was hospitalized for three weeks. I crushed my cheekbones, nose, & left eyesocket (my cheekbones & eyesocket are now made of titanium). I lost my left eye. I had a brain bleed. The doctors shaved a third of my head-hair to drill a hole into my skull for pressure relief. I was on more medications than I can accurately recall - I have PTSD, mostly due to the fact that I was on so many sedation drugs (dilaudid, mostly) that I couldn’t accurately put together the pieces of what had happened to me. I was set to begin my senior year of college in the fall of 2010, but have been forced to take the year off for numerous surgeries. I cannot work because of the abundance of doctor’s appointments, operations, & my malfunctioning tear ducts (I’m always seemingly crying - my tears do not adequately drain down the back of my throat like everyone else’s). I was forced to move back home with my parents - while the majority of my closest friends are graduating from our university on June 11th. While I have sometimes found myself defeated - a recovering bulimic with a broken face, no job, living with her parents in her small-desert-hometown - I often recall Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. In this memoir, Didion recalls the year following her husband’s death & the nightmarish caliber of her daughter’s illness - & the most cathartic point of the story is the fact that she made it through. I could have lost my life. Everything could have been so much worse. Instead of ruminating about my thighs, my belly, my hips, my arms, my blemished skin, my too-big-nipples, my hairiness, my scarred wide nose, my left non-eye, my chipped tooth, or my tracheotomy scar - instead of indulging in a disorder that only harbors detriment - I am determined to love this body. I am going to love this body at any size, any weight, any physical “abnormality”. I like my hairy armpits. I like my round rump. I AM AWESOME. There are SO MANY issues that are TOO IMPORTANT for me, or anyone, to waste time scrutinizing themselves. I love my old face, & I’ll love my new face just the same. Why? Because, if I have learned anything through my feminist education, it is that SELF-LOVE IS REVOLUTIONARY. As you begin to adopt this decree, your whole world slowly feels renewed. http://jennyteacups.blogspot.com ß cupcakes feminism tea health revolution BE BRAVE! JOIN THE REVOLUTION! -- source link