This is a Woman

I suppose I must look pretty happy on the outside, I mean, that is what I’m going for. I smile and laugh and joke way too much, hoping that no one will see through it. At nineteen, I’m young, but I’ve been through a lot. I’ve struggled for years with body image and to this day I don’t believe I’m very pretty, no matter how many times people say I am. I’m not sure when my image issues began. We haven’t had a scale in our home well over ten years because my mom noticed that I was obsessive about my weight at a very young age. My body has always bothered me because it’s disproportionate, with my tiny hips and my wide, broad shoulders. I remember walking up to the school on my first day of junior high with my eyes glued to the ground. I was so afraid of people seeing me that I tried desperately to make myself invisible. Kids where mean. The harder I tried to be invisible, the more I wasn’t. We used to move a lot and being such a shy kid, it was hard for me to make new friends. When I was thirteen my breasts came in. Boys and girls alike noticed, but their reactions where in no way the same. While the guys sometimes sexually harassed me, the girls verbally bashed me constantly. I felt ugly and ashamed of my body and tried to hide my breasts under large sweatshirts and t-shirts. I ran a mile everyday and didn’t eat more than once a day. I lost quite a bit of weight, but was never tiny, which was all I ever wanted. Fast-forward two years and we had moved, again. I was home schooled and at 5’3 and 195 pounds, I was overweight. I was bored all the time stuck at home without friends and ate more than I should have. Looking back, I realize I really didn’t eat all that much, just none of the right things. But food wasn’t really what was causing my weight problem. My body was swollen from infection. At sixteen my appendix burst. It’s actually a miracle that I’m alive today. We thought that I had the flu and the doctors even sent me home with antibiotics because that couldn’t diagnose it. Turns out I walked around for at least a week, if not two with a burst appendix. I had a rare condition where the appendix was located behind my intestines, making the pain more bearable. I was in the hospital for eleven days. I had a tube up my nose and down into my stomach and one in my side to leech out the infection that had accumulated in my system. After all of that and the beginning stages of pneumonia, I left the hospital almost forty pounds lighter, with a scar that goes from hip bone to hip bone, and one in my belly button, and a little pouch above the scar that no matter how much I exercise, I don’t believe I’ll ever get rid of. Almost two years later, I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease brought on by the burst appendix and my eating habits where changed forever. I discovered that I really enjoyed exercising and the way it made me, not just my body, feel amazing. When I was eighteen I fell madly in love with the wrong guy. He said he wanted to marry me and that nothing would ever make him leave. He even proposed. But he wasn’t true to his word. He left after I miscarried our baby at nine weeks. The was my biggest trial and what causes me so much pain. Losing a child, at any age and at any time in the pregnancy, is devastating. I still struggle with my body image. After my fiance left me, I started working out all the time and started obsessive calorie counting, which I still do. I make sure that I get the right amount of calories, no more, no less. I’m healthy, and trying to be happy. I usually put on a fake smile and pretend that everything is okay because I want no one to see the pain I’m going through every day. For one thing, I’ve come to appreciate my scars, and even the fading stretch marks across my belly and breasts from my battle with weight. Every one of them is a symbol of my pain and remind me what I’ve been through and just how far I’ve come. I wish that I could tell little girls how amazing their bodies are. This body is the only one I get, and it’s taken me through so much. It’s strong and beautiful. I realize how extremely lucky I am. My mom has lupus and RA and her body puts her in constant pain. I realize that I could have it so much worse than a few body issues, a couple scars, and one miscarriage. And that’s why I’ve pledged to myself to start really loving my body, for what it is and what it does for me, not for the way it looks. I’ve never done anything like this. In fact I’ve never even worn a bikini. But, here goes nothing…