self-esteem

Chest Infections, Shame and Well-Being

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It’s a bank holiday Monday and I am lying on the sofa, which I’ve done a lot of this weekend. I’m on my second course of antibiotics for a chest infection that just won’t shift. Despite that I don’t feel too bad and this last week I’ve tried to be more active and eat better. But after a call from the Doctor on Friday to say that a chest x-ray showed a lower respiratory infection, I’ve been trying to take it easy. I know you’re not supposed to do exercise when you have a bad chest but I’m getting really fed up with having a bad chest. I can’t get over the guilt of being in the house all day and not doing kettlebells.

There is literally not one woman I know who has not expressed dissatisfaction over her weight at some point, if not over and over again. It is perfectly acceptable, if not even weirdly encouraged, for people to be disparaging about themselves and how they look. While it has become taboo to openly criticise and discriminate against other people because of their weight, and fat-shaming is now a well known expression in our society, it is still fine to do it to yourself. In fact it seems almost polite to do so in certain circumstances. You pay your friend a compliment and tell her she looks great in her new dress, and more often than not she will respond with something like ‘oh no, my belly looks massive in it!’ ‘but my thighs!’ or something to that effect. I’ve done this myself many, many times, but now I actively try not to do it. I try to just say ‘thanks.’ I’m not sure why we feel the need to put ourselves down. Whether it’s some misguided attempt at humility, because beauty standards are so high that average, attractive people truly feel like ugly monsters, or if it’s simply something we’ve learned from our mothers, and from mainstream media, who make it their business to criticise physical appearances (the media, not mothers, though also a bit mothers.)

But herein lies the duality. It is socially acceptable to hate on yourself, invited even as you are seen as humble, but conversely we are encouraged to love ourselves no matter what, have a positive body image, be positive! But then often people who do love themselves are berated for being vain, superficial, arrogant. Pride is a sin after all.  And if you go too much the other way, criticise yourself, or even just be honest about yourself, you often get shut down. If you are fat, and you point out that you are fat, you are seen as being negative. But maybe you are just being realistic. At the end of the day, and despite what society may have us thinking, being fat doesn’t actually make you a bad person, you literally just have more fat, that’s it. But if you talk about being fat, even in a matter of fact way, truthfully, because you are a bit, often the answer is ‘No you’re not!’ by a kind soul who is trying to comfort you with delusion. But what if being fat, and saying you are, did not bring such shame? Although the person who says ‘no you’re not,’ (and I am not at all criticising this person and have been this person many times) is only trying to make you feel better, they, and you by complaining about being fat, are perpetuating the idea that to be fat is wrong, something to be excused, denied, swept under the carpet. What if we lived in a society where we could just talk about these things without the shame? Wouldn’t it be a happier place?

And that takes us back to the idea of having a healthy body image. What this means varies vastly from person to person.  For some, having a good body image can only be achieved by having a ‘good’ body. They feel better when they regularly go to the gym, eat well, don’t drink, and have the improving image in the mirror to prove it. Some see it as loving and accepting yourself for who you are, lumps, bumps, biscuits and all. Some believe that fat shaming is totally wrong, others think it’s alright if the person they are shaming is leading an unhealthy life. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and honestly when I sit down to write about this, I get confused about what I even think about it, because it is such a complex subject. Some may think it’s a frivolous thing to be writing about, but to me, looking after your well-being should be one of the most important things for everyone, and it’s something that people often do not give themselves time for. Just exactly what I mean by looking after your well-being, well, that’s another work in progress.

To Run or Not to Run?

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That is not ‘the’ question, but it is a question I’ve been asking myself for the last half an hour. It’s been a while since I did any exercise, and much longer since I went for a run. I’m scared, I’m tired, I want wine. The thought of it is actually making me feel anxious. It’s raining outside, it’s dark, what if I get attacked? Not that I would ever go running during the day when people can actually see me.

To write or not to write? That is the question I’ve been asking myself for as long as I can remember. The toss up between knowing it’s a massive passion of mine, knowing that it comes naturally to me to play with words, knowing that I’ve felt a sense of guilt and slight but prevalent emptiness since I stopped. Friends, no doubt frustrated at my constant excuses, telling me ‘Just write! Just do it!’ And of course they are right, and are part of the reason I have started to type right this very second. But when you’re prone to depression, anxiety and procrastination, well they all rub along very well together, and often creativity doesn’t get a look in.

So, to put these two things together. Two things I know are good for me, but that I habitually avoid. What could possibly go wrong? As I lie here on the sofa on a Monday evening, Netflix in the background, another night of crisp and dip dinner, I decide to start writing again, for the first time in months, possibly over a year. Why? Because I have been meaning to forever. I have been saying I’m going to do it forever. I’ve said it over and over, In conversation. I’ve said it to the point where people probably roll their eyes and pity me. But now, I am finally doing it. This is exactly how I, and I would wager many, many people, feel about exercise. And exercise is what has made me want to write again. Round and round and round we go, will I do either pursuit? Who knows!

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Class of ’16, Wear Your Face with Pride

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It has been a while since I wrote about this stuff. If I’m being entirely honest (which I try my best to be) as soon as I posted this blog on Facebook and actually had people enjoy it and respond to it, the insecure, terrified part of me freaked out under the pressure of actually having some readers, and it gave me writer’s block for weeks. Or not exactly block. I’ve had plenty of ideas, and plenty to say, but the words are sometimes hard to put together. So I’ve just decided to go for it. Put something out there, maybe it will help get me going again. Oh, the never ending doubt of a person who doubts themselves.

I started to write this blog in the hopes of starting a discussion about societal standards of beauty, and when I started I wasn’t really sure what form it would take, as is the case with how I do most things in life. Heart’s in the right place, but where to start?

Now I know, I want it to be accessible and relatable. I want to express feelings that I know many women feel. But for me the best way to do that is to get personal. It is the way that I communicate. Share your own experiences in an honest and open way and hope that it will speak to others. And so I hope I can do this without it just becoming a sad diary of my insecurities and fears. If it ever seems that way, bear with me, I will usually have a point to make at some stage. Because we all have insecurities, both physically and mentally, but I feel that we live in a culture which encourages us to only show our best side, our prettiest picture, our happiest memories. With the advent of social media and selfies, everyone can project an image of themselves to the world, and whether that image is accurate or representative is becoming increasingly irrelevant to many. You may wonder at the importance of this, and think that it is not a big deal, it’s not real life and everyone knows that. And rationally, consciously, most of us do. But I wonder what insidious damage is being done to our psyches, both collective and individual.

For this new blog, I had the idea of going home to my Mum’s house and digging out any photos I had of myself from my teenage years/early twenties, as it was only in my early twenties that I started to use make up. Now, I grew up just before/in the middle of the advent of mobile phones, computers and social media. It all began when I was a teenager but hadn’t really taken hold yet. These days I imagine a teenager probably has hundreds of photos of themselves, plastered everywhere in the hyper-reality, or even just hidden in secret selfies on their phones. We now live in a time where capturing our own image is a much more acceptable pursuit than it was ten, twenty years ago. This is possibly more to do with camera phones and the ease with which we can now photograph things than any more sinister reason, although as to the effects this narcissistic culture is having on our collective psyche, we can only wonder (well I can, because I’m not a psychologist). And wonder I will, but for now, back to talking about myself (see what I did there?). 

Not only did I grow up before camera phones, I was also rather camera shy given the fact that I thought I looked like an ugly monster, like so many teenagers the world over. I avoided cameras as much as possible, and when I was captured I often looked tortured, angry or just plain awkward, and I hated every single one as every photo of myself just proved to me what I already knew to be the sad truth, that I was ugly.

I went looking for the photos in my Mum’s house, assuming I would cringe and feel embarrassed to put them online (all in the name of journalism), but a very surprising thing happened, something which has shown me how far my self-esteem has come, but also how much damage was done to me by the power of the media telling me how I should look, and the isolation I felt from my peers. Looking at them again, over ten years on, I thought I looked fucking adorable in every single photo. Even the ones where I’m spotty and angry. Even though I’m uncomfortable. And it is not about looking pretty, or not pretty. It is because it is me. A little bit of my history. A time I never thought I would want to remember. I can see the happy(ish) individual I am today in that girl that I know was so full of sadness and doubt. And yes, I know it’s a typical thing for people to look back on old photos of themselves and realise they weren’t as fat as they imagined,

but this was different. It wasn’t just that I looked at the teenage me and saw how un-monster like I really was, and that it had been a figment of my low self-esteem and a reaction to being bullied. It was that I could see myself in that girl. See how far she’s come, and that the person that I am now was there all along, just crushed under low self-esteem and self-hatred. Now I’m not saying ‘society’ is to blame for all of this, but I know I would have had a much happier adolescence if I hadn’t spent most of my time thinking I wasn’t a ‘real girl’ because I didn’t conform to what the standard of beauty and femininity was. It horrifies me now to think about how much I cared. How much I longed to be ‘pretty’ while still refusing to try to fit the ideal. For longing to be accepted for who I was, longing to be who I was, while hating myself for being myself in the first place. It seems ridiculous to me now that I cared at all.

But in another way it doesn’t, because I remember how shy, terrified and hopeful I was when I went to secondary school, naively remembering teen films I’d seen where everyone got along and you made life long friends (I was weird, and watched Grease a lot as a child). When I think of that timid little girl starting school with all those hopes and dreams, and I think of what happened to her, how cynical and angry she became because of ridiculous standards that were bigger than her or her bullies, my heart breaks a little for her, and for other girls going through the same thing right now, and for every girl that has gone through it. And as I have said, I can only speak from my own experience, but I would say that every girl will have their own stories of trying to fit these standards, even the girls who picked on me in school. Because why did they pick on me in the first place? Because of these ridiculous standards. Where did they learn these? The media? Their families?

In this way we are all victims of something much bigger than ourselves. Because you may read this and wonder if any of this really matters, when there are so many terrible things happening in the world, things arguably more pressing than this. But to that I say these are the things that shape our lives, and how we feel about ourselves and others. And isn’t that important? The tired phrase that you can’t love others until you can love yourself is tired for a reason, and in a world where perception and representation has taken on a heightened role, and vanity and power are very much interconnected; I think we must look back at ourselves, through no filters, no sepia haze, and not through the eyes of others. Just look, and like what we see. How many of us can say we can?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhNupae2RIE

Selfies Suck

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Selfies Suck

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This photo is one of my many attempts at a selfie. My inability to take them has become a joke between myself and some of my friends. I just can’t take myself seriously enough to do it. I never think about the lighting, I don’t know how to hold the phone right, I feel stupid posing. And please, don’t get me wrong, I am not criticising those who are good at it. I’m jealous of those people! I would love to be able to take a super hot photo of myself, who wouldn’t? But I must question this need to appear beautiful, especially unrealistically so, and why it does matter so much.

I read recently that selfies are empowering to women as they take the power away from the male gaze and allow women control over how they are perceived. While theoretically I agree and champion this idea, I feel that if we (women) in our selfies, or self-portraits (that sounds fancier and I therefore prefer it) are still pandering to the male gaze, or to a preconceived notion of beauty, then is it really any better than a man having control of the picture? I’m actually asking, I don’t know.

Now this photo is not a very good example of beauty with no filters, as I think we can all agree that I look like crap in it. But then, maybe someone out there finds the look of fear and confusion on my pasty sleep-deprived face a total turn-on. WHO KNOWS?

My point is, although I do not fit into typical beauty standards in this picture, who is to say that I am not beautiful? You could say that my face in this picture very beautifully captures how much I hate selfies, and how awkward I am at taking photos of myself.

Or you could say that the very fact that I am expressing and have captured a human experience that most of us know intimately, that of trying to express ourselves, make our mark, record our very existence, is beautiful in itself.

Or you could say I’m full of crap and that I look like shit.

That is your prerogative.  For after all it is all subjective, and there are no right answers, no ‘right’ way to look, think or feel.

And that, to me, is beautiful.