I think there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding body image, one being that it is focused only on weight. I may be tiny but I struggle with my weight, and I’m not always happy with it. What doesn’t help this? Being told I don’t need to worry about what I eat, or work out or worry about anything because HEY I AM THIN! I promise not to spend this entire post talking about all of the things I hate about myself (because I don’t know about the character limit ya know?) but rather to give some insight on how my anxiety affects how I see myself.
The way I see myself is certainly not how others see me (or so they express to me). I am for example not happy with my body when I am not tanned. I really should be sponsored by a fake tan company at this point if we’re being honest. I look at my body in pure disgust, and it can be very hard to accept this is the body I live in. I spent the better part of my first week back from Lakes Of Fire staring in the mirror at a body that was burned, covered in bug bites, and bruises. It’s hard to know this is not just an image I browsed on Reddit and can ignore. This is a reflection, this is something I have to look at. I often feel like I’m trapped in a nightmare of skin I cannot change. A lot of what my anxiety does to me is causing me to believe I am stuck. This is how I am always going to feel is what my brain has convinced me. I hang out with a pretty…out there crowd, I mean Heavy Meta is an actual circus. How we look is how we express ourselves and often would prefer to not be noticed at all. I can of course cover, and toss glitter onto any imperfections I see, but eventually, I have to shower it all off and my head goes right back to that state.
I don’t always feel this way, I sometimes feel incredibly confident in myself despite my self-deprecating humour. Sometimes I’m all over Instagram rocking that good lighting, not even using a filter.
But when I’m not feeling great I don’t even know what I need to feel better. It’s not a process of fishing for compliments, and it certainly doesn’t help for someone to completely diminish my views on myself. I think the point I’m getting at is that you never really know what’s going on in a person’s head. I believe communication is key so by all means ASK but replies like “no you’re gorgeous” aren’t always the way to go. And finally, there is more to body image than weight.
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