It’s the New
Year and the most popular universal resolution people make is to get fit- to
drop those dreaded pounds… Thus, today I
want to open up about physical appearance and the lies that women believe by
sharing my own struggle with self-image and fluctuating weight. Dealing with added pounds usually has to do
with more than just bad eating habits and lack of exercise; usually it’s an
inner battle that needs to be won in order to make positive life changes. I have shared (before) the chaos that my life
was after I arrived in California- dealing with abuse, alcoholism, poverty, all
sorts of difficult trials- these issues affected the way that I saw myself. It wasn’t until I had been in therapy for
many years that I began to accept that I was a normal girl, but for most of my
life I believed I was an abnormal freak of nature. I looked at my reflection in the mirror and I
saw brown skin, brown eyes, curly hair and I felt like I would never be the
ideal of American beauty. The reoccurring
compliment I would always get was, “you are so exotic.” I hated being referred to as exotic, every time
I would hear that I felt like some tropical flamingo from some foreign land on
display at a zoo- I longed to be seen as standard beautiful. Toni Morrison wrote a novel, The Bluest
Eye, about this black woman who longed for blue eyes, she believed that all
of her problems would be fixed if she had blue eyes. When I read this novel in high school, I so
identify with the protagonist because I too wanted to be ideally blonde, blue
eye and beautiful. Yet, I looked at
myself in the mirror and I saw a distortion of me even though I was a size six-
I felt like I was super fat and for most of my skinny years I always felt like
a whale. The distortion was not just in my
Mexican looks, it was also in my size. I
was looking at pictures from these years while preparing this post and I remember
how unhappy I would get every time I looked at these images thinking how enormous I was. Now I see them and I see a normal
kid.
In Texas- about 24.
At 21 years old.
During my teaching preschool years.
College Years- when I sponsored my goddaughter.
When I student taught- for my 27th birthday.
How these
distortions began has to do with many variables. Coming into a new country and starting school
without the language can be a very difficult, traumatizing event for a child. I remember that not knowing the language made
me an outcast, kids bullied me and I responded by withdrawing and becoming an
extremely shy kid. Dealing with an
alcoholic parent and abuse in the home also affected my view of myself – I felt
like I needed to hide these things. Most
of the time I felt like I was leading a double life: a perfect student at
school and a child at war at home. Add
sexual abuse, poverty, mental illness to the mix and you have the ingredients
for quite a distorted self-perception.
For the longest time I felt like I needed to hide the real me because no
one would love a person with so much baggage.
I became a perfectionist and I was very vain. I never left the house without make-up and
looking my very best. When I began my
first relationship- I began to feel beautiful because I had a guy to validate
me. Yet, he was a guy that liked me for
my physical attributes and when I started gaining weight he told me that he was no
longer attracted to me and that he hated when I wore my hair curly. These comments really hurt me and I felt like
I needed to look a certain way to be loved… Yet, after the break-up I found God
and things began to change.
26 years old.
25 years old.
Going to a wedding.
Maid of Honor for BFF's wedding.
When I had
my first encounter with God I thought that religious life was what God wanted
for me and I stopped dressing up, and wearing make-up. I wanted to rid myself of vanity- yet, I went to the other extreme and became unkempt and slovenly. Around this
time I also began taking meds for Bipolar and the medication gave me strong
sugar cravings – in a year I went up drastically in weight. When I looked at myself in the mirror now more
than twice my size I felt sick- I hated what I saw. I had to learn to accept myself with the
added weight. After having a mental breakdown
my physical appearance was the least of my worries. I just wanted to gain sanity, to find and
keep a job, to slowly build my life again.
It’s been many years since my breakdown and I have (through the grace of
God) achieved stability. During these
years of having God in my life and learning to see Him in a truthful light -
clear of distortions that I also had of Him- has helped me see myself as He
sees me. Our view of God affects how we
view ourselves. If we do not see Him as
He really is- if we believe things about Him that are not true- invariably, we
will have distorted views of ourselves.
I have found that knowing God has also been a great self-discovery. I am heavier than I have ever been in my
life, but I feel good about myself because I am more than my physical appearance. God has helped me to love my brown skin, eyes
and curly hair… I often tell people you see this body it’s all sweetness because
of my Seroquel sugar cravings (smile). Yet,
this year I would like to begin to work on making some positive changes to help
me become healthier. I think I am ready
to work on having physical discipline again and that’s perhaps another journey
that I will document here, because I know that we all need encouragement. Change is good.
My BFF's wedding.
All the pictures I shared on this post are pictures that though I am smiling I felt terribly insecure. They show a healthy girl- with a very distorted perception of herself. With God all things are truly possible- now I look at these images and they make me smile... (to be continued).
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