My Relationship With My Body

Trigger Warning: mentions of starving and purging

The human body? Incredible. The human body with breasts and curves? Sensational. Being attached to said human body with breasts and curves? It’s complicated.

Puberty. We’re no stranger to her. We’ve all met her and have had to handle her quips as best as we could. The average person might have been introduced to her royal highness at the age of 11 and beyond but I was involuntarily acquaintanced with her at the tender age of 8. That’s right, I was an early bloomer.

What does being an early bloomer entail you ask? Well it meant that my breasts began to develop at the age of 8. Whilst all of my friends ran around playing tag, I was out with my mother looking for training bras which eventually evolved to proper bras very quickly. I was the only one of my friends who had a sports bra before a mobile phone. Unfortunately for me, I was well endowed at a young age. This led to frequent chest pains and the wonderfully uncomfortable sensation of an underwire all while my body was still young and sensitive.

Of course with having a biological female body, there was another aspect of puberty which came early as well, my period. Puberty, being the kind and generous queen that she is, blessed me with my first period when I was 10 years old. So not only was I the only one of my friends with a C cup bra but I was now the only one with a pad as well. No it did not make me feel out of place or lead to awkward conversations, why do you ask?

Additionally, a commonly known big part of puberty is weight gain. Being graced with puberty’s magic at a young age meant that my hips grew wider and my breasts and buttocks grew in size before any of my peers. Unfortunately, not everyone, myself included, understood that I was going through a very common and natural part of growing up. Instead, we thought I was getting fat.

Growing up, I was in the ballet and netball clubs, endeavours which commonly require you to have a slim or “proper” physique. Whilst my body grew, so did my reputation as the ‘big ballerina” or the girl on the netball team with the “big butt”. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I was taunted for the way I looked. I found comfort in junk food because I felt isolated and ostracised and ice cream felt like a warm, embracing hug.

No one understood what I was going through until a couple of years later but it wasn’t the connection I sought out. Once all my friends had hit puberty, we were able to share our growing pains and common experiences. The one thing that always took its toll on us was our weight. My reputation as the bigger girl followed me throughout my adolescence and my ritual of seeking solace in sugar wasn’t exactly doing much to aid the way I felt about my physical appearance.

I ended up skipping meals and throwing up whatever I had eaten to achieve that “slim” physique I had so desperately yearned for. How I had enough energy to sit through my national exams was beyond me.

It wasn’t until I entered the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) that things took a darker turn. I was given a uniform which consisted of a tight white button up and a tight pencil skirt. This was to be worn daily for 5 days a week. I couldn’t buy a bigger size because it would be too big and would look sloppy, almost comical. Needless to say, I continued my routine to make sure I could fit into my uniform without having to buy a new set.

I had one meal a day and spent the rest of my day drinking tea to fill myself up. Even then, I was still bigger than my peers who met the conventional standards of an aesthetically pleasing body type. No one explicitly said that I was of less value because of my size but I had always felt that way and the waistband of my uniform consistently reinforced that notion.

It wasn’t until I lost my virginity that I learnt that my body could be viewed as anything other than grotesque. I had spent so much of my life viewing myself as a replica of Jaba the Hut that I had failed to realise that my body could be viewed sexually, as an object of desire. It was then that I realised that my body was indeed something that I should not be ashamed of. It was something that had brought me such a wonderful experience, in which my bare body was the main attraction.

If someone else could love my body, why couldn’t I?

I began to grow more confident as the days passed; no longer viewing myself as bad or disgusting. My body was beautiful. I was beautiful. I had all the confidence in the world to do whatever I wanted. My confidence allowed me to see the world in saturated colours, rather than a faded tint. I let myself take up space, to speak my mind, everything that I had ever wanted to do because I knew that I would not be ostracised for how I looked.

However, this was short-lived.

As I got older, I began to indulge in more bedroom endeavours to satisfy the libido that came with my hormones. One particular partner did not satisfy my libido and proceeded to blame me for it before telling me that I’m not physically like his usual roster of girls who were “skinny with asses”. I felt humiliated and dejected. I went back to hating the way I looked, thinking that my body was the reason why I was treated with such disrespect. It tormented me for months; no one had ever spoken to me or treated me like that.

It sent me on a downward spiral. A part of me wanted him to see what he was missing. I began to sexualise myself to gain the attention of those around me. Scantily draped in photographs, clothing that left little to the imagination and innuendos dripping from my lips.

I had people at my beck and call, willing to be with me whenever I wanted but I felt empty. I had completely forgotten about him but I had adapted this new routine in his honour which no longer served me - which never served me. No one wanted to engage in conversation with me unless they could see a part of my body. I hadn’t had an intellectual conversation in a long time and it left me numb, almost like a shell of my former self. I conducted an experiment and noticed that none of them would talk to me unless I initiated the conversation or I had recently posted a salacious picture online. I was also treated differently based on how I dressed, with no alterations to my mannerisms or how I communicated.

My body was once again my greatest enemy, but for a different reason.

I began to hide myself once again. I tweaked the way I dressed, I became less active on social media - which inevitably led to a significant decline in followers. My epiphany led me to see how my womanly body was perceived by those around me and it terrified me. I was finally confident in the way that I looked, but it was now a weapon that could be used against me.

Despite this rollercoaster of emotional turmoil, I have found a few wins. I have finally learnt to love myself as a whole and I’m learning not to place my worth in my physical appearance.

Unfortunately, I do not have a satisfying ending to this story. This is a conundrum that will likely follow me throughout my life; but I am hopeful. I hope that I will reach a day where I have made peace with who I am, all of me, and not care about how I am perceived by others. Maybe then I'll finally be content.