My Body Image Journey
I write this as the UK's Mental Health Awareness week draws to a close. This years theme is Body Image. Something that has been a battle of mine since the age of 12. I'm much better than I was, but I still have days where I struggle with how my body looks and that's OK. We're not perfect and we never will be. Sometimes that's a bitter pill to swallow, however, we'll all get there. I wanted to tell my story for anyone else suffering with body dysmorphia.
I wasn't a pretty teenager. I mean, not many people are blessed with being pretty teenagers. But honestly, I looked like a cross between the fat controller, a lego doll (I didn't have a great haircut) and Darla from Finding Nemo. I was desperate to fit in, but I didn't know who I was. Some of the friends I thought I had from primary school drifted away to new, cooler girls and I was left as a round ball of hormones.
My weight loss began when I was in year 8/9 so around the age of 13/14. I remember a big milestone was that I'd started my period a few months before my friends had done and I couldn't understand why I had to be the first, why it hurt, what it meant really and that I couldn't possibly ask my Mum about it - I mean how mortifying! It started when I was away on my first trip abroad with school. I felt bloated and ugly and the photos reflected it too. I knew I 'had' to make a change, but at this point I didn't know how to.
I was stood in a science lesson where we were learning about BMI (don't even get me started on that). We were in groups and we had to step on the scales and workout each others BMI's - I mean have you heard anything more ludicrous?! Basically it turned out that I weighed 10 and a half stone, not a ridiculously unhealthy weight bearing in mind that I was 5ft 6 at the time. Another girl in the group was complaining that she weighed 8 and a half stone and I was completely mortified, willing the ground to swallow me up. How had I thought I was healthy when I weighed a whole two stone more than her? I was quite simply an elephant!
A switch flipped in my head that day and I was never going to be the same again.
I went home and set myself a goal of weighing 7 stone, that way I would be lighter than everyone in the class and pretty much everyone in my year group. The worst bit about this irrational goal and *spoiler alert* was that I got there.
I didn't change to a healthy lifestyle or started a healthy exercise routine (that was as equally as unhealthy and not the couch potato kind). I cut out pretty much every food you can imagine. Bread was a no go. Dairy was a distant memory. Breakfast was a crime and a decent lunch was a rarity. Lunch now consisted of a packet of quavers because they were only 99 calories and either a banana or Kit Kat because they were both 99 calories too. So my lunch consisted of a whopping 198 calories. Then my dinner would consist of whatever my Mum had cooked for me that evening.
I was at dancing lessons for an average of 4 hours a week and would practice for an hour every night before my parents got home from work. Burning an average of 800 more calories a day than I was consuming and eating less than half the recommended daily calories for the average adult woman.
As the weight dropped off my confidence grew. I fell into a false sense of security. Attention from boys was starting and my ego was growing with it. My popularity was growing, I was no longer the girl with 'the lamp shade' hair (yes someone said that to me) and I finally felt that I was fitting in. Something I wasn't fitting into anymore, a size 8 t-shirt and jeans - HALLELUJAH! This girl has got this diet thing NAILED. This girl was doing so well that even the boy that used to pick on me for 'being too ugly to get a boyfriend' stopped with the torment. Something good must be happening right?!
I weighed myself daily and I went into an incredibly dark place. I was an undiagnosed anorexic and I didn't know where to turn.
My periods stopped for a year and half, something that I'm sure has caused so many of my problems nowadays.
My family and I joke now that it was my 'weird phase' and I'm pleased we can joke about it now as I was a shell of a person. Mental illness is incredibly selfish and hard to watch from the sidelines. I can't remember 6-9 months of my life because I was in such a dark hole. My brain wasn't working because I simply wasn't fuelling it. A car doesn't work without petrol, so why would I?! The only time where I would come back to life and return to someone like myself was when I had a meal in the evening.
One family holiday was the worst time of my life. I refused to go to breakfast, lunch or dinner. I would cry if I was made to and complained that I felt sick. The reality was that I felt sick because I was so unbelievably empty. However, I can't remember this actually happening, my memory has only been jogged by photos and stories.
The positive that came from all of this, is that I got better. I fell into a dramatic deep teenage love, which quite frankly saved me. It took my mind off of what I should and shouldn't be eating and focused it onto the dramas of a teenage relationship. I will be forever grateful for my ex walking into my life at that time, because my story would be very different now if he hadn't.
I got asked by someone before 'how can I get better?'. There's no right or wrong way to get better. You can't force someone to be in a relationship with you to make you better and there's no saying that, that would even work for you. If you're aware that you're punishing yourself in any way mentally, then all I can advise is that you talk. Whether that's a person or writing in a diary. You need to let out your feelings, your emotions and your worries. Please, please, please don't feel like people won't understand, because they will. The likelihood being is that the person you speak to about it, has probably felt the same. A shocking and sad statistic from Glamour Magazine, is that 97% of women will be cruel to their bodies today alone. Men are also unkind to themselves too.
This story is the top line of what happened to me and quite honestly, I can't remember most of it. I can remember the names I was called when the weight started to come on. When I was genuinely healthy. I got told that I shouldn't run in a bikini with the body I had and I got told that I was fat, both by two boys that I went to school with. I'd call them a lot worse, but I can't be bothered to be bitter. Karma will get them somewhere along the way.
My point being is that, they had no idea what happened to me in my teens. They weren't my friends. If I wasn't a strong person, or was still in that dark place comments like that could have had me plummeting into a world of darkness once again.
I fight for MidSize being heard and seen as beautiful so others don't go through what I went through. I'm the healthiest and happiest with my body I've ever been. It's taken me a long time to feel this way and these things don't happen over night. For years and years I thought I was absolutely massive, even though I no longer weighed 7 stone and got back to a far healthier 10 and a half stone. I felt far bigger than my friends and I'd buy the clothes to match, size 14's when I was a size 10. As I scroll through photos for this post I realise that I really, really wasn't bigger than my friends and I will never be the same as them now. But again, that's ok. I was still riddled with mental health issues at the time. Do I have stretch marks? Of course I do. Do I have cellulite? Of course I do. Do I workout? Of course I do. Just because I'm a size 16 doesn't mean that I'm not healthy or happy. Just like a size 6, a size 12, a size 22 or a size 32 can be. You've got to do what's right for you.
If you can relate to anything spoken about in this blog post then please talk to someone, whether that's a loved one, me, a long lost cousin or a charity. Please pick up that phone or visit that person. You need a hug, a big one.
Mental health doesn't just happen during Mental Health Awareness week. It's ok, not to be ok. For anyone suffering my love goes out to you and a shout out to the listeners and the sideline watchers. Sometimes you can give all the advice in the world and someone in a dark place can't find their way out, be patient. They'll find their way out. But they also need you still holding the torchlight to guide their way. You've all got this.
Sophie x
Mind: Call 0300 123 3393 or text 86463
Samaritans: Call 116 123