Well, you're wrong. I'm not happy all of the time. I do a damn good job of hiding how unhappy I am by plastering a smile on my face. Faking it, if you will. Now don't get me wrong; when I am out with my friends I am genuinely happy. Being around the people who love me for my idiotic "Jenna Moments" and my ADOS (attention deficit ooooh shiny) makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. The unhappiness that I am talking about is how disgusted I am with myself when I look in the mirror.
Show me a girl who doesn't suffer from body image issues. It's impossible. Women have so much pressure to look a certain way and act a certain way in order to live up to society's "standards" of what the perfect woman is. The "perfect" woman these days seems to be a size zero with a nice tan, long beautiful hair, a flat stomach, big boobs, and a thigh gap. THAT DAMN THIGH GAP!!!! These "standards" are detrimental to a woman's self-confidence and the way she sees herself when she looks in the mirror.
For me, it's a daily battle with my body image issues. I'm not going to lie- I used to be in really good shape. Marine Corps boot camp toned my body to a trim 125 pounds. When I got out of the Marines in 2009, I was in the 130-135 range but I had more muscle than I did fat. My body fat percentage was lower than normal for a woman my age/height/weight. Then this crazy thing called "life" happened, and I stopped running as much as I used to, got a little lazy, put on weight...and it's been that way for awhile. Bring in the factor of a stressful relationship with a man who never made me feel beautiful in my own skin, and it started to break me down. The depression that I had been battling with for a few years came creeping back and yet I had to keep it bottled up. When I was bartending, that weight seemed to just fall off; I wasn't "skinny," I was "toned." Running around and always being on my feet for a 12 hour shift did wonders for my weight loss. I could finally SLIP (not STRUGGLE) into the size 4 jeans I hadn't worn since I lived in 29 Palms. What a feeling that was!!! I felt so good about myself!
Since I moved to Maryland, I've put on a bit of weight. I went from wearing those size 4s, to a size 8, and the last pair of jeans I bought are a size 9 and those are now too small for me. Finding an outfit to wear when I go out with friends is a struggle to the point where sometimes I want to send out a text and back out of our plans because I feel and look so fat in pretty much everything I wear. It also doesn't help when my nine year old niece mentions my weight, although she does it in the sweetest way possible, it's still a dagger to the soul.
So this here is my proclamation for a change. I'm going to make a change, not only physically but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I need to learn how to love myself the way I did before, when I was the happiest I had ever been. Any and all encouragement and motivation is gladly accepted, but please DO NOT say stuff like "you're tiny" or "you're beautiful the way you are" or "you're skinny already" because NOTHING pisses me off more than that. You may be trying to be nice and encouraging and uplifting but statements like that do not help a girl who has such negative body image issues; in my experience, its actually physically painful trying to convince someone how wrong they are when they have no idea how you are feeling inside.
From here on out, you may see more blog posts from me, documenting my journey to get back to where I once was. You can choose to read along and join me on this journey, or you can just ignore it and keep scrolling, it's your choice. This is just my way of getting the issues off of my chest so I don't have to carry the weight of it on my shoulders. :)
Love and blessings to you! <3
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