A note on body dysmorphia

DISCLAIMER:  I have been sitting on writing about body dysmorphia and positivity for over 3 years now. Then I listened to an episode on my new favorite podcast – Mummy Mayhem and I knew it was time I share this story with my dearest readers. And I truly believe that someone needs to hear this, right now!

The first time I ever felt beautiful was in 2017 and the validation was external. I had been posted to the East, Enugu state for my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and I remember my greatest concern wasn’t the long journey from Ilorin to Enugu or leaving home to an unfamiliar terrain for the first time – It was the white khaki trouser I would have to wear for the next 3 weeks, showing my skinny thighs to hundreds of strangers. I was 16 going on 17.

For context, growing up, everyone around me took it upon themselves to make sure I knew how skinny I was. I was called “bony” “lepa” “broom stick” and any other word that resembled a slender frame. I grew up in the West, where being skinny is almost a crime. As a Yoruba girl/woman, having big breasts, wide hips, and big butts, is a symbol of fertility, sexual appeal, and healthy life. You look different means you are ‘suffering” and oh did I suffer, emotionally.  Family members and friends whom I hadn’t seen in months would tease me about my size as being a shame to my parents because it gave the impression that I wasn’t feeding properly.

I often felt guilty for being skinny and it hurts to know that as a growing child with so much ambition, the one concern that superseded all other concerns was my weight and being liked and accepted by everyone. To my disbelief, I arrived at Awgu camp in Enugu and found a lot of boys crushing on me…ooou, imagine what that did to my self-esteem. For the first time, I felt seen.

At 10, I noticed it was socially acceptable to call out and criticize a skinny person. It was normal for everyone around you to feel they are entitled to have an opinion about your body.

“ You’re so skinny you can disappear”

“ you have no meat on your bones”

“Will you ever find someone to love you?”

“Madam, you’re still not fat?

“you look like dry fish”

“ Gosh you need to eat more”

“ You’re a perfect figure 1”

“ Thank God you’re beautiful, that’s the only thing you have going”

LMAO. Oh, I’ve heard a lifetime of hurtful comments. As humiliating as it was, I learned to pretend not to be hurt by them. Three things were happening, significantly changing my perspective on life.

First, I  never felt I belonged anywhere – I felt like a stranger at home, school, church, and among my peers. I didn’t feel accepted at any point. I detached completely from people and reality, and I found solace in the corner of my room, buried in books and Hollywood movies ( the only place I saw representation ). I would look at other girls my age and wish I could have the same body as them. On most days, I despised my body.

Then, I wasn’t adding any weight no matter how hard I tried. I even drank raw eggs in milk one time because I read somewhere on Beyonce’s internet that it helps with weight gain. At some point, I didn’t think about how much food I ate because it would not matter. Experience had told me, my whole life, that I could consume a lot of junk food a day and my weight wouldn’t budge an ounce.

And lastly, most people, especially my loved ones made those comments from a place of love, but that didn’t make it appropriate. Love wears many faces – sometimes it’s lack of knowledge/empathy, or envy without probable cause.  Sometimes it’s the way they look at you and project their fears and that was a source of unhappiness for me.

I began to grow into my new body gradually in my early 20s, letting my authentic personality come along for the ride. My newfound confidence still came from external validation. The world was finally embracing body positivity. Saying you hate being skinny, came with eye-rolling and side-eyeing. You suddenly become body goals for older people, and they don’t hesitate to let you know how they envy the same body you hopelessly want to outgrow.

I am writing this because I’m sure there are a million other people who feel the same way. I realized how we have never been satisfied with our bodies. When you were bigger, you wanted to be smaller. When you were smaller, you wanted bigger. The list of flaws we find in our bodies is endless. And it’s okay to want to change how you look if it will make you feel good. However, enjoy where you are on the way to where you want to be.

When it comes to body image, remember not to project your feelings and opinions onto others, even as a joke. To this day, I can go from a zero to 100 if you body shame anyone beside me. I have zero tolerance for banters that come off as body shaming.

 It’s not right to assume that we know how someone else feels about themselves, based on how we perceive them to be. Let that culture of body shaming anyone for being skinny, fat, short, tall, dark, light, stop with us. A woman’s body is not a comment section! A child’s body is not a comment section!

Over the past years, I’ve invested in building my self-esteem. First I learned to love the body I am in, whether I want to gain or lose weight. I apologized to my younger self for believing in every negative comment that tore me apart. I started eating healthy (kinda, winks*). I changed my wardrobe to wear clothes for my body size. I changed my look to something I have always felt confident in, and I love how I am aging gracefully with my body.

The first time I ever truly felt beautiful is every time I see a mirror. This time, the validation was internal.