Body image

Having a poor body image from a young age contributed to my eating disorders. Not in the stereotypical stare in the mirror “I must be skinny way” often depicted, but in the deep seated beliefs I formed which told me “this body you have will not give you a happy life as it is”. Growing up I never imagined the body I had could get me a partner, a job, or friends. I felt that it wasn’t good enough, but that if I changed it, I’d feel better, become less shy, more bubbly, & all of the other parts of life would become available to me. I would have given all my money to someone who could change my body. I would have & did take dangerous pills to quell my appetite. I would have slept through months of my life & lost them forever if it meant I could have woken up having not eaten in this time, and therefore shrunk myself.

Image credit: Instagram @jennifer_rollin

What interests me about the way I thought as a child is that there was some evidence around me that people of all shapes and sizes were doing things like getting jobs, marrying, having babies & even smiling. What did I think of these people? Did I even consider these people? I think I presumed they must have either had a lucky break, or been secretly miserable, just like the people with ashamed faces in the “before” photos of the dieting magazines had. The dialogue around fat activism, body acceptance & body positivity will surely help dispel the myths around this, & books such as “Happy Fat” by Sofie Hagen are refreshing to see.

Image credit Instagram @sofiehagendk

Had I never seen or heard a single diet culture friendly story or image that sold me self hatred, I’d not have wasted so much time on the path I did. Whilst we aren’t going to combat every diet culture promoting image, story & conversational chat, we can show young people that there’s another way to think about their being as more than a body. We can share with them that people are profiting from selling products & that this is why they lie to them. We can show them that we all deserve to be fed and to be loved. We can remove talks of being “good” or “bad” for a food choice. We can NOT praise or scold others for what they eat or how they look. We can encourage them to listen to & trust their one unique body.

Image credit: Instagram @ownitbabe

Extroverts win

I listen to lots of podcasts and I read lots of books on the topic of introverts. I love introverts, I get them and I get it. I understand myself and I have self awareness. But I still get that pang of pain in the knowledge that I’ll never be able to do that, when an extrovert enters and wins over a whole room in an instant. Connections that would take me months of steady effort, appear to be won in seconds.

Being the friend of an extrovert isn’t always fun too. If you become known as “the quiet one” you might find yourself always answering questions like “how’s your extrovert friend? The really fun one who we all love to be around more than you?”, ok they don’t really say that but it’s sometimes how it feels when you’re questioned. Sometimes they do win more friends. Sometimes they get on better with your own friends, and their friendships blossom, and if you’re honest, it’s kind of understandable that everyone is more captivated by them. In work settings the extroverts do well with all the new faces, challenging topics can be bullshitted there way through that little bit more easily. I imagine their job interviews are a bit less draining for them; you want a presentation? Sure. At school they are more likely to be picked; want to select a lead for a play? Can we have a show of hands for the extroverts please? But don’t they know of all the introverted actors? Maybe, but theres no time to check if the introverts want in, we are too distracted by the extrovert over there.  I guess the extroverts are always more memorable.

When I got a tattoo I was so awkward. People asked me “did it hurt?”, “did the healing take a long time?”, but the truth is the part that was painful was sitting there in a tattoo parlour full of strangers not knowing what to say or do for all those hours. Opting for silence, I became increasingly aware of how odd that was a few hours in. “Shall I speak? It’s been too long now. It would be weird to suddenly speak now. What could I say at this point? Ok I’ll ask a question about tattooing.” I ask the question that I don’t really need an answer to. “Oh cool” I come back with, mind suddenly blank as to how to proceed the convo.

A lady walks in. Short blonde hair with pink streaks running through it. Slim jeans and floppy laced converse teamed with a T-shirt listing gig dates for a band. She looked the part. Climbing onto the parlour chair she started to ask her artist questions so effortlessly that I caught myself staring at her. Realising I probably looked like a creepy Wednesday Adams, I looked away but kept listening. Simple questions really, but she was so loud, and so apparently unafraid as to how the question would sound or who would hear. Perhaps somewhat oversharing she explained how her family had sued a morgue that held her late grandmothers body, because someone had managed to break in and steal her Grandmothers ring, snapping her fingers. The money she got was partly funding her tattoo. I heard a lot from the artist too. Al these stories neither of them would know about each other if they didn’t ask. Perhaps here I am intermeshing confidence and extrovertism, which of course are not that same. As she exchanged Instagram addresses with the room, she left with a loud and hearty goodbye, and as she departed I was again drawn back to the awkward silence I felt so responsible for.

Suits & Sleeping Bags

‘Jesus. This guy looks important. And who is she with the timeless blazer jacket and blonde bob?’ I thought. “Morning Duncan!” the blonde bob shoots up in the direction of yet another attendee to the meeting. Monday morning, not even 10am and I’m in the deep end of meeting brand new people for a pre meeting chit chat. Deciding I could get away with it and desperate to avoid small talk, I entered the meeting room ahead of the others whilst they waited in the hall. As I walked away I mumbled “help yourself to teas and…” – cue trail off with a garbled word, team with eye contact that meets not a single eye, turn whilst still mumbling and walk suddenly fast to make for a pretty awesome “is that girl quite with it?” first impression.

In the meeting room I begin faffing with a laptop that I had set up quite perfectly ten minutes earlier, that required no extra input from me, yet I took solace in it playing along with me. One by one ‘The Important Looking People’ began to enter the room. ‘Do I say something now? It’s pretty rude that I’m just looking at my laptop. But if I start small talk now someone might cut me off mid sentence as the meeting will start and that would look weirder than not speaking, especially after mumbly dawdly girl first impression’ I considered. Deciding to stay quiet, the meeting began and I lightly typed on my keyboard friend noting down what the people were saying. My brain was beginning to fire up, and I think I struck the right balance of hitting the buttons: not so loud as to block out voices, and not so quiet as to make people think “is she even making any notes?”.

Why people have meetings beyond one hour I don’t know, for in my mind after the 60th minute I’m not fully there. Well actually, I am fully there, just perhaps not in the way that I’m meant to be. By 11.30am I was on my fifth character analysis. Looking up from the clunky laptop I continued with my internal discussion about what type of person each meeting attendee was. The longer I looked at them all, the more compassion I felt. I decided that everyone in the room cared a lot about the topics they discussed and about people. They were a mixture of hospital trust staff and it really warmed me to know that this was the case, well according to my mid meeting character analysis that is.

During a break, I joke with The Looks Important guy about the old school laptop I’m using, and as though everyone breaks character for the pause in the meeting, I see each persons lighter side. I wonder if everyone has worries and thoughts like mine, or if they had them before they became more knowledgeable in their subject areas. Looks Important guy sent another joke my way and my response brought in a character from across the room who also suddenly didn’t seem so scary. I wondered if they even thought of me as Random Mumbly Girl or if they thought nothing much of my odd entrance earlier.

After the meeting I spoke a bit more with a few of the attendees and actually laughed at myself for perceiving them as though they were from some alien landscape simply because they had a title and a suit. A week prior I spent some time speaking with some homeless people in a community group. I was lost for words at the story they shared of life on the streets for 8 years, sleeping bag and tiny little bags of belongings in tow. I awkwardly hovered at the table longing for them to give me a neat opening to say “ok I’ll be off now!” But it didn’t seem appropriate to follow “what can I do I’ll sleep anywhere indoors we just need anywhere” with that. When I did at last express that there’s not much I could do but that I would do my best to keep thinking, the three men thanked me not for my help, but for treating them like a human and hearing them. We are all but human, and we are all important – suit or sleeping bag.