Good morning and happy Monday! Instead of my usual weekend recap, I am writing today about something that has been weighing heavy on my heart. I think I’ll also include some picture from the weekend because Barrett took me on the most amazing hiking trip to Red River Gorge!
OK. Let’s get started.
To be honest, what I am going to talk about has been so prominent in my life ever since my eating disorder. I think about this a lot and I talk about this A LOT (just ask my family or Barrett!) But I wanted to talk about this today because things made so much more sense to me this weekend.
Ever since my eating disorder began, I have hated been DISGUSTED with what I see in the mirror. I think on my blog I seem like I have all my shit together but let me tell you, I DO NOT. I think about my image almost 99.99% of the day. The only real peace and quiet I get is when I am sleeping. I can’t help. Ever since my eating disorder, all I can think about is how I look. When my ED first begun all I thought about was food. And then all I thought about was my weight and food. Then, it was all about my weight. Now, it’s less about the weight and just all about how I look when I see myself in the mirror.
My poor family and Barrett has had to hear me complain about how I look for quite some time now. I can make the nastiest jokes about how big my thighs are or how big my butt is and act like I am “unphased” by the whole issue. I claim that I like to make jokes about myself because I want so badly for people to know that I already know how I look! Because for some reason, I think that people just sit around and talk about how “big” I am. (…not the case, I know.)
OK, let me tell you about this weekend. Well for starters, since day one I met Barrett, he has done nothing but express his love for not only how he thinks I am beautiful but also how he loves my heart and mind as well. So it was not surprise to me when this weekend when we were hiking, Barrett kept wanting to take pictures of me hiking. There was one point in our hike where he just kept wanting to take pictures of my face, my eyes, my freckles, my ears, and me putting my hair in a pony tail. And the whole time he just kept saying how beautiful he thought I was. I just kept rolling my eyes because let me tell you, I did NOT think I was beautiful. I was sweating like crazy, I had no makeup on, and I could feel my stomach bulging over my running capris. But I went along with his pictures because I knew he was just “being nice.”
On the way home from the mountains, I went through his phone to look at all of these said “beautiful” pictures of me. I was heart-broken. You could see my stomach pushing out my shirt and hanging over my capris. You could see my double chin. You could see my rosy red cheeks and my hair greased back from sweat. This was me in my absolute worst state. I couldn’t understand how he could think I was so beautiful?! He looked over at me in the car and said “You better not delete one picture!”
He knows me so well.
I wish I could tell you I’m perfect and I got over myself but I can’t. There are still so many pictures I won’t share on here with you guys because I think I don’t look good enough. But this weekend made me realize something I should have realized a long, long time ago.
First, who the f*ck cares?! I mean really. Who the F cares about what you look like? Seriously. The only person I can think that cares what I look like is me.
Second, why can’t we just accept the way people see us? For some reason I just assume people are “being nice” or straight up lying when they give me a compliment. I can’t just accept the fact that my boyfriend loves me and thinks I am beautiful exactly the way God created me.
And third, what am I so afraid of? What is so scary about loving who you are?
I’m not sure if you can relate to this long rant or not but if you can, I hope you know you are not alone. I battle with self-loathing every. single. day.
I pray about this all the time. But this weekend I felt like God was saying “accept how others see you.”
I will still struggle with this when I look in the mirror. But maybe I shouldn’t look in the mirror so much? I think we could all stand to stop comparing ourselves to other people.
And with all that being said ladies and gentlemen, I challenge you to accept how others see you. Whether that be how much they love you or much they hate you. Whether that be how someone loves your smile or hates the way you chew gum.
Accept it. Embrace it. And most importantly, (as cliché as it sounds) thank God everyday that you get wake up and be exactly who He created you to be.
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