Body Shame

Reader's: I'll ask for your indulgence this week. I have come across a piece of my self I want to heal. At 46 years old it is time to release myself of body shame. I'm tired of it. It is holding me back. I carry it around like a heavy weighted sack, literally. I think it is the heavy weighted sack that lives on my stomach and thighs. I want to let it go and so I need to tell the stories in public. You are my audience and my venue for healing. So here I beging.

I remember body shame from about 6^th grade, suddenly the label ‘pleasantly plump’ was applied to my friend Nancy and I. I don’t know who gave it too us, but we took it on. We were not thin. We were a round and soft. There is a picture, in a brown paper bag full of old photos in my attic, of the two of us in bikinis. We had gone fishing at the coast. I have a vague memory of the fishing trip: a small motor boat in Newport Harbor. We caught a couple small fish, probably 6 inches long. We're standing on the dock in our bikinis holding the fish in front of us, big smiles on our faces. We are utterly unselfconscious of our round bellies and soft thighs when the photo was taken. But seeing the picture and being labeled 'pleasantly plump' was part of the beginning of body shame.

I was 'pleasantly plump' through junior high and the first few years of high school. I liked to eat. I had a healthy appetite and I liked to overeat. I hadn’t yet learned to diet. I remember needing sugar to ease the pain of life. I remember deep cravings to find something sweet, something chocolate and sticky and satisfying, to ease the discomfort of my soul. I remember taking off on long bike rides to find special stores that a particular sweet I thought would ease the discomfort. See's candy and Swedish Mints were the drugs that eased my soul. The addict mind was at work: seeking out a substance that will fix my soul.

I remember coming home from school with Nancy and standing in her kitchen warming fresh tortillas, from Pedro’s Place, over the gas stove. We’d warm them just to the point that they’d burnt and bubbled ever so slightly and then we'd add lots of butter. We’d stand and eat them over a plate so the dripping melted butter wouldn’t get all over the kitchen. It was a small moment of heaven. But I also remember there was guilt attached to this eating. Somewhere in adolescence what I ate and my personal value became enmeshed. I was ‘bad’ when I indulged in all those tortillas and butter. I was ‘good’ when I didn’t eat or had fruit for a snack. I thought that the good/bad value judgments were my rational mind. I thought that I should be able to overcome my cravings with my rational mind. There was no talking about feeling good in my body. No awareness of how different foods made me physically feel. No looking at the source of desire or compulsion. I was good or bad by choice. I carried the guilt and shame of indulging the ‘bad’ self with food. I was ashamed of my inability to stop eating.