The boys were gone for a couple of days before Labor Day weekend and that meant I had the tv to myself. Funny how little found to watch when it was available to me. One of my favorite fall back shows is What Not To Wear.
I’ve watched a couple of the shows and want to burst into tears because I see myself in those women. Such low self esteem and poor Stacy and Clinton have to reteach these ladies how to view themselves.
So, I took a few photos of myself, that before I never would’ve posted here, but I need to get this out of my brain. A couple weeks ago I posted about how I was told what I could and couldn’t wear by my ex.
I wore this to the Footloose interview, but had a cropped jacket on over it. I can’t tell you how freeing and slutty I felt all at the same time. Not in a “HA! Look at me go!” But more of a “Oh my gosh, I shouldn’t be doing this because this is SO short.”
And if you’re my friend on FB, no, this isn’t the dress I bought recently. And as you look at this little dress, there’s a peach tank underneath that looked cute IRL, but looks very pale in the photo.
But as I was saying, unfortunately, those things the ex didn’t want me to do because he was so paranoid of some other guy looking at me, he was the one doing the looking the entire time. So, he had all these rules for me, and none for himself. Not surprising I guess.
My wardrobe, if you could even call it that, consisted of the bare minimums: t-shirts that weren’t form fitting, sweatshirts, sweaters, and jeans. That’s about it. It was being reinforced in my brain that I wasn’t worthwhile, not pretty, and that I wasn’t enough.
Now, I’m trying to dig myself out from all of that. I’ve got 13 years worth of digging to do. I don’t know that I’ll ever arrive; arrive in a place where I see myself as anything worth looking at. It’s just a reality. I may never get past what’s been poured into my brain throughout the years.
So, here’s what I see, and yes, my ex would blow a gasket if he ever saw these photos:
I know I look skinny. I never feel that way. When I see myself in the mirror I see the 150 lb girl I was 20 yrs ago. YES, it’s been that long since I was heavy (I’m 5’8 BTW) but that’s the person I still see.
Next I see that my “breasts” barely stick out further than my belly. I think if we lined up a ruler, my belly may actually be bigger. Honestly, if my “hmm hmms” were bigger I might be ok with all the rest of the stuff. Well, I wouldn’t be able to see all the rest of the stuff because they’d stick out further.
Those are part of what makes us feel feminine. If you are flat like me, you’d have a hard time understanding what I’m talking about. Our society doesn’t make it easy on women who don’t have much to show for themselves.
I’m always comparing. I never noticed other women as much as I started to when I was married. It was a constant comparison and I fell flat (no pun intended) every time. I was seeing what he was seeing and how could I compare?
I felt like a failure every time he looked at me or touched me. And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. I mean, not in how I was created. I could get work done to make them “more”, but I didn’t ever want anything like that inside of my body.
There was no way for me to win and in the end, I lost.
And with this drilled into my brain thru my marriage, which reinforced what I learned and believed about myself as I grew up, and look around and see what society and men in general find beautiful (the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue isn’t popular because they’re wearing parkas) how am I supposed to get past this?
How am I ever supposed to believe a man thinks I’m pretty or even just ok looking?
I hate that this is such a struggle.
