it's a me :)

[mickeym]

I've been scanning family photos, and thought I'd share one with y'all. I like this picture, but looking at it makes me kind of sad, too, because I don't really remember this person I was; she seems like a stranger. Also, looking at it makes me wonder about the brainwashing done in and by my family -- because I wasn't fat, and yet, I was told I was, and believed I was.





That's me, my mom, my sister. I was fifteen, Jen was twelve.

Comments

[rainbow.livejournal.com]

You're so beautiful, and it infuriates me that your mother told you otherwise.

Your body language is interesting; you've got your head cocked away from them and your arm positions look very much like trying to remove yourself from their influence.

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

Thanks, honey. It wasn't just my mom, though -- and she, hell, my whole family has weight/body image issues. Our family doctor had comments to make about my weight, as did some of my classmates.

I was "bigger" than a lot of the girls I went to school with -- I wore a size 14 (I think, probably around there, anyway) whereas so many of them were a size 3/4. But, like I was telling Matthew the other night (I have no idea, we were talking about sports in high school), we had a pool at our house so I swam nearly every day except in the winter, and I walked to and from school -- five miles roundtrip, five days a week. I walked to the library, to the drugstore, pretty much everywhere.

[rainbow.livejournal.com]

Feh at the lot of them, then *snugglehugs*

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

*snuggles you back*

[zortified.livejournal.com]

Around the same age I wore size 12 and I was told/felt fat, too. It's just.. one of the worst things we do to teenagers (and kids) is to teach them to hate their bodies.

[tabularassa.livejournal.com]

♥

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

*hugs* :)

[girlnamedpixley.livejournal.com]

You were beautiful then and you're beautiful now.

Our parallel childhoods are coming to light once again. I know how you feel - I look back at my high school pictures when I felt so fat and unattractive because I was a size 14 and all my friends were size 8 or smaller. Now I think I was curvy and awesome actually look BETTER than some of my friends who were so skinny. It bothers me now that I was unable to see it then.

I guess all we can do is keep fighting the good fight. Trying to be happy where we are while we're on the journey to somewhere else.

There are people all over the world who love you, Kim, right now, the way you are today, and who admire you for so many reasons.

And you have a lot of positive things to focus on, like your classes. Your best times are yet to come. You'll see.

*hugs tight*

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

*hugs you tight*

I swear sometimes it seems like we were the same person, doesn't it? :)

I made a post a while back, probably last year or even before that, saying I remember walking through the halls of school, at church, everywhere, feeling like a whale navigating through crowds of minnows. I remember feeling that way, but when I look at that picture up there, I can't remember why. Because that girl, she isn't fat. She's curvy, and a little soft, and yeah, probably looked a lot better than the girls who were so skinny all their bones stuck out at angles.

Love you, honey :)

[lk737.livejournal.com]

hon, i don't think you were overweight at all. it appears like your sister is abnormally thin, was she? i hope you don't feel this way at all, because you truly weren't. *hugs you*

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

I was heavier than I should have been for my age and height -- I think I was probably somewhere in the area of 150-160. But I wasn't *fat* like I believed I was.

My sister...yeah. She went through several years where she flirted with anorexia. Lots of exercising, not much eating. She never got skeletal, and she did finally ease back on the exercising and start to eat more. We all have a lot of eating/food/body image issues in my family, unfortunately.

[gestaltrose.livejournal.com]

*smishes you* When I turned 12 puberty hit me like a freight train... I went from a little girl to a child in a woman's body in like 6 months... stretch marks, a little belly, c cup and hips. I had a horrible body image and now I look back on pics of me then and I'm the same as you. I have no idea why I felt like I was 'enormous'. I think I looked good. I think you looked great then and that you are fantastic now.

[dark-cygnet.livejournal.com]

aw honey, i graduated high school in 82. Weighed about 120 pounds at 5'1" and was told by pretty much everyone, family, media, other girls and boys that I could stand to lose a few pounds. If I had known then what i know now...well first i would have told everyone to fuck off and second, i would have loved myself way more and enjoyed what I had. Hindsite and all that... I think you look beautiful there.

[britomart-is.livejournal.com]

Hi, teenage you!

[azziria.livejournal.com]

You were (and are) beautiful.

I was 5' 6" and 140 lbs at 15/16. I was told by a teacher at school who was doing a weigh-in, in front of my entire class, that I needed to lose some weight. I once took some holiday photos into school and forgot to take out the one of me in bikini on the beach. The popular girls stole it and showed it around, making fun of me - how dare someone like me wear a bikini?

What makes me so sick is that, when I look at that self-same photo now, I don't see a fat girl. I see someone slim and beautiful. (I've always weighed heavier than I look, thanks either to good solid bones or to muscle tone.) And then I get so bitter that I went through so much of my life believing that I was fat and ugly.

I'm now 160 lbs (but hey, 2 kids down the line), fit and healthy, and mostly OK with my body. However, I still have moments (such as when buying clothes) when the damage done to that beautiful young teenager takes hold again. I have carried this throughout my life, and it makes me so sad and angry that that has happened.
*hugs*

[fufaraw]

Early puberty and boys looking and sniggering, every girl in my class was a dainty toothpick and I felt like a sweaty, greasy, smelly carthorse. Hips, boobs--small, but un-ignorable--thighs and butt, hair in new places, and odors to suddenly learn to mask or scrub away. I felt huge, and a mutant. And of course my mom and the neighbors and church ladies all immediately jumped on the "You have such a pretty face dear. Are you sure you want that cookie?"

Of course I look back now, and would kill for that figure. And also want to take that girl in my arms and tell her how pretty she is, how feminine and healthy and lovely, and make her believe it.

The girl in your picture is lovely, and I wish she'd had someone tell her that till she believed it.

[thehighwaywoman.livejournal.com]

Ah, honey. *hugs* I know exactly what you mean. 12 years old, 5"3, and I weighed 125 pounds -- and I was told I was disgusting. That word specifically.

Families can truly suck, especially when transferring insecurities to the next generation.

Me? I think you are beautiful. ♥

[rivers-bend.livejournal.com]

*hugs you so much*

I just clench my teeth thinking about the things that were said to you and to me and to thousands of other teenage girls about their bodies. It's awful the scars it can leave. You are a gorgeous person, honey.

And thank you so much for my pride flag! It made my heart swell.

[turps33.livejournal.com]

You look gorgeous ♥

[gillianinoz.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough I was looking at old pictures of myself today (searching for old school hotos for a school reunion). I saw pictures of myself when I was about rhe age and size you were in the picture and I was amazed! I remember feeling so fat back then, but looking at the pictures now I was actually quite an average size.

Amazing. I feel as if I have grown into the image I had of myself back then.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

wow - those haistyles!

(and it's probably good that you can look back and distance yourself from then, and see that what was said wasn't true)