I want to talk about Body Positivity, OK?

I want to preface this blog post by saying I’ve never claimed to be the healthiest person. I’m extremely busy, travel frequently and often too exhausted to hit the gym. Touring is entirely another issue. What do you eat at 2 am after a show when you’re on the road? I posted a status update that got a lot of love (and it’s share of tear-inducing fat-shaming comments), and it explains how I live my life; with hella self-care and salad and heirloom tomatoes and a goddamn gin martini whenever I so choose.
PS. Can someone open a drive-thru vegan restaurant that’s open forever and has cute girls working and is only 5 dollars for anything and is in every city and has puppies you can hold while you wait?? PLEASE??

I want to talk about bodies. Bodies are sometimes broken, sometimes violated, sometimes nurtured, sometimes healing, sometimes sick. But your body is your own. It is a beautiful and dangerous thing, that freedom; we can do whatever we want with our bodies. Why are bodies a sensitive subject? Because we live with them every second of our lives. And there are crazy amounts of critics that attempt to define beauty. If you’re someone that wants to promote body positivity but are not sure how to go about it due to having a slightly smaller following, knowing that you can always use services that companies such as socialfollow offer, maybe doing this may not be as difficult as you initially thought.

I have a theory about plus size bodies, specifically women, but not limited to. I believe that if a person has been violated, raped, abused, or harassed, they view their bodies differently after an incident(s). I’m not even going to start a rant on poverty and it’s correlation to obesity, because I could go forever on that subject as well.
When I was in high school, I was athletic and active. After my 17th birthday, I snuck into a party on the Army base with a friend. I didn’t realize it would be all men in their 20’s.
That night I was raped in a room with 3 men. I didn’t realize it at the time, that my saying ‘No’ softly and trying to hold thighs off of me meant rape. Didn’t think about the immorality of a 23-year-old heavily coaxing me into his bed. After the rape, I went into a gradual depression. There were several other factors (the obvious: coming out as a lesbian, high school in general), but one thing that was interesting about that time, was that during those months and the years that followed, I wanted to destroy my body. Living with depression was quite tough. But I had a friend who went through something similar and was there to give me advice, like using this Plus CBD oil coupon to help buy CBD products online, which I feel really helped. This wasn’t something I had come across before, but the more I looked into it, the more convinced I was that this product would be beneficial in coping with depression.

Before this, I became increasingly self-destructive and reckless. I gained weight. I slept around. I cut. I drank myself into oblivion. My body did not feel worthy. If someone so easily took advantage of my body, violated every part of me, and planted a rotten fruit in my psyche, then I could not possibly be worthy. My body did not deserve to be loved, least of all by me.
If a person has been physically violated, I believe that that abuse directly correlates to eating disorders (like ARFID) and self-harm.

When you shame another’s weight (be it thin or fat) when you claim to call out someone’s body size because you “care” about their health, it is not a beneficial statement in any sense of the word, and in actuality is far more harmful to any progress a person might have with relation to their health. What right do you have to talk about someone else’s body or health? You are hammering a distorted ideology that they are not normal, that they are not worthy, and convincing them that they are going to die early. The reason that there is a body positive movement is that we’re celebrating our bodies for the magic that they are and the beautiful things they are capable of. We are letting go of past abuse and judgment, and loving ourselves again. We are practicing self-care, in whatever way we choose. Whether we do that by reading new love quotes or by wearing outfits that make us feel good, self care is so important for everyone. We are saying fuck you to clothing lines that only go to a size 12 as if we don’t even exist as people, and we are saying fuck you to a mainstream media that says our bodies can only be used as comedic props and can’t possibly be sexy or romantic.

We are reclaiming our bodies.

xoxox

M