A healthy relationship with my body

 

October 12, 2022

I am merely six hours away from attending my dearest friend’s engagement party, and only a few kilograms away from attaining complete happiness—a happiness untainted by stress and anxiety about my body’s appearance.

 

I didn’t have enough time to lose weight. The constant preoccupation with losing weight had caused so much stress that I ended up eating more and more fast food. 

 

My therapist told me that I had body image disorder, and that it wasn’t truly about how my body looked or my actual weight. I already knew that. I had gone through a long journey of weight loss and weight gain, yet my perception of my body had hardly changed, except for a few fleeting moments. 

 

At 28 years old, I have witnessed numerous changes in the world, such as technological advancements, global warming, political upheavals, the Arab Spring, the fall of European governments, and a deadly pandemic. However, I have yet to come across a love story whose heroine is a curvy girl.  All I have encountered is mockery and bullying, and even compliments come with backhanded remarks; ‘She’s pretty for a fat girl.’

 

I am now only four hours away from the engagement party, bracing myself for the weighted stares of others, which will only add to my anxiety about my body. In that moment, I thought to myself, “What if nobody shows up to the engagement?”

 

“What if I were completely alone, with no one to scrutinize me, just me and my friend, dancing without judgment, free from it all?”

 

A weight seemed to lift off me as if a chain had been released, liberating the mannequin trapped in the display window. I remembered the light pink dress I had chosen, a dress fitting for the occasion, instead of the black one. My mind was free from the burdens of body image disorder, and I showed up to that party as my true self, with all my kilograms of weight and a heart filled with happiness.

 

This marks a new beautiful beginning on the path to building a healthy relationship with my body. I know it will be worth every effort.