A Letter to Anyone Who Finds They Can’t Get Out
The story without a happy ending.
This is a letter to anyone who finds themselves in a body that they cannot escape. I am with you; I, too, am in a body I cannot escape. The majority of my life I have learned to resent my body in every aspect of the word—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Physically, society has taught me to hate features I have no control over changing. Mentally, I live with a mind that I cannot control and seems to put me through the throes of every emotion a human can experience. Emotionally, I cannot cope when the waves of change seem to come. Unable to control the anger, hatred, and frustration that seem to creep up. Spiritually, I have lost all faith. I tend to be able to look the other way and pretend that none of this bothers me and live a life that is content, but every once in a while, the hatred, anger, frustration, creep back up. For me, it is the mental and physical that lead to the emotional and spiritual destitution.
Recently, from a mental aspect, I have been fighting what I know I need to do and what damage has already been done, the opportunities that have already been missed. Physically, I see so many body-positive advocates telling us what we should love that society has taught us to hate and I truly love the advocates with every fiber of my being for it. Without them, I would be nothing. A spirit hiding away in the dark, too ashamed to be anyone. However, no one talks about the journey to self-love; how it can affect us on more levels than just the physical aspects of our lives. No one talks about the beginning of the journey, where we learn to resent; where we are trying to claw our way out of the deepest, darkest parts of our being. This post is about that. This post is how I learned to resent myself in every way possible, because I know there are other individuals out there that are seeing the changes being made, yet they still can’t feel them for themselves. They feel stuck and think that there is something wrong with them. You are not alone. You will find below the very moments I learned to resent myself physically and mentally, leading to a downfall of my emotional and spiritual being. Can I usually band-aid over it and put on a smiling face? Yup. I’m a really good actress. Is the happiness genuine? Absolutely, but deep down, I’m still worried about the not-so-flat tummy that I can feel press up against my pants, or the next time I’m going to go into the woes of depression or anxiety and how much I will lose physically because of it. It is certain thoughts like this that haunt me and cause me the most stress. I know I’m not alone in this, and neither are you.
How I Learned to Resent Myself Mentally:
Out of all the people I’ve met in my life, I’ve let myself down the most.
Before I start any of this, there is a trigger warning for suicide and anxiety/panic attack talk and I need anyone who is sensitive to any of those topics to exit out of this blog post immediately and guard your emotions and well-being.
It goes without saying that we are all our own worst enemy. As let down as I’ve been by others in my life and some of the trauma they’ve caused me, I’ve been most let down by my own body, my own mind—by me. Life is really hard when the one person you can’t seem to stand the most is yourself. There is nothing worse than being in a body that seems to deceive you on a daily basis.
I’m not sure how familiar anyone is with panic disorder, but my panic disorder started when I was in the fourth grade. I was standing in line to go to lunch and all I can remember is looking at the clock above the door, my classmates lining up in front of me and in back of me, everyone eager to get out of the classroom. I can’t really put into words what I felt next but my body swiftly and easily went into a dream-like state. I could no longer feel my extremities; they felt as though they were Jell-O and every time I tried to think about them, it would only make things worse. The only thing you can feel is fear through your entire body. It isn’t waves of fear like you could possibly have control over it or calm yourself down, no, this is different. This fear is evil. It’s like a cancer that travels through your nerve endings, spreading across every tissue, leaving you paralyzed, cold, tingly, like you weigh too much for your muscles to be able to properly propel you through life.
Think of the worst heart-stopping, blood-turning-cold fear you can imagine and then let it fill every crevice of your body, starting from the crown of your head and slowly working its way down to your toes. Now think of that happening for no good reason. Out of nowhere your body turns on you and your left in such an uncomfortable state. You may think this is dramatic, but no, this is panic disorder.
I made it to the cafeteria, I got out my lunch but even the sensation of food in my mouth made me afraid. It was official, I was completely out of control of my body and officially feeling the most fear I had felt in my life, yet I was safe. I was in a safe space, doing nothing but trying to go to lunch with my classmates, getting through a pretty normal and mundane day of school and I was attacked by my own mind, at only ten years old.
This moment in time has been the foundation for my life up to this point, it has quite literally built that foundation with fear. Doing everything in my power to never feel that way again, because when you’re ten years old, you don’t have the resources to figure out what is going on. It has taken me a lifetime to describe even how I felt that day and I still think it isn’t as accurate as it could be. It’s a sensation you only understand when you actually live it.
Since this day on, as a young child, I would rack my brain as to what was happening to me, time and time again. Every time I left my home, my comfort zone, it would happen. It was always on my mind and I never let it go. At one point I thought to myself, “Oh, I must need new glasses. Maybe my vision is starting to go and since my eyes are basically right in front of my brain, my bad vision must be the reason.” Eventually, I even gave this sensation a phrase/name, in my head I would say, “I don’t want to lose my memory again”, because when it did happen, that’s exactly what it would feel like, it’s like I couldn’t remember where I was going or what I was doing, how to move my arms and legs, or even how to form words. This persisted for years. Those years of me being alone, afraid to go anywhere or do anything because I was “afraid to lose my memory”. Every time it happened, I felt more and more deceived and let down by my body and mind. I couldn’t escape myself; I had to live with myself for forever and I couldn’t. This is when I stopped trusting myself and I learned to resent my conscious being.
How I Learned to Resent Myself Physically:
I turned thirty. As soon as it happened, my entire body shifted, my autoimmune disease flared, and it was all downhill from there. Sometimes I get so angry at my body and how it has manifested itself, I want to take a sharp object to it and cut it up. Punishing the parts of me that I deem most ugly. Does that mean I find them ugly on anyone else? No, not in the least bit. I can find the beauty in others so much because they are not me, simply put.
The cellulite, the way my butt looks in comparison to my legs, the way the bottom portion of my stomach protrudes out further than the rest of my midsection. The way my back folds into rolls under my bra, the way my arms jiggle. How my hips protrude out further than any pair of pants I can find to fit, or how thick my thighs are.
The list goes on and I can hear some of you now, “Jen, you’re beautiful!” or “Just workout and that will all go away”. I want you to imagine something for me. Think of someone putting something over your head and holding you down so that your body feels heavy and constrained, and then I want you to try to get yourself out of it. Every muscle in your body pressing against something that is fighting you back. Now I want you to imagine if you were just sitting there, not being constrained by anything, however, you still felt like you couldn’t quite move properly, the only thing holding you down, was you. This is what my depression feels like. Can I force myself into the physical things like working out? Absolutely, but imagine the amount of energy that takes to not only fight against the mental constraints that have affected me physically, now try to run a business, create content, do my work for other brands, take care of a household, be there for my family and friends when they need me, take care of my fur babies, and just live a life. I am exhausted.
Some will think, “life-work balance!”, “make time for it!”, okay, but then add in the anxiety. Imagine someone is pressing so hard on your chest you literally feel like you can’t breathe, nauseous from the muscles in your stomach tightening up on themselves, and again, the energy. Now, imagine this all happening without you knowing. The element of surprise one morning when you wake up and feel like utter crap. The last thing on your mind is that great workout you’re going to get in, or the wholesome breakfast you’ll be cooking yourself. I’d be lucky I can eat anything just to take the medicine that is somehow keeping me afloat.
The point I’m trying to make here is that we all need to find a little compassion. Not only for one another but the compassion needs to begin with ourselves. Do I hate the body I live in? Every day of my life. I used to want to kill the spirit within me but now I just want to transfer my spirit to another vessel to live through. Compassion is hard to find when the only energy you have to muster is to be angry and hate the space you take up in the world. Physical and mental well-being play off of one another and when you’re already deficient in one, it’s only a matter of time before the other follows suit.
This one doesn’t have a happy ending. I’m still stuck in a loathing cycle of doom and the last thing I want is anyone’s sympathy. What I want is for people to realize that everything isn’t always what it seems on the surface. There are so many of us fighting in the dark. Body positivity, for example, isn’t just about accepting our bodies as they are, I think it’s more than that. It’s about being able to fight through so much bullshit to be able to make just one positive decision for the sake of your health. Mental health awareness isn’t just telling someone with anxiety everything will be okay and you’re there for them, it’s realizing that at thirty-five years old, I still can’t travel too far from home without an excessive amount of fear and anxiety that I’ll “lose my memory” (which I now know is depersonalization/derealization; a symptom of dissociation).
In the end, we are all truly battling demons that are engrained in our DNA. We have been taught so well how to suppress them and pretend to live a normal life because otherwise we’re deemed dramatic, high strung, or crazy, especially when the only thing we seem to see of one another is the happy highlights we post on social media. That isn’t real life—this is. Life is hard and is more mundane than it is happy and exciting. Some individuals are fighting larger battles that we can’t even see and that makes everything in life much more difficult. Too those who are battling and trying to keep their head above water: I’m with you, I see you, I, too, am battling and have been plagued with inner demons that dictate my every move and I can’t get out either. Please know you’re not alone and we can pull through this together.
All my love,
Jen xx