Go to college they said. It’ll be fun they said. However, it has been anything but fun for me. Now don’t get me wrong, I love college and the freedom it gives me, but my body image has suffered greatly due to being here. To give a little background on my life, I just started college at Illinois State University about 7 weeks ago and I’m vegan. That’s it, the end. Just kidding, but the vegan part is important to this story. Anyways, I recently re-veganized myself over the summer and that included cooking for myself healthy, nutritious food that made me feel good. However, when you go to college you have to give all that up for a life of depressing dorm “vegan” food. This is a slippery slope because usually, the vegan food they have is not in any form healthy and tasty. You get one or the other, but you can’t have both. Now that the background is out of the way, let’s dive into the thick of it.
Roommates. Good ones are rare. You go your whole life living alone and getting used to it. Every day you have a place to go and destress and just be alone, however, in college, you don’t get that luxury. You share a space with three other girls and never get a moment alone to just exist or cry or contemplate life. With the proximity, you live in and lack of privacy, it is almost impossible to be unaffected by other people’s language. Other peoples’ toxicity and negative attitudes easily can trigger the worsening of your problems. It’s like having asthma and constantly being around smokers. You are negatively affected due to second-hand smoking -- but with words instead of carcinogens. You learn to love your body and all it takes is one person shitting on their own to tear all that confidence down. This is why I no longer enjoy spending time in my dorm because I know I’ll be subjected to this negative thinking. Both my roommates have body issues and unhealthy relationships with food and I’ve had to experience their unhealthy coping mechanisms. One of my roommates indulges in harmful actions while both of them verbally accost their bodies aloud. This had led to a decline in my confidence in my body. Before I came to college I had recently established a good relationship with food after years of having multiple issues such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder. I decided that when I went off to college I wanted to have a healthy relationship with food, so I spent all summer resetting my mindset towards food. However, in just 7 weeks all of that has been torn to the ground through all the negativity that surrounds me. It’s a constant struggle to remain positive in a negative environment, but at the same time, having someone who understands what you’re going through is life-changing. Instead of having to hide how you feel, you can confide in them and, together, you can work towards healing and acceptance. It's not always fun and tensions can get REALLY high, but knowing that at the end of the day you always have someone who is there for you no matter what is comforting and necessary. College is a time for you to grow into the person who you are meant to be. To do that you have to surround yourself with support because everyone will be trying to tear you down with microaggressions and bullshit! It's important to be confident in yourself because without confidence you are susceptible to insecurity which will lead you down a path of hurt. Now I'm not saying that I have anything figured out, by all means, I don't, but I do know that it's important to build up love for yourself. As a wise friend told me, "you can't begin to love others until you can say you love yourself."
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As a child I was always happy because I felt as if I had the perfect life. I had amazing parents, childhood friends and I was a healthy child. But when I was 10, my mom suddenly passed away. That obviously scarred me as a child but not only did it put a hole in my life, it made me constantly grieve. And back then, my way of grieving was eating all of the food. I felt like that was the only thing that could fill this hole in my life and the only thing that would make me feel good and happy again. And when I realized I was doing it, it was too late to stop. I wasn’t a normal child anymore, I became overweight. And then my dad moved us and I had to start over in a brand new a school which sucks so much as a kid. But I did join band and eventually make some friends. I tried it join as many sports as I could to get this weight off because it was just a constant reminder of my mom being gone. And in 8th grade is when I started going hardcore. I started playing club soccer with the Texans and played basketball, soccer, and ran track at arbor creek. I tried to go on so many diets and would only eat like one thing a day for a while. I was basically digging myself into a bigger hole. And when I got to freshman year in marching band it got worse. I finally started seeing results and was somewhat happy so I continued with what I was doing. But then I realized this isn’t the right way to do it. I realized that I don’t need to starve myself to be happy so I stopped. But when I stopped I slowly started going back to my old body. And since we were getting older, some of my friends were getting boyfriends or getting asked to dances and I never got that and it sucked. It sucked so much that I started question this new method. But at this point in my life I realized that it honestly doesn’t matter if you date someone in high school. I mean yea I do want a man but it's okay if I don’t find one. Now I know that I need to eat healthy and need to workout, which I do, but I also know that it’s okay to indulge once in a while. It’s okay to let go. And I’m still not 100% happy with my appearance but I am constantly improving myself but the thing that has changed, is that I’m happy now. I’m also a lot more confident in myself than I have been which has been a game changer for me. I’ve realized that you shouldn’t change your personality or appearance just because you don’t think anyone likes it. You should only be yourself because everyone else is taken ;)
Body image is always something that’s in my mind. There’s not a day that it doesn’t subtly make its way into the forefront of my thoughts. I’ve made major strides in the war against negative thoughts this year - and not just against negative self image. I’ve found that to be happy with your physical form, you need to first be happy with who you are inside because who you are on the outside isn’t nearly as complex as the person you are on the inside.
Throughout middle school I was involved in club volleyball. It was an experience I really enjoyed, but it definitely heightened my awareness of body image. If you didn’t know, the typical volleyball uniforms include spandex, which are essentially leggings with barely any material. I can tell you it doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination. Wearing them two nights a week and all days for tournaments on weekends for three years straight, you get used to it. It becomes habit. The only problem is that I’ve always been insecure about my legs. I’ve always thought they were out of proportion to my upper body - too curvy, too big. Volleyball helped contribute to these thoughts. There would be conditioning after practice that would hone in on those muscle groups because they were necessary to jump higher, move faster, etc. I would always silently compare myself to the other girls on my team. It wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t good. I would get dressed for practice feeling confident in how I looked, walk through the doors into the gym, and then immediately feel less confident. Without fail. Everytime. I was lucky enough that it didn’t affect anything beyond my mind, but I can assure you not all of my teammates were that lucky. Middle school athletics also had a similar environment, even without the booty shorts. Girls would roll up the waistband on our school issued basketball shorts to reveal more leg. Talk in the locker room would be about looks and looks alone. I always went in the same corner everyday. I got dressed as quickly as possible and then left. I wasn’t one to be walking around in underwear and a sports bra. I used to envy that confidence now that I think about it. It was a self confidence that I thought I couldn’t possess. Something that I thought people either were born with or not. And that’s not true. Leaving volleyball behind for band really allowed me to reevaluate my perspective. During summer band, you could wear what you want. No uniform. No comparing how twelve girls look in the same shirt and shorts. It was really nice. Freshman year I stuck to my normal gig - nike shorts and a t-shirt. I thought highly of girls who could wear tank tops confidently. I thought it wouldn’t really ever be me. Freshman year was a pretty solid year in regards to body image. I stuck to the same restraints that I put on myself during middle school - nothing that exposed a ton of skin, no v-necks or plunging necklines, nothing that accentuated the curve of my legs. I was comfortable and confident in what I wore, but I didn’t wear anything that was out of that safe zone. And then sophomore year hit. I thought I lost myself this year. I didn’t really know who I was as a person. I thought I lost some of the traits I’ve used to characterize myself for years. I’ll start that story now, and it definitely strays from the body image topic, but I promise I’ll tie it back in eventually. I consider the start of sophomore year to begin with summer band so I’ll start there. I came out of my shell this year because I knew all the people in my section, I knew the drill (not like dots mind you, but the routine), and I wasn’t at the bottom of the high school food chain. I was free to be myself. Not that I wasn’t last year, but I definitely kept to myself and my close friends. Now I considered my section my close friends and they got hit with a full blast of Brooklynn. The three-a-day schedule probably contributed majorly to my behavior, as I was spending every moment with the same people, so you become pretty close. And I say all this and you’re probably thinking that I completely changed personalities, but that wasn’t the case. It’s rather hard to explain. Anyway summer band was a victory. I wore tank tops, participated in dress up days wearing stuff that made me look stupid, and I had fun with it. I wasn’t concerned so much about how I looked, but more about the experience. Yes, I was still self conscious about my legs, but overall it was a better experience. Then school started. Freshman year I studied every moment I could, made pretty good grades, and everything came kind of easy for me. Sophomore year I couldn’t figure out how I did it. I got home from rehearsals and would shower and go to bed, postponing my homework for the morning. I put sleep ahead of school. And my grades didn’t really suffer. I just have a really high standard for myself so I felt like they did. I also had to work hard for it because the material didn’t come as easy and I felt pretty dumb (frickin chemistry, ya know?). So keep in mind all this is going on through about the end of the most stressful marching season ever. And this is where we begin layering. So around mid October I was driving to the high school to go practice marching with a friend. My dad was in the passenger seat because I only had my permit. We came to the intersection of 544 and Josey and as we entered the intersection the light turned yellow. There was a Ford F150 opposite of us making a left turn. My dad pointed him out, both of us expecting him to stop but he didn’t. I didn’t have the experience to know what to do and there was only a split second of decision making time before impact. All the airbags went off in our car. It wasn’t very loud, but between the shock of impact and the chemical reaction from the air bags the car had a weird steam in it and it was almost like a dream. It didn’t feel real. We all exited the car and luckily no one was hurt. Our eight year minivan was the only casualty. There was significant damage to the driver’s side front corner of the car that was beyond repair. I was shaken up, and that’s probably and understatement. The driver of the Ford was ticketed with failure to yield right of way. However, just because it was someone else’s fault doesn’t mean that you don’t stop blaming yourself. To my knowledge, neither of my parents have totalled a car before and I hated that I was the one that did. For days upon days after the accident, I ran over the scenario in my mind wishing I could somehow have caused less damage. Maybe avoid it all together. You never expect it to happen to you until it does. I was supposed to get my license in two months. Now every time I got into a car I could picture all the way things could go wrong. I could picture the metal folding in. I still can. It doesn’t really go away, you just learn to be extra vigilant. It’s made me a better, more responsible driver because I know the consequences of not paying attention. I postponed getting my license by month and took it slow and steady. Yellow lights, to this day, freak me out. My heart beats faster and it’s like going into fight or flight mode. Depending on the day, they might trigger tears. That took a big hit to my confidence and this next thing did too. This year I had wanted to make state for band. I started off pretty strong. When they were teaching us the etudes in summer band, I knew them already. I practiced them with my marching music and was pretty confident when I was alone. Where I fell apart was when it came to playing in front of my peers. The weeks leading up to phase one is where it all kind of fell apart. Leading up to San Antonio, I dove head deep into marching band arguing that I would feel worse if I let down the team rather than myself. We came back with a fourth place finish at state. Contrary to what some people believe, I believe this was deserved. I was disappointed don’t get me wrong, but I would categorize myself as more let down than pissed about it. Phase one was the week after we got back. I ended up messing one of the etudes up so badly that I would’ve had to play the other two etudes perfectly to have made up for it. Nerves got the best of me and I ended up falling short of phase 2. I was so focused on the end goal, that I missed the importance of the first checkpoint. It shot holes through the confidence I worked so hard to develop through constant practice. Between that and state I felt like I wasn’t the musician I thought I was. All of this added up on my chest until I turned to my friend in the hallway and told her, “I don’t really who I am anymore.” And it was true. I felt like I was at rock bottom. I always prized myself for my grades and my musical success, and recently I felt like those were a thing of the past - and that they took with them anything else I stood for. The great thing, though, is that when you think you’re at rock bottom, the only way to go is up. Since then I’ve been learning who I am. I trying to be the person I want to be, regardless of what others think. I’m rethinking the influences I want around me and doing my best to reduce the effect the toxic people have on me. I take the things that people say with a grain a salt. I’ve begun to share my opinions only with people who will listen in return. I don’t waste my voice. In this process of reconnecting with my insides, I’ve made peace with how I look. Life is too short to try to live up to the standards that everyone else has for you, so why try? Who cares that my proportions aren’t the same as a Barbie doll? I certainly don’t. I’m comfortable with who I am and that’s what matters. In the past, I let the voices of others seep into the voice in my head. They mixed with my own and I had trouble discerning which was mine and what was right. What I’ve discovered is that none of them were wrong, but only one of them was mine. Now that voice in my head is loud and clear. It’s more confident. And now because it is, I am too. People tell me that they think I should be a model. Yes, I have long legs and a thin waist. Yes, my stomach is flat. Yes, sometimes I do strut around like a model just to feel cool. But no, I am not confident in my body in that way and I don’t think I could model. Why? Because I feel too skinny.
This all started in biology. Wow, another reason to hate that class. If you think you hated bio, trust me--- I hated it more. My class was small and pretty awkward. I knew a few people, but there was this one boy I didn’t like at all. His name was Matt* and although I never talked to him, I could tell he was judgemental and liked to make fun of others. I remember one day I was wearing a tight pair of jean/jeggings and a flowy shirt. I was watching the board when I noticed Matt’s phone was pointed at me as if he was taking a picture of me. I tried to hide my face and focus on class. By the end of the day, I had forgotten about it until a group of my friends were huddled around someone’s phone and laughing. I rushed over to see what the laughter was about and it was a video, posted on Matt’s snapchat, zooming in on me and my thin legs with the caption “stick legsssss”. I remember turning around and just running to the bathroom, where I sat for a solid hour, hating myself. From then on, people, who I called my friends, would tease me and call me “twig legs” or “stick legs” all the time. And as for Matt? Well, he ended up posting about me again on the last day of school, right before he moved schools (thank God) and I never saw him again. That small event began my struggle for confidence in myself. I went to the gym to try and gain weight and muscle on my legs, I completely refused to do cardio in fear of losing weight, and I stared at myself in the mirror and contemplated how abnormal I was. It was hard, and took a toll on me in ways I couldn’t even imagine. Don’t get me wrong---people have been through SO much worse and I am very grateful for my body, but such a simple comment can hurt. And it did hurt. If you take anything from this, please recognize these two things: First: Your words can affect and impact people in ways you can’t even imagine. I never confronted Matt. One day, in a rush of anger and hurt, I tried posting something to clap back at him on Snapchat, but I realized that if I do the same thing he did and try and make fun of other people, how am I any better than he was? Second: The scope of body shapes and sizes is much wider than anyone can expect. I have seen so many campaigns for women embracing their muffin tops and curves, but I honestly have never seen anything about women who felt too skinny. I guess it’s a weird problem to have, and even though to some people I have the “model” body, I don’t look at myself and see a flawless Gigi Hadid ready to walk the runway. I love my body. We have been through so much together, and I have grown to appreciate my image. I love my height --- it gives me confidence and the ability to reach the cereal on the top shelf. I love my weight --- these stick legs/arms can finesse their way through any crack or crevice. And, I love myself --- flawed, yes, but beautiful in every way possible. *Name was changed to keep their anonymity |
How to submit a feature storyPart of running this blog is sharing experiences other than my own, and I'd love to have more stories to publish, anonymous or otherwise. Stories can be about anything you personally struggle with in relation to your body image, disordered eating habits, mental health, etc.
If you would like to submit an article or if you have questions, you can contact me through my email ([email protected]) or through Instagram (@jacquelyn.burrer) |