10.29.20 // bodies

Bodies.
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I know they have been talked a lot about on social media lately, so I understand if you want to scroll past this post. No harm, no foul.
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This is just my narrative with my body.
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And here it goes...
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I never would have posted this photo a couple of years ago.
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The way my body looks, by a lot of standards, is not perfect.
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I've loved and hated my body for years, with a strong emphasis on the latter half of that statement. I used to write down every single thing I ate, plugging it into my fitness pal to calorie count and then would try to balance that number with how much exercise would be necessary to burn off those meals. This was every single day.
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It was a toxic cycle, an obsession, a disorder without a diagnosis.
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I knew my brain wasn't right in my need for control over my body, so I ended up going to see the free counselor at my college. Eventually, I got put on some "take as needed" anxiety pills because I was controlling out of anxiety. I wondered if the pills would curb my appetite.
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I was never stick-skinny, but eating disorders can look so vastly different.
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Fast forward to the present, it wasn't until this last year that I started to see my body with grace and love. BUT, that doesn't mean that I'm not still triggered. Like I mentioned a few posts ago, talk about bodies in a critiquing manner sends me over the edge. And sometimes when I see the "problem areas" on my body in photos on the summit of an epic mountain I just climbed I am enraged at how I've "let myself go".
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Candidly, it's caused me to tarnish more than one hike because I become so disappointed with myself when I see the photos. But, being my own worst enemy is exhausting and hating my body is a waste of the short moments I get the chance to live in it.
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So, learning to love my body hasn't been easy, but by god, I'm tired of fighting to hate it. I'm tired of letting my fears of what others will think to rule the beautiful space in my brain.