The purge of self-hate

   I like to think that I’ve come a long way when it comes to loving myself and my body, but sometimes something pops up and I get scared that insecurities just never really go away. 

     Sometimes I tell my friends things I hate about myself. They slip out because I feel the need to say what they’re thinking. They always deny it, and I get embarrassed because I don’t want them to feel like I’m fishing for compliments. Most times I’m not even expecting a reaction. I’m just letting it out. 

     The thing is, they shouldn’t even be denying anything - it reinforces the idea that any of the things I'm about to say are bad. I hate them because that’s what I was told to do by others who were told the same. I hate them because at one point my self-esteem was so low I decided everything about me was gross and now I can’t get it out of my head. My friends shouldn’t try to convince me that what I think isn't true, they should try to convince me that it’s okay not to look like a supermodel. Not that I don't know that, I do, but I, like many others, have been so conditioned to chase after a perfect body that when people say something like "oh, you look so thin!" I can't help but smile, even if I think that shouldn't be neither a good or a bad thing. 

     So, that's what you need to know to understand where this is coming from. This post is a purge: I’m letting everything I hate out, so I can let everything I love in. This is not gonna be very positive, so you might want to skip to the end.

The official list of reasons why I hate my body:

I’m not pretty

I’ve got chubby cheeks and they’re always red

My boobs are small and look like teabags

I have stretch marks all over and they’re not even the pretty ones

I’m more cellulite than human

 My hips are huge and my thunder tighs make me feel like an elephant walking

I’m not tall, which makes me seem rounder

Not matter how much I exercise or how little I eat, I always look disgusting.

My butt is squishy and shaky and so big it keeps knocking things over

I’m so pale I look sick but when I do tan I look dirty

My nails are ugly

My hair is always gross

My arms are so fat they never look good in t-shirts just like my legs don’t look good in shorts

My face, fingers, neck, stomach and back are fat

My shoulders are wide as fuck

You can’t really see my knees when I’m standing because of all the fat.

     It’s a bit hard to preach body positivity when inside you still think about yourself everything you say others must not. But this was my purge. I will try to keep these thoughts out of my mind, and hopefully I can look back at this in a few years and be happy about how I feel about myself then. I advise you to do the same. You can do it right down there in the comments, in a notebook, in your blog, whatever. Just do it. Purge. Let it out so you can move on to being better.