Because I’m a fashion stylist and in eating disorder recovery and just am myself, I have a lot of conversations— with moms especially, but also with women who don’t have kids— that go something like this: “I don’t like my body. I want to lose weight. I don’t want to spend money on clothes right now because of that.” I had one of these conversations the other day and this is what I wrote in response, as I reflected on my own experience with my body after having kids.
I wish you could see that your body right now is worthy of clothes that fit
Even just to make you feel a little bit better
How you feel right now matters
How you feel right now is going to help you feel good later
You won’t be able to feel good later if you are mean to yourself now
You can’t hate yourself into love
You can’t starve yourself into healthy
It hurts me to hear you say you don’t deserve to buy new things
“Just wish this body didn’t exist like this”
I understand
I feel that way too
I don’t want to have to dress my stomach
I haven’t wanted to dress my stomach ever (minus the 9 months where I realized I was thin)
I hate that I lost it
I was so close
It’s so tempting
You thought you were there before
You were almost at the goal
So it feels like if you just went back, you could finish the fight you started
To make them like you
To make yourself feel like good enough
Feel like belonging
Feel like worthy
You could finally trick them
You could finally convince them
That you were one of them
What was different about that year?
That I supposedly loved myself
Am I just blinded by what I want to remember
I was free?
Freer
Hopeful
I was full of possibility
What do I remember?
Taking photos of myself
Seeing myself online a lot
Did I think I was pretty? Not exactly
I was mostly goofy
I didn’t think I was or should be pretty
I couldn’t try too hard
How can you want to be pretty and free at the same time?
Is that even possible?
How can you be serious and care about looks?
Fucking patriarchy
Because I’m not a man, that’s how!
Why we do we think beauty isn’t serious?
Why do we think desire isn’t serious?
Why does it only get to be superficial?
I could be pretty-ish because my body didn’t offend anyone
I could wear a bikini if my boobs weren’t showing and if I posed to show some tummy rolls because that was progressive
But I couldn’t follow the girl with lots of tummy rolls because it was too hard for me to look at
I didn’t want to have to confront something
That I still had limits
And then I passed my limits
And fell apart
Was the body stuff actually the hardest thing about becoming a mom?
Like it’s supposed to be this thing that is secondary
“Having a baby is hard, what is a mom anyway, there’s so much to learn and worry about”
What if I really just cared that I couldn’t wear what I wanted to anymore and I couldn’t shop the way I wanted to because I couldn’t work because I had a baby and also, I could’ve shopped. I just didn’t.
I couldn’t let myself really want.
Everything you want is bad unless you can turn it into something good for someone else.
You’re not supposed to want as a mom
You’re not supposed to want as a wife
As a woman
The more things I added to my life, the less I was supposed to need
My parents were genuinely confused by me trying to explain to them that I wanted to work
“But you have two beautiful children, and your husband pays the bills.”
How could I turn wanting to be thin into something for someone else?
How could I turn wanting to be beautiful into something for someone else?
What if I just miss my old body?
What if I really do miss the way clothes used to fit?
What if I really do miss the privilege I had to easily shop?
What if this was the most devastating thing about having a baby?
What if I knew who I was before because of clothes and my touch tree has been taken away?
If this were anyone else and anything else, the world would agree and support me
But if it’s women and desire and beauty and bodies then it’s extra, optional
Why does it hurt me so much to see you hate yourself?
The answer isn’t for me to tell you that you should spend time and money on yourself
You don’t want to
Why don’t you want to?
Because your pain hasn’t been validated
The pain of looking in the mirror and seeing someone you don’t recognize
The pain of a life you thought you loved and were simply adding on to, being ripped out of your hands but you have to stare at the remains every time you get dressed
Every time you try to do something that used to be normal
Normal before the world shut down and normal before your body went to the far reaches of spirit meeting earth and back again multiple times and not sleeping and giving every part of your body and self and thoughts to other living things.
Now you have nothing left
You’re kind of just floating a little bit above or under the earth all the time and moments when you are back on the ground everything is so different you don’t know how to think about it anyway so it’s the same as not being here.
You end up crying to anyone and everyone and feeling stupid and people say get help or you’ll get through it and it’s just the worst thing ever because all of it sees past you.
They don’t see what you really want or who you really are, and you are waiting for someone to tell you what to do or how to be, or just hold you and let you cry, but that can’t happen either because then obviously you hate your children.
You go to therapy and talk about some things and it all just feels dumb
Because you’ve gone through the cosmos and back with new lives tethered to you and you don’t know if you sold your soul when they came out of you and you’ll never get it back
Crying on the floor of your bedroom while one baby is in the pack n play and the other baby is in the swing
“I have nothing to wear”
And it’s really just about that
What is it going to take to let that pain pass through?
It’s not even someone that gets it
It’s you getting it
You’ve been living in a tornado since 2020
You don’t know if you’re safe right now
You don’t know what it means to feel safe
You don’t know if you ever felt safe before now either
Maybe you’re addicted to chaos and pain and disorder
Maybe there’s a specific therapy that will help you
There’s always the promise of a solution if you have a diagnosis
(that’s a lie)
What do I want to happen?
I want to be seen
I want to believe myself
I want to choose myself
Over everyone else
But also I want to cry for a week. Maybe more.
I want to go to a month-long yoga retreat and not talk and just empty all my energy out towards God and heal without having to think about what’s actually going on or make it make sense to anyone else
I want to be held
I have been holding heaven and earth in these babies for these years but no one holds me
I want to hold myself
I don’t actually want anyone to do it for me
I want to care for myself
I don’t want anyone else to care for me
I want to mother myself
I don’t want anyone else to mother me
I want to prove that I exist without anyone else giving me permission or praise
I don’t want people to see me
I just want to see myself
I just want to say that was fucking brutal Breanna
Your heart broke the day you packed up all your clothes into garbage bags
And the day you tried on the too-tight bridesmaid dress for your brother’s wedding
All these things you cherished were stolen from you
You didn’t agree to this
You didn’t give your permission
This wasn’t part of the contract
Baby— yes please, but no I did not want to trade in my whole body and sense of self
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