Okay, here’s a personal post that isn’t about a funny thing my boyfriend said or did, or a ridiculous photo of my cat, but I have to write it somewhere, and here is a good place for it.
So, I’m engaged (I know, what?). And this weekend I went wedding dress shopping.
This is a big deal, because I have Issues. Like, a mixed bag of anxiety, disordered eating, body issues, self hatred, a history of self harm (but I don’t do that anymore!) and self defense mechanisms largely built on self depreciating sarcasm.
And I have lost count of the number of panic attacks I’ve had in dressing rooms.
So anyway, wedding dress shopping. I didn’t even realize how painless and fun it was until my best friend said afterward, “You didn’t have an anxiety-driven meltdown, I was impressed.” And yeah, it’s true.
And it’s not that I looked amazing in every dress they put me in. Some made my hips look like boxes, some made my boobs look like hot air balloons, some made me look short and round, some made me look like a cupcake. I got stuck in one and all I did was LAUGH and wiggle and call for help.
And when those things happened – while wiggling myself free or struggling with a dress that was too small or staring at myself in a half a dozen mirrors in a monstrosity of a dress that did nothing for me – I didn’t focus on all the ways my body was broken or wrong or disgusting or needed to be fixed. Instead, I focused on the ways the dress just… didn’t work for my body.
“This dress is not meant for bodies like mine,” I would say, instead of “My body is not meant for dresses like this.”
And there were a handful of dresses that made me feel like a goddamned princess. It was a big deal. I never thought girls like me could be princesses.
And there was one dress that I put on and it was just mine – it was made for me. (And yeah, it costs more than it was supposed to and it made me swear a lot because OF COURSE).
And when my friend mentioned the lack of crying and anxiety, the lack of frustration, the lack of panic attacks, that’s when I realized that the reason I was OKAY, that I didn’t revert to fantasizing about all the gross pieces of myself that I needed to cut off if I wanted to be beautiful (and still did that kind of thing), was because of the body positive posts I’ve seen here and other places.
While reading all of those posts and articles about loving our bodies no matter the size or the shape, I would always feel impressed by the women who could love themselves the way they are, without focusing on the way they should be instead, but I always followed it up with a caveat that body positivity wouldn’t work for ME, because it was impossible for me to ever accept myself the way I am, impossible for me to ever feel like I am enough, like my body isn’t a problem to be solved.
But this weekend, while trying on dozens of fluffy, ridiculous wedding dresses, I never thought “This would look perfect on me if only my hips/butt/boobs were smaller.”
In fact, the only anxiety I’ve got about the entire thing was a low-grade awareness of the fact that the dress I bought (which ohmygod is the most beautiful dress) won’t fit me half as well if I lose weight.
So, that’s what this is. A thank you post, to the body positive movement, for helping me stand on a pedestal in front of the people I love best, in ill-fitting, hilarious dresses, and laughing instead of crying.
Thank you.
Thoughtfulfangirling 