Eight Years Old

The age I learned to hate my body

I’m in the Target fitting room. The fluorescent lights are shining harshly above me, illuminating the cellulite on the back of my legs. Courtesy of the 360-degree mirrors, I can see every inch of my body. Every stretch mark. Every roll. All the parts that have shifted and changed over the years. In the corner, spilling out over the dusty black plastic stool, is a pile of bathing suits. Right next to the stack of jean shorts.

I’m trying not to look in the mirror. I’m trying so damn hard. Because every single time I catch a glimpse of my reflection, I can picture in my head that selfie I took in this same exact fitting room, nine years ago. When I only had one kid. Before stress took over my life and corroded every fiber of my being, both mentally and physically.

I can feel a thick lump in my throat, growing by the second. Why the hell did I think this was a good idea. Why the hell didn’t I just buy the whole lot of them, bring them home and try them on in the safety of my bedroom, with my comfort flattering full-length mirror and my warm, sensory-calming lights dimmed low.

I hate that after so many years, this is still the same reaction I have every time I set foot in a fitting room. I hate that even though my brain knows that my worth is not defined by the reflection staring back at me, I still walk out of the store, my stomach in knots, because I realize that deep down inside, no matter how much I try to convince myself that I don’t care… I know I really do.

How the hell am I supposed to not?

I can still hear the voice of my Grandmother, echoing in my head as a child…. “You’re just not skinny, you’re square. You’re just square.”

I remember when I wrote in my journal, at the tender age of eight, that my worst feature was my stomach, because it wasn’t flat.

Eight years old.

I don't know how old I was when I started to notice that all of the women on my dad’s side subtly and consistently reached for a pillow, or a jacket, or their purse, and placed it on their lap to cover up their stomachs every single time they sat down. Or if no safety object was available, their arms were always folded carefully and intentionally to cover up the area of shame.

And I can't help but wonder… how old was my Grammy when she first noticed her own mother reaching for the pillow? How many generations does this stretch back? Decades of women unable to sit in a room, their stomachs tense and sucked in, afraid that everyone is staring at them, judging them, wondering if they are noticing the extra five pounds they put on?

I can't remember one specific moment in time when I learned to be hyper-aware of my body. But I know that I was always listening intently to the conversations the women around me were having. I can picture my older sisters, standing in front of the mirror in their bedroom. Staring at themselves with their shirts pulled up, pinching their stomachs. “Ugh, I need to do more ab exercises. I’m so fat.”

I’d be staring at them from the corner of the room, and to me, they were perfect. I couldn't understand what they were talking about.

But somewhere along the way, the voice of criticism and harsh body expectations started to sink in. I would stand in front of the mirror and hear their voices in my head. But it wasn’t their voices anymore: it was my own.

Two kids later, I am still haunted by my lack of a flat stomach. I’ve never had the experience of a six-pack, even before I had my boys. Even when I was pounding my body into the ground, at my peak fitness and ideal weight, trying so hard to look the way I knew he wanted me to look.

Oddly enough, this article feels incredibly daunting to write. I’ve shared some of the most traumatic and personal parts of my life on here, yet somehow this is the article I’ve been wrestling with and avoiding for months.

For some reason, this feels shameful. It feels embarrassing. Or maybe it’s just me, finally admitting to something that I have struggled with for as long as I can remember. Even though I know I’m not alone in this. Even though I know that this is a common struggle for so many women. But my heart is still racing, and I’m asking myself as I finally allow these words to tumble onto the page... am I really ready to say this out loud?

I hate my body.

Maybe you’ve been here, too.

If you’ve ever taken out your phone and snapped a picture of yourself sitting down on your bed, in that tight shirt, just to see how many rolls are showing, before deciding whether you’re going to be brave enough to wear it out for the night.

The entire contents of your closet are scattered on your bed, and on the floor next to your bed, and on that one chair that acts as a permanent closet. You’re hot and sweaty and all you really want to do is reach for the oversized T-shirt, the one that covers everything in all of the right places. The one you can sit in without having to worry about what’s showing through the fabric. The one you can actually relax and laugh in, because you’re not thinking about your body every damn second of the night.

You’re sitting on your bed, seconds away from texting your friend and bailing, because you can feel the nervous breakdown building inside of your chest. Your phone is in your hand, you’re ready to send the “Sorry, but I’m not feeling well…” text, and before you even realize what your muscle memory is doing, you have the camera app opened and you’re snapping a picture from the side, a picture from the front…

But never satisfied with what you see.

It’s never enough.

I’ve heard all of the catchphrases that women have been hearing for years. You just have to love yourself more. Thank your body for what it can do. Comparison is the thief of joy. My brain knows this. So then why am I still trapped in this cycle after over two decades?

But I don’t think the answer lies within finally achieving that perfect body that I have dreamed of for so much of my life. The one where I have 5% body fat, a six-pack and a 3-inch thigh gap. The body I can confidently flaunt in a bikini.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I would still stand in front of the mirror and be discontent with what I see. I have a sneaking suspicion that I will never truly be satisfied with the reflection staring back at me until my heart is no longer beating inside of my chest.

But I do know one thing: I don’t want to be sixty or seventy years old and still paralyzed with insecurity. I don’t want to be hiding behind baggy T-shirts in the summer and oversized sweatshirts in the winter for forty more years of my life. I want to stop letting my body image take up so much damn space in my brain. I want to start embracing the truth, once and for all.

What is the truth?

That I am not the sum of the body parts looking back at me.

That I am worth infinitely more than what I thought I needed to be to make a man fall in love with me, and stay with me, and keep choosing me year after year.

I want to go for a run in a sports bra and not be thinking every single step of that run how my love handles are showing, or how you can see the stretch marks from my two pregnancies. I know I’m supposed to be proud of those stretch marks. They are proof of life, proof that I grew two humans inside of me for nine months, proof that I am a woman and I am strong. But I hate those stretch marks. I do. Because I know what the skin used to look like underneath.

But I’m sick of letting that have power over me.

I used to dream of what it would be like to have a daughter, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was going to teach her that she is worth so much more than her outer shell. That her inner beauty, her ability to love and feel strongly, to cherish friendships, to be strong and powerful, to move in ways that bring her joy, is infinitely more valuable than beating up her body and being afraid of calories, afraid of having a high body fat percentage, afraid of not fitting in with society’s standards of beauty.

I’m not sure that I will ever get the chance to sit with my daughter in front of a mirror and have her repeat back, I am strong, I am brave, I am beautiful.

But there’s still a little eight year-old girl inside of me that never heard those words. And she needs to hear them today. And maybe there is a version of yourself, at the very age you started to hate your reflection, that needs to hear them too. She needs to hear that she is worth more than a flat stomach, or thighs that touch. That when she laughs, her eyes light up, and the whole room is filled with a contagious joy. That she’s going to grow up to be a fierce protector of her children, that she is going to fight her way up to the surface and come out on the other side of unimaginable pain and heartbreak. She is going to feel joy again.

She will go to the party, and she will wear the tight shirt, and she will not spend every minute of the night hiding with her arms crossed over her stomach. She will be confident, knowing that her value is not found in how many rolls she has when she sits down or whether her thighs jiggle when she walks. That her value is worth far more than what the overhead fluorescent lights whisper in her ear.

Even if I never get to sit in front of a mirror next to my daughter, watching her little face light up and a twinkle in her green eyes as we repeat our affirmations together…

It’s ending with me.

I don’t have to reach for the pillow anymore.

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If this article resonated with you, I would be honored if you shared it with another woman who might need these words today. 🤍