Give yourself a break; a thread.

So I've put on weight since this whole quarantine thing started. I'm sure lots of us have. Today, for the first time, I decided to give myself a break and not worry about it. I want to share this experience because I know what it means to some.

I have struggled with an eating disorder since high school. I have never been a thin girl, and I've always been busty, so I never really got over the fact that my body would not, and could not look the way I wanted it to. I was never told I was fat, but I didn't need to be.

I would stand and scrutinize for hours. I would weep in dressing rooms. I would skip meals and binge and purge and do everything in my power to be ready for the day when someone finally confirmed that I looked as ugly as I felt, so I could say "it's not for lack of trying."

I've severely cut down on the most harmful of those behaviors because someone is here making sure I take care of myself. But body dysmorphia is like your shadow, it's always there whether you acknowledge it or not. It can be hard to ignore what your mind says about you.

This morning, after almost 2 decades of spending every morning listing what's wrong with me, filing it away as a footnote for every good thing I do throughout the day. I realized that today it doesn't matter.

Today, the world is on fire, and murder hornets are buzzing around and people are dying, and that's so much more important than my perceived value of my imperfect flesh suit. Today I'm ok with the fact that my eyes aren't the same shape and my stomach jiggles.

I'm not saying I LIKE those things, but for me, and I'm sure a lot of other folks who suffer from body dysmorphia, simply accepting that you don't need to waste energy trying to fix them right now is a huge step.

The whole world is rightfully in a state of chaos right now. I'm pleased to have found this evasive bit of inner peace, all things considered. And I know it's really hard, and I know everything is uncertain,

But I think trying to give yourself a break for the hurtful things we considered routine before the world went to shit is one of the best personal victories we can hope for right now.

#QuarantineLife #Quarantine #selfimprovement #gettingbetter #giveyourselfabreak