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tw// ed, body image
what "skinny skinny" music video meant to me, a person who struggles with anorexia, bulimia and body dysmorphia ; a thread
what "skinny skinny" music video meant to me, a person who struggles with anorexia, bulimia and body dysmorphia ; a thread
in the begging of the video we see ashton "waking up", and with little details he shows us that thoughts about weight, food, what people think about his body are constantly tormenting him, from the moment he wakes up until the moment he goes to sleep
during the following scenes, it shows the weight that people with eating disorders carry everytime, the constant thoughts about food and the guilt every time we eat something, like a demon hauting us, telling us that we need this to be loved by someone
he's on the ground, but something inside him tell him to persist, to get up again and keep going
he look to himself in the mirror, check if his ribs are showing, check his muscles to see if it's good enough, but the image is distorted, what he sees is a distorted image of his own body. The problem is the mirror, but for him, the only thing wrong is himself
when I saw this scene I started to cry, because one of the things that made me realize that I had an eating disorder was that I constantly checked to see if my ribs were showing, bc in my mind no one would love me if i wasn't """"attractive""""
after seeing himself in the mirror, he makes a gesture of putting his fingers on his throat (as a sign that he is going to vomit what he ate because he feels guilty for the image he saw)
then he desperate because in the end of the day, he is trapped inside his own mind, he cannot escape his own thoughts and feelings
he crawls to a mirror on the floor. That mirror is the only mirror that is not broken, that mirror shows his true image, his true body, who he really is. And that's the mirror where he finds peace, a shelter, a comfort (I interpret this mirror as being a friend/therapy)
but even when he lies down, the demon that torments his thoughts reminding him everytime about his ""unperfect"" body, sits on top of him, as if ashton had lost the battle
when ashton gets up, he’s a new version of himself. He's stronger, determined to fight against that wrong image of himself, but his distorted image keep trying to let him down and make him stop
even though the sledgehammer is very heavy, he lifts it and breaks all the wrong mirrors that showed him a bad image of himself for years. He finally found a way to fight his own image: changing his own thoughts and realizing that he is perfect just the way he is
at the end of the video, the people watching him applaud. In my interpretation, these people are friends, family, who are proud and happy with everything he has managed to do and overcome. After the video ended, I spent a couple minutes wondering why none of these people helped+
+but i realized that ashton needed to fight against himself alone, they couldn’t force him to change his image of himself. Maybe it was one of those people who put the mirror that showed the real himself on the floor
there are two moments where ashton uses his guitar: moments before he looks in the mirror to check his own image, and moments before he lies in the mirror on the floor. He shows that in the most difficult moments for him, his shelter is music, making him forget his ed for a while
the final scene is his heart, his friends and family cheering for his growth and the thing that made him realize that he was perfect the way he was, that he didn't need to change anything: the mirror who showed him who he really is.
i'm crying right now but i have to thank ashton irwin for everything he've done for me in the past 8 years. I can't thank you enough for every moment you made me smile, every moment you made me laugh and forget about everything bad for a while. Your smile makes me smile
