How I Learned To Tune Out The Bullies Who Body Shamed Me Once And For All

Body shaming is more than just being a bitch, it’s about hating yourself.
I grew up being that skinny blonde kid with knobby knees and too much hair. I went through puberty just like everyone else except I did it with a life-ending eating disorder. My body was weird.

Some months, I would look completely normal, and other times I would look emancipated. My close friends knew I had an eating disorder and they knew I refused to seek treatment because I wasn’t ‘thin enough’.

So I continued to suffer in silence for years and years until I was almost 14 years old and I finally received medical treatment.

But even though people knew about my problems, even though they saw how thin and miserable I was, I was still bullied. I was called fat and ugly. And it never ended. I was called names and shamed about my weight and my body up until I was 17 and decided I was done with listening to
others’ opinions about my body.

I can still remember when one of my best friends told me I was ‘the skinniest fat person’ she had ever seen. Maybe she meant I was ‘skinny fat’ (something a lot of anorexics are with no muscle whatsoever) but still. Why was saying that necessary?

Body shaming is more than just being a bitch, it’s about hating yourself. It’s about hating how you look and feeling insecure with your body and how you look. It’s about wishing you could look differently and not knowing how to love yourself. It’s about subconsciously attempting to make someone else understand how much you hate yourself.

When people called me fat, it wasn’t always because they were trying to purposefully make me hate myself, though sometimes it was. Many girls said these things to me because they were insecure about their own bodies and they didn’t want to be the only ones alone with their feelings.

I’m not suggesting you go out and become best friends with the girls who hated you and told you shit about your body but I am saying you need to understand that many of those women/girls/high school boys said those things because they’re insecure themselves. Stop listening to these
people. They’re upset with themselves and unfortunately, they have chosen to deal with their problems with angry words.

So let them go.

Let go of the hateful body shaming people and tell yourself that they are insecure with themselves and what they say is not a reflection of you but a reflection of them.