Perception, Part 2: The Mirror Can't Talk

Yesterday, I shared some lessons I learned about perception: what others assume about a person or situation based on what they observe or are told.

Today, I want to talk about how we see ourselves.  And how it might change your life.

Recently, I became aware of Project Semicolon and its beautiful, ambitious, faith-based mission to decrease acts of suicide and self-harm among people dealing with depression and other mental health issues.  Although I've never explicitly dealt with depression, I've had some very dark pages in my life.  Had I made some different choices, I know that my life could be very different right now.  I also know that there is still a stigma surrounding mental health, especially among the Christian community.  There's this awful idea that it's "all in your head" and that you can "pray it away".  I'm not doubting that God heals.  Believe me, I'm one of those folks who enjoys tent revivals and healing meetings, and I've seen some pretty amazing stuff.

But.  BUT.

I also know enough to know that God works in many ways, and that some people's path to healing involves medication, treatment, therapy, a holistic approach and/or surgery. And maybe somethings else.

Friendship.

I say all of that to share a little experiment undertook last week.  I asked my social media friends - many of whom I am no longer close with in "real life" - to share their honest perception of me.  In a word, a phrase, a memory.  It wasn't a bid for flattery, though I admit I was hoping that some nice things would be said.  I heard back from about a dozen and a half people, ranging from family to folks I haven't seen in over a decade.  Their responses surprised me.

Yes, many of them said "nice" things, but what interested me the most was that no one said "Christian", "writer", "mom" or "plus-size" - the four words I find I use to describe myself all the time.  Other folks distilled their impressions of me into words like "real", "frank", "bubbly", and "accepting" (that one surprised me).  An old friend from high school relayed a few touching, nostalgic thoughts, but the phrase that stands out to me is "you took the high road".

That's weird, because I don't see myself that way.  Not really.  I'd use the words I mentioned above, and I'd add "selfish", "talented", "intelligent", "perceptive" and probably "articulate".  I'd add "needy", "introverted", "anxious", "hurting", "guilty" and "thoughtless".  
We are often our own worst critics.  Isn't that what they say?  In asking my friends this potentially loaded question, I learned that the way most of them perceive me is very, very different from the way I see myself.  

I realized that I want to live the way they see me.  Not the way I see myself.  They see in me light, and strength, and optimism.  I don't just want to be seen that way; I want to truly be that way.  I want to see myself that way.  Not only because those things are all good things, but because, as a Christian, I believe those things reflect Christ in me.  All of those attributes are not unique to religious people, of course, but, for me, they are an outward sign of inward hope.  

I didn't think that such a simple request on social media would impact me as much as this has.  I mentioned Project Semicolon earlier because I am hoping that anyone reading this - anyone struggling with self-harm or depression - might be encouraged by knowing how people see them.  That their lives matter.  That losing them really would make a negative impact on the world around them.  I'm not saying that hearing "I think you're special" is going to magically cure people of self-image issues.  But I know that those words have power, and positivity matters.  

From memeblender.com.

On a side note, one of my friends answered my question with the word "cats" and it made me laugh.  She was totally accurate, of course, and I know I've styled myself as a cat lady since Thor wound up on our doorstep, but yes, in a word, I suppose I can be described as "cat" - craving solitude, needy, faithful, somewhat critical, tending towards vanity, fun to curl up with (when I'm in the mood), and polarizing.

I like seafood, too.

#CATS.

Thigh Gap Vs. Thigh Clap

By now, you've heard the phrase "thigh gap", right?  It is yet another nearly impossible goal for women to aim for as they attempt to lose enough weight and work out enough so that, when they stand with their knees together, their thighs do not touch.  For the sake of beauty, of course.

Thigh gap will get you likes on Instagram.  Thigh gap will not do much else.  It, of course, will not land you a great-paying job or earn you an education.  It will not "snag you a man" or encourage people to respect and admire you.

(Please ignore the punctuation error in the above
image from someecards.com.) 

I don't have thigh gap.  I mean, I did when I was like four, but it wasn't a thing back then, so whatever.  I have what I like to refer as "thigh clap".  Regardless of my weight, my thighs rub together when I walk.  That's the way many women are built.  Our legs, they cheer us on.  They move us.  Sometimes they look appealing in skinny jeans.  Sometimes they don't.  Some of us live in A-line skirts to hide our thighs, and some of us embrace them with jeggings and cut-off shorts.  Meghan Trainor says boys like bigger girls, right?  

(Please do not get me started on how disappointed I am with the twisted message she is sending a whole generation.  I don't have time for that post now.)

Most people who know me are aware that I've struggled with my weight most of my life.  There have been various reasons for it, and I can blame anything from heredity to asthma to gluttony to flat-out apathy, but shifting the blame never made me feel better, nor did it even help me become healthier.  Like many women, I've suffered through the rollercoaster of fluctuating weight.  I have "fat" clothes and "not-as-fat" clothes.  I've fit into everything from a size 6 to a size 14 and a small to an extra-extra large.  I've loved my reflection; I've hated it.  I've scornfully skimped on calories and I've furtively embraced them like a clandestine lover.

To combat the "skinnier is better" rhetoric, plenty of body acceptance movements have emerged.  Women purposely post photos of themselves, proudly wearing clothing they "shouldn't".  Companies have launched campaigns designed to showcase curvier and heavier body types.  A size 22 model has been signed to a major label.  Catchy pop songs talk lasciviously about thick booties and sexy, wide hips.

But what's it all for?  Celebrities we love - especially curvy ones - continue to photoshop their own images on social media.  Fat kids still get mocked on the playground.  Heavier men and women still have to pay an extra $2 for larger sizes.  And we (me included) still buy Spanx!  I admit that I am sometimes one of the naysayers who doubts when seeing an image of an obese person insisting he/she is in "perfect health".  Yet then I feel guilty, thinking that it's not my place to judge.  But am I judging?  Or am I concerned?  Am I relieved?  Am I justifying my own appearance my comparing it to another's?  

I - as a petite, plus-sized woman - still feel shame when I have to pull on my "fat pants".  I still berate myself when I feel that I eat too many calories in a day.  I still throw some serious side eye when I see the teens in the mall sporting their itty-bitty crop tops and their high-waisted shorts.  I still struggle in the knowledge that my husband loves me and wants me, regardless of how I see myself.  I constantly walk the line between wanting to love my body exactly as it is - and wanting to force it to change so I feel better about it.  It's a daily battle.  Even when I feel beautiful in the morning - my hair is bouncy, I'm trying a new lip color, or I'm sporting my favorite chunky shoes - when I see a woman I perceive as more beautiful than me, I feel like shriveling up.  

I hate it.

I hate feeling, in my mind, like I am constantly in competition with other women.  It doesn't even make sense.  What do I gain?  What do I prove?  Does her beauty diminish mine?  Do I lose value in her presence?  It isn't even something I consciously do.  Thoughts just pop into my head, and I realize I'm focusing more on what the girl in the Starbucks line is wearing than I am about the cute little baby in my stroller, or the blessings in my life.

Worst of all, I still seem to think that God's love for me depends on my appearance.

Even seeing that thought actually typed out makes me sick.

The Creator of the Universe, who loved me enough to send his Son to die for me - is actually judging me based on the size pants I wear?

It's funny because it's true.
Image from someecards.com.

More likely, his heart is breaking because I am letting my figure affect my joy and peace.  More likely, his desire is for me to make healthy choices that allow me to enjoy his creation more.  More likely, he wants me to know that he made me the way he did for a reason.  And that he gave me the ability to make decisions that positively impact my health and my self-image.  

He gave me legs so I could walk and run.  And become healthier.  

He just wants to walk alongside me.  And he doesn't care in the least if my thighs touch or not. 

Yay, God!

Look.  It's nice to hear, but the point of this post is not for people to feel obligated to tell me I'm pretty.  In some people's eyes, I'm sure I am.  Others see me as overweight, or they see large pores, or split ends, or calloused heels.  They see cellulite or ragged fingernails.  Okay.  Deep down, I do know that I am beautiful.  In many ways.  It's a shame that the same society that scorns women who don't meet the accepted standard of beauty also mocks those with the audacity to openly consider themselves beautiful.  So, I can think it, and I should act like it, but I shouldn't say it, because then I'm selfish and vain.  

I don't know if there will ever be any kind of real resolution on this issue.  I'd like to say that "healthy" is the sexiest kind of body, but even that has a million definitions to a million people.  I'm just deciding that I have to love my body for both its current limitations as well as its potential.  There are a thousand words to describe it - curvy, pale, soft, short, basic, cute, chubby, zaftig (that's my favorite) - but only one that actually matters:

Mine.

And it's the only one I get.

It's time to be grateful for that, no matter what society tells me I should be wearing, or weighing, or eating, or thinking.  I am grateful for my body.

This Is 17 Weeks

Today’s topic: pregnancy woes - and wows.

Other than the terrifying bleeding brought on by my subchorionic hematoma, I’ve had a fairly uneventful pregnancy.  Nausea during the first trimester was pretty minimal.  I never threw up, although there were a few smells that made me a little sick.  Shockingly, coffee was (and still is) one of them!  Ultimately this was probably a blessing since I’ve had to be pretty careful with my caffeine intake, but I never, ever thought there would be a day when a co-worker’s  innocent cup of Folger’s sitting next to me would cause me to heave and cast evil glances her way.  “Don’t worry,” my friend Jaime insists, “That java-love will return to you eventually.”  She would know – she’s working on kid number #4 right now; she’s due a few months before me and she’s pretty much a professional pregnant lady.

Like many women, I got the dreaded “baby bloat” within a few weeks of learning we were expecting.  Of course, that’s too soon for maternity clothes, so I turned to my heroic standby gear: tunics and leggings.  It doesn’t look like I’ll have to alter my personal style too much during the next five months, as many of my dresses and tops are either stretchy or flowy anyway.  I’ll sort of end up retro-gypsy-chic these next several weeks, I guess.  Whatevs.  I keep poking at my belly, waiting for it to fully “bloom”.  I’ve always had some extra weight on my tummy, so I’m anxious for it to turn into a “real” bump” that doesn’t go away when I suck it in.  (Chubby-ish mamas - you feel me, I know this.)

This past Monday was possibly my first experience of heartburn in my life.  I was on the late shift at work and enjoyed a great morning, writing and relaxing.  When I sat down in the office, there was suddenly a dull achy pain under my sternum.  I wondered if it was related to my asthma – I hadn’t had chest pain in years, but with a tiny human squirming around inside me, who knew what could change?  Then I thought – ah, probably gas.  (I won’t be discussing that topic in too much detail; I’m still mostly a lady and there’s no reason to expound on that.)  Finally I asked one of my co-workers what heartburn felt like and we figured out that’s what it was.  Thanks, little baby.  Ironically, it would have been my mom’s 59^th birthday, and she told me that she had heartburn every single day she was pregnant with me.  Hmm…maybe a loving little reminder from her on that very special day?

I’m grateful that I have a lot of friends who have had kids already.  Not just because I know I’ll be getting loads of awesome hand-me-downs (thereby saving us tons of money), but also because they’ve gone through this.  They’ve given birth, they’ve been in recovery.  They’ve tried to breastfeed; some have failed, others succeeded.  Very few books I’ve encountered have been totally honest about this process.  Or, they are so blatantly honest that they’re vulgar and they make you wish you had never even had sex to begin with.  My friends have been a perfect balance between the two. What to Expect When You’re Expecting has been my go-to book but, actually, it doesn’t really impress me.  Especially in the area of my hematoma.  Medically, it happens to about 10% of women, but it’s never once mentioned in the 300+ pages.  Really?  I also decided to go cold turkey when it came to the internet and chat rooms this time around.  I never got a lot of reassurance from them; instead, reading about all the things that could possibly go wrong made me sicker.  Plus, let’s be honest.  I’ve lost three pregnancies.  I don’t want to play the comparison game, but there’s not a whole lot worse than that, relatively speaking.  I’m not trivializing stillbirth or any other type of terrible trauma – not by any means.  I’m just saying that, at 8 weeks, the worst thing I could imagine was losing the baby, and it happened.  So, yeah, I don’t do chatrooms.  I do have an app on my phone that tells me what fruit my baby is, and gives generic pregnancy tips, which is cool.  But that’s about it. 

We’re a sweet potato this week, if you were wondering.

Now, as for the gender – yes, we do plan to find out.  We’re scheduled for our anatomical sonogram in just over three weeks.  We have happily settled on a name for a little girl, but are still toying with boys’ names.  I will be honest, I’m 99% sure it’s a girl.  Motherly intuition tells me this, plus I admit I peeked at all the goofy old wives’ tales, and, surprisingly, every one of them has turned up “girl”.  Most of my friends think it’s a girl.  (A few, including Ross, are holding out for a boy.)  Of course we would be thrilled with a baby of either sex.  Regardless of gender, this child will be raised by lots of proud geeks.  Our first purchase for the child will very likely be the bib that reads, ‘These fools put my cape on backwards.’

Can’t wait.

The Numbers Game

I hand-wrote (!) this message yesterday during some down time at work (days before holiday weekends are generally very slow).  After talking with my relatively new artsy-nerdy friend Emily over coffee this morning, I felt it very important to post this today.  I am certain that there are a lot of women, and probably a lot of men, who are dealing with the same feelings as me, and this is something that needs to be addressed right away.

As I inch (literally) closer to my weight and health goals, I realize that I have reached a very dangerous place.  It has nothing to do with BMI or blood pressure or Daily Recommended Allowances.  It has everything to do with identity and self-image.

I have come to the jarring realization that I am on the brink of defining myself almost exclusively by my appearance.  And that terrifies me.

It's hard for me to admit this because I am a huge advocate of teaching the next generation, young women in particular, of the value of inner beauty.  It would be easier to pretend I was not having this struggle, to simply smile and say "thank you" when people notice how different I look now.  I hate what the media does to the value of womanhood.  I hate that we, as a culture, accept the cheapened version of femininity - the image of women as sexual objects, the condemnation of stay-at-home moms and working moms alike.  I hate that, as I myself eye my scale, I have begun to base my worth on how low the number dips.  The lower it goes, a little voice tells me, the greater my value.

I know this way of thinking is wrong on multiple levels.  First and foremost, it's shallow.  To assign a value to any person based on appearance alone is thoughtless, foolish, and often cruel.  How do we learn such injustice?  Look to Hollywood, full of scripts in which the well-meaning loser guy gets the gorgeous girl, but rarely the reverse.  Look to magazines, full of countless glossy pages of women so airbrushed they hardly look real.  (Can I also say here how much it pains me to see spreads in which the "affordable" clothing pieces top $400?  That's neither here nor there, of course, but man, that gets me riled up!  Moving on...)  My heart sinks when I think of all the truly talented, hard-working people who will never attain the "success" they desire because they don't have the right "look".  We are often chided not to judge a book by its cover, but it's something we do on a daily basis, often subconsciously.

And it hurts.

Another reason that this line of thinking is wrong is that it's simply untrue.  The Bible says that every person conceived has value, and nowhere does God indicate that any person is more important than another because of appearance alone.  In fact, 1 Samuel 16:7 indicates that God is speaking through the prophet with these beautiful and encouraging words: "But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him [a brother of David]. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  That's pretty darn clear that, although he designed our looks, they don't indicate value before God!  We don't have to think, act, speak or look a certain way before he gives us his love!

Yet another argument against these thoughts is a less profound, but equally important one: it robs me of my joy.  Instead of enjoying a hearty meal, I find that I eye it warily, mentally calculating the "damage" it may cause.  I have been, without even realizing it, labeling myself a "good" or "bad" girl depending on the amount of calories I've consumed and expended each day.  Why have I been punishing myself with insults when a chocolate craving attacks me or I don't count out each and every tortilla chip in a serving?

I don't exactly know.  In fact, the thing is, I absolutely know better.  I have both Bible verses and other words of encouragement to speak over myself.  I have a husband, family, and friends who loved me when I weighed almost 170 pounds and they'll also love me when I reach my goal of 126 pounds.  I'm not a model or an actress; I'm not in the public eye and therefore required to look a very specific way.  (I mean, come on, people, I wear scrubs to work.  Comfy, but hardly glamorous.)  I'm not trying to "shake my thang" in a bikini on a beach to drop jaws.  Even in regards to signing up for the Great Race, I am not trying to win - just to finish.  So why is this obsession getting the best of me?

I wish I could say.  All I know is that I am not alone.  While I do not have an eating disorder, I am aware that I don't have a healthy relationship with food right now.  I do wonder - would I feel the same way about myself if I'd been born tall and lanky, with a boyish figure?  Or with dark skin and kinky hair?  Or even shorter than I am now, with golden skin and almond-shaped eyes?  Do all women truly compare themselves to others?  Worse, do they compare themselves to those magazine models who don't even exist?  Are we all "just 10 pounds" or "just 4 inches" away from accepting ourselves as beautiful?

If my experience is any indication, I'm going to say that no, we're not.  You don't automatically gain self respect when you lose weight.  Oh, you find yourself more confident, more comfortable, but if you've developed negative habits before you lost the weight (or kicked smoking, or left an abusive relationship, or made whatever life change you needed to in order to be more healthy), you'll hang onto those habits until you realize they're hurting you more than the unhealthy conditions did.  Emily told me this morning that the things that wake her up at night aren't reminders of the physical abuse she had suffered - although that hurt, too.  She says what troubles her most are the psychological effects - including her own self-image, damaged by relationships that were not right for her.  

As with many of my more pensive posts, I don't exactly presume to have an answer.  I just wanted to be vulnerable and put this out there.  I strongly desire to be a good role model for the young ladies in my life - my friends' daughters, my nieces, the girls in my church's youth group.  And, when the time comes, for my own daughter (as bleak as things look right now, somewhere in my heart I still believe I will have a little girl someday).  It's the humanity of people who seem to be invincible that makes you realize no one's perfect, and although I don't claim to be a hero, my writings have brought me a lot of comments along the lines of "you're so strong".  

I don't feel strong right now, but I do feel like it's okay to admit that.

Success...

...can sometimes only be glimpsed once failure has been plastered on the walls in front of you.

In that vein, here's hoping for some more success with this "counting calories" thing.  My gracious and encouraging husband remarked the other night, unsolicited, that I appeared to be losing weight.  I laughed haughtily at him and crawled into bed.  "Yeah, okay, honey," I sniffed.

I love him.  I haven't been to the gym this week, despite my sudden burst of energy and four visits there last week.

Haven't lost any weight yet.  Lost my temper?  Yeah.  Lost my resolve?  Almost.  Lost my mind?  Getting there.  At least this whole process is making me more keenly aware of what I actually eat, rather than allowing me to mindlessly gobble calories I'm not even really enjoying.  That's a step in the right direction, eh?

The Chick-Fil-A sandwich today was totally worth it.  I'll eat oatmeal all day tomorrow to make up for it if I have to.  Heck, Chick-Fil-A is always worth it.

I love you, Chick-Fil-A.