no boys allowed in the room!!!!

The OTMest!

i actually have a lot of hokey things i do to make myself feel better about this stuff, like look at other women's bodies and think nice thigns about them.

like, a range of body types i mean

that sounds weird, but when i was at my worst about this stuff i was ridiculously punishing of my own body and other womens unless they fit a ridiculously narrow (in every sense) archetype. i literally had crazy eyes. it's better now.

Oh god, pants.

i got it at RAVE in the mall when i worked there my freshman year of college
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6036/6332941197_aa5cb67a0e.jpg

ok back to class -- KIP my peoples

Dresses are a problem with me because of my hirsutism, but switching to Nair helped--I don't have to shave my legs every four hours any more when I wear a skirt.

I don't think I'm as hard on other women as I am on myself. I definitely try not to be. Going to start using your tricks tbh.

yeah! i was a having a low self-esteem day last Friday, and then I went to see Wild Flag, and the drummer looked way hot, even though she had my build, and she was wearing this supercute black & white polka-dot dress with a black waistband, and it made me feel better about myself.

I talk about this all the time and it won't be news to anyone, but I try to use that displacement to my advantage when I'm stressing about things outside my control like my body and why no one will ever love me, by making myself useful/creative in some way that makes me sweat it out and be strong. It's not "better" if it puts a certain kind of helpfulness or utility over JUST BEING A PERSON WHO CAN BE WRONG OR FOOLISH SOMETIMES, so I should probably flag that and curb it, but I find that approach v empowering.

*waves to Amanda*

now i want a business apron too.

It's an engineer overall!! Imma get you a wooden train whistle.

I don't think I'm as hard on other women as I am on myself. I definitely try not to be. Going to start using your tricks tbh.

― Juggy Brottleteen (ENBB), Thursday, November 10, 2011 9:50 PM (52 seconds ago) Bookmark

i don't think you are, either. i have actually had the thought that you are very good at being generous about other people's looks. i was a horrible wench in my head my sophomore year of college, by contrast. i think it was because i was hungry tbh.

to be horseshoe<3

i think it was because i was hungry tbh.

Real lols!!

Being hungry can totally bring the crazy.

I am horrible, horrible, in my head. If people could hear me, I would shunned from society, and rightly so. Horrible. I'm a lot happier these days than I have been in years and years, so it's easing up but...this is why my inner Laurel needs to be kept in check with rules and stuff.

I try to channel rrrobyn a lot when I start doing that. It helps! And it makes me happier because rrrobyn.

remembering being hungry is the other thing i do, tbh. that sucked and i don't care how much i hate the pictures people tag of me on facebook i'm not doing it again.

as in you had an eating disorder?

the thign about the being horrible in your head is it's all terrible lies. like, this will sound trivial but i had the experience after i stopped being so crazy of going back and seeing movies that i had watched in that crazy frame of mind and thinking, how could i have thought this incredibly thin actress was fat? seriously that intense punishing gaze is some funhouse mirror shit.

no i didn't have an eating disorder i just obsessively dieted. i would say my eating was disordered sometimes but no more than most women i knew, sadly.

It is, but mine isn't really about fatness, it's about everything else, and everything.

but i did have one particularly bad year of it.

xp Christine - i just wear black tights, except when it's super hot, but pretty much when it's 90 degrees, i am in not-giving-a-shit that i haven't shaved my legs in a month territory.

It's really nice to reflexively have healthy responses to things, though, and then remember when it would not have been a healthy response, and marvel at how I've managed to change the rules of the world I make for myself to live in, over time.

Whenever I have a major attack of the guilts, I think back and see if I've forgotten to take my medication. Almost always, it turns out that I had.

it is always instructive, too, when beautiful, amazing women like Erica have these feelings and then i just get infuriated like IT IS TOTAL BULLSHIT THAT SHE IS SPENDING EVEN A SECOND OF HER TIME WORRYING ABOUT THIS

that's true about everyone, and then you can kind of turn it around and apply it to yourself

xp Christine - i just wear black tights, except when it's super hot, but pretty much when it's 90 degrees, i am in not-giving-a-shit that i haven't shaved my legs in a month territory.

That would work for me, except that my legs look after a week of not shaving like most women's do after a month.

I often think admiringly of Amanda and her quickness to be affronted at slights to her person, because she gives herself the benefit of her own protectiveness.

xp I look back to my Twenties, when I was genuinely lock-her-up mentally ill, with a lot of horror.

is it actually visible if you're wearing black tights? maybe i'm that much of a lazy slob to think it looks fine?

"THIS ONE is taking herself home." I just adore the fiery little person who said that and didn't lose a SECOND to self-recrimination or feeling apologetic to those people.

omg as long as i'm oversharing, i'll give a specific example. my mother is a very beautiful woman and i think not coincidentally really in the bell jar about this stuff. a couple years ago she was really really bad with the never stopping talking about how disgustingly fat she was (she's not but it doesn't really matter). just horrible things she would say about herself. anyway, we were having a picnic oen day and she found out an older woman she knew had been left alone for the weekend by her family. and my mom just flew into action, picked the woman up, brought us home, whipped up a ten-course meal and entertained her friend in an incredibly graceful way. i was sort of in awe and i remember thinking, this is what everyone loves about you, how capable and generous you are, not how effing small you are! it seemed like a tragedy she couldn't see herself that way.

these stories are breaking my heart!

Right on, hs!

:-)

I love your mother now!

Just from that story!

aw i sort of got tears in her eyes typing it tbh. she is lovely but i don't want to be talking about how gross i look when i'm in my 60s.

is it actually visible if you're wearing black tights?

I haven't worn black tights in years, but when it got really, really lush on my legs the hairs tended to stick out a little. But I doubt this is a problem for you.

loooool tears in my eyes jesus

Aw, that story is great. :)

I agree.

I got all verklempt reading it too, don't worry. I can picture your mom perfectly now and I have no idea what she even looks like.

another thing to say about that is my mom was berating herself because her body had changed since she was, you know, 25. and i find myself doing the same thing and it's like, bodies change, you know?

you know you know you know

Yeah, I've aired this on ilx before, in bits and pieces, but my mom does exactly the same thing, and having witnessed that for the last 30 years, I remind myself to extend myself the same outrage I felt for her when she did it in my hearing.