Body Image Struggle
2024.08.02.
I can’t see myself, or rather, I don’t know what I’m seeing. I don’t know what’s happening in my head. I’m about to turn 50, and after nearly 50 years of looking at the body I live in, I still don’t know what it’s like. And this realization has hit me hard.
After I wrote my article about having children, I received a lot of comments and messages. Women, mothers, wrote about the pain and often humiliation they suffered due to the physical changes caused by childbirth. Everyone experienced it differently. I read and listened to these stories and felt the questions begin to surface within me.
How do I feel about my body?
What is my relationship with this part of my existence? I’ve been on a self-discovery journey for years, examining so many aspects of myself. The tough stuff has definitely surfaced—whom I’ve hurt, whom I’ve lied to, whom I’ve taken advantage of, whether consciously or with the best intentions. I’ve dealt with my soul, my emotions, and I’ve analyzed my thoughts extensively. I’ve tried to understand how I function.
But what about my body?
Are we on good terms? I work out. I’ve been doing it consistently for 14 years, with varying intensity. I switch up the sports, but it’s mostly just lifting weights in the gym. But what do I see in the mirror? And it’s not just about how I see myself, but what I actually see. A few months ago, I got really motivated, started lifting seriously, and paid close attention to my diet. I could see my progress, with more and more plates being added to the bars. Then, during workouts, the comments started—first, jokes from friends, then what seemed like sincere compliments from less close gym mates.
I became uncertain.
Are they joking with me? Teasing me? Is something wrong with me, or are they being serious? I had to ask Norbi, the gym owner and a good friend, if he thought they were serious. Yes, he said, my work was showing. It shows? But then why can’t I see it? What’s wrong? In university, we studied the brain in detail during biology courses—how the perception of sensed information works, how it becomes conscious. It’s a process; first, we become aware of things we’ve experienced before, and slowly, we start piecing together the details, integrating new information into the picture.
What have I experienced over the past decades? What is the conscious image, the stored version of myself? Chaos. I’ve been everything. As a kid, I was thin, as a teenager, I was fat. I was cross-eyed, pigeon-toed, and had a bun on my head. Then came the comments about which parts of me were too big and which were too small. As a chubby kid, I was all chest, then as I grew, I got skinny again. I had a girlfriend who said my arms weren’t muscular enough, my abs weren’t defined, and another who said I should gain weight because I was too thin next to her…
What do I really look like?
When I look in the mirror, I see all of this. Sometimes I’m fat, so I need to watch my diet, but as I get closer to the shape I’ve imagined, people start saying, "Whoa, are you sick or something? You should gain a little weight." Then my friend comes along, grabs my belly, and laughs at me. "You’re fat!"
And this isn’t kindergarten.
We’re kids in adult bodies, teasing each other. I’m turning 50, an adult. My friends and relatives are adults. And I haven’t given birth. I have all my body parts. I have a mirror at home. I even have a smart scale. I work out three times a week and take long walks in the woods every day. I watch what I eat. And you know what’s the worst part of all this? It’s not about whether I like how I look. It’s not even about whether others like how I look.
I don’t know what I look like!
What’s broken inside me? I have a stable self-image of who I am—what my emotional life is like, what my abilities are, what my talents are. I have immense faith in what I’m capable of doing. But I can’t see my body. I’m turning 50. I have a mirror. I do something for myself every day. I have a desire to look good, even in the eyes of others.
I’m vain.
Is that a problem? Some think I’m a fool for it, others call it self-care. Why do I care? Why does it hurt, why does it bother me, why am I ashamed of my own body? I’ve been humiliated so many times. By women who were important to me, by friends who were close, by family members. Did they want to hurt me? Did they not love me? I don’t think so; they probably had their own issues with this. Or if not with this, then with something else, and this was how they protected themselves from that something. From feeling inadequate. I can be more than you if you believe you’re less than me!
Consciously or not.
It wasn’t pleasant to think about this. Especially since this topic has come up for me several times recently, but now it hit me hard. I don’t like mirrors. It’s oddly uncomfortable to undress in front of strangers. Maybe that’s why I avoid beaches. And it’s not just about not accepting myself; it’s more that I don’t want to look at what I am, what’s inside me. Because if I see it, maybe someone will be right. But what happens if I don’t?
Chaos.
I’ve heard so many things about what I’m like. Maybe it doesn’t even matter what that "what" is. Right now, I just want to see what that "what" really is. Exactly as it is. I’d like to look at myself with the eyes of the person I am today. To let go of the images from when I was 5 or 6, 10 or 13, or a young adult—images burned into me… Deep, layered, chaotic, flashing moments from the film of my life… Hypnotizing myself.
I’d like to erase them… or maybe not! I just want them to stop flashing, to stay where they belong. In my past. To disappear from the mirror. That’s what I want, though I don’t yet know how.
And if I can finally see what I have, who I am physically, who I truly am, then I’ll have time to figure out what to do with it.
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The article was translated from Hungarian to English by ChatGPT. Thank you, ChatGPT, for being here.
