A Farewell to Fat Thighs

DIARY ENTRY

Day: Thursday 23rd

Mood: Average to good

Calories: not going there anymore!

Steps: 4165

Reframed any negatives today: Hell, yes!

Want to write about it?: 100%

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Dear Diary,

I can’t believe this; I’ve seen the light, and I’m not sure how it happened, as it was just the smallest shift… but I had an epiphany this morning, and it was just effing awesome! :))

I’d taken a shower and was sitting on my bed, wrapped in my bath towel, and for the millionth time, I felt that same disgust I always do when I look down at my big thighs; they make me feel ugly, and there’s zero gap there. Plus, it’s so annoying how they always stick together at the top.

Anyway, I know this sounds bad, but having all of that therapy last year with Leonard has helped me unpack a lot, but there are just so many layers. I’ve still so far to go. :((

So back to the epiphany — maybe it happened because I always try and remember what Leonard said about the parent/adult/child voice thingy: to ask myself which one is at the core root of the more negative thoughts I have. Ego state and all of that. But, oh my gosh, bam, there it was. So happy!

All these years, I’ve been hating on my body and face, but working it back this morning, I saw the core root as the critical parent. Bang! It was my father’s voice!! It was his — hating on me — all along. I heard it loud and clear, echoing back to me after four decades. What a crazy thing. To have a memory flood back in all of its state. But there it was.

He’d never say anything lovely about me, or to me. But that one time, I was about fourteen, I wanted him to tell me I was pretty, but instead, he bluntly said I was big, and then said my hands and nose were too.

I felt so, so fucking gutted and sad that day. I wasn’t huge either, just athletic. If only he saw how my big body went on to endure so many trials, give birth, lift weights, and those big hands have massaged thousands of clients and created so much art. And that nose, that nose is in the middle of a face that offers smiles, to cheer so many others up.

It is so clear now how I have taken on his narcissistic criticism about who I am and carried it around all these decades, as if it were my personal opinion. Wow, how mad. It’s his shit words that had burrowed deep into my psyche. I’m seeing myself through his eyes. And his words.

I am going to work hard at pulling out the roots; I want to be angry… don’t know how though! But starting from now, I have to work hard on reframing how I see myself.

I can’t let my parents drag me down anymore. Making the decision to have no contact with mum has helped me massively. I do not have to accept how she speaks to me. Period.

She’s even fat-shamed me in the past, telling me I shouldn’t wear trousers. I couldn’t believe it that time she rhetorically asked me if I’ve actually seen the size of my arse! Just rude!

I’m relieved in ways that ‘Dad’ has pushed me out of his life. I don’t need those kinds of people in my tribe, even if they are my parents.

Numero Uno Mission: LOVE my body (especially my chunky thighs).

And remember — I’m able to walk and even run. Well, just — with a lot of heavy panting, but hey. LOL

The jigsaw pieces are coming together, though — seriously, the way I never really buy many clothes and keep wearing my old clothes to death. Who goes shopping once a year? Hello! And every year I say I’ll wear a bikini on the beach and slim down, but decades have passed, and not many bikini summers. 👙

It’s strange — about being angry, I want to express it, but feel numb, and numb about him. He took everything from me, and I have naively let him demolish my body image.

But not now. Now I’m saying: NO. Amen.

I’m wrapping this up for today, but I’ll journal more in tomorrow’s entry. Can’t wait to write about how I’ll look in the mirror one day — with just my voice! Go girl.

#liberated #body image #toxic #dads #parents #diary

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*This preface has been published in my poetry chapbook:

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