I Am Disgusting

My name is Stormy, and I am disgusting. Here are the most commonly cited reasons, as to why:

1. My shorts are too short.
2. Sometimes I wear a white t-shirt, and a red bralette, and it isn’t classy.
3. The fact that I force other people to have to see me in tight clothes is disrespectful.
4. I have scars all over that I can’t even pretend are from something else, and it’s an obvious cry for attention.
5. Two cookies are way more than I should be eating.
6. Also, at some point I’m going to have to forgive him, it’s my fault.
7. And I really should be over what happened by now, it’s been 14 years.

However, if we really want to go into it:

1. My shorts are pretty short, and I promise I’m just as uncomfortable as you are. However, I’m a teenage girl that can’t fit into women’s sizes. Hell, I really don’t even fit in junior’s sizes, I’m just too proud to buy clothes in the kid’s section. I have stubby legs. They’re both shorter, and wider than I’d like them to be. In all honesty, I don’t really like wearing shorts. I never liked how I looked in them, and that’s a feeling that has only gotten stronger since I’ve gotten older. I don’t know if that’s due to me still seeing myself as the little fat kid from elementary school or if it’s because of how offended people got when I began wearing them again. Really, I just don’t think I was meant to wear shorts. With the hip to waist ratio I have, there really isn’t any way to keep my shorts from riding up besides to just not wear them. For the better of the community, I should swear off shorts. Leggings too. I should just wear jeans all year, every season. But here’s the thing: it’s fucking hot. Jeans are not made for hot weather, so I think the best course of action for us is actually for you to just mind your own damn business, and let me dress for the weather, so I don’t end up dehydrated and overheated, again.

2. White t-shirts are a bitch. They draw you in with the promise of looking good with everything, but then screw you over with how see-through they are. You can try a nude bra, but I promise it isn’t going to work how you want it to. You won’t fool anybody; they can see the ugly nude bra you bought from the Target clearance rack specifically for this shirt. So, an idea; everyone’s going to see it anyways, wouldn’t it be less awkward if it’s because you’re trying to show it? Instead of it being like:

“Yes, you can see my bra, but I'm hoping we can all just pretend it’s not happening despite how obvious it is”

... it can just be like:

“Yes you can see it, it was thirty dollars, and my favorite color.”

Maybe I’m just stupid. But if someone’s going to see something, I’d prefer it be because I'm okay with them seeing it, rather than them being able to see it despite my best efforts to hide it.

3. I’m disrespectful. I have an intense fear of people thinking I’m fat, which I have all of you to thank for. If you constantly preach to me that I am nothing more than my body, obviously I'm going to want it to at least be a good one. I wear tighter clothes to remind myself that I am not fat anymore, and also that even though I told myself the opposite for years, it’s okay that I gained a little bit of the weight back that I lost when I decided not eating was a way to fix my problems. So yes, sometimes I wear tight clothes. But did you really think I’d get up early every other day for the gym, and give up snacks, just to keep wearing the same shit I wore when I hated my body? After years and years of getting sick just looking at myself in the mirror, I’m going to take advantage of not being completely repulsed by my body. There is no way to describe how fucking heartbreaking it is to believe that you are truly only your body, and yet still hate it with such a passion. And yes, there’s still A LOT of work to do, but I feel like not wanting to throw up every time I see myself should count for something. Plus, who told them to look? As always, I’m dressing for me. I’m wearing what I want, and what makes me feel best about myself on that day. It has nothing to do with the general public. But if we really want to include them in this, I have an excess of random boys in my DMs that would tell you they’re anything but disgusted.

4. If anyone sees my scars, they will know what they’re from. But the key word here is, “if." I made some pretty bad decisions, but I always knew that after I got out of this rut I wouldn’t ever want to see how low I was ever again. It’s not like they’re there because I’m some seventh grader making lines on my wrists in hopes of someone noticing, and saving me. It’s because I was a senior in high school, and I was taking every precaution necessary, even going as far as outlining my swimsuit in sharpie so I knew where I could, and couldn’t, and spending fifty dollars on various gels and serums that promised they’d erase everything from when I had started six years earlier. It was never a way to get someone to notice me, or to try and guilt someone. If that had been the case, I would’ve stopped a long time ago. And I promise, my goal was never to become, “the girl who cuts herself.” Who the fuck wants to be 19, and still taking apart pencil sharpeners every time shit hits the fan? Even if I was getting attention from it, who the hell wants that kind of attention anyways? I never wanted pity. But at the end of the day, I was a kid going through something that I was in no way qualified to get myself out of. And yet, it was 100 percent on me to get through it by myself. And I fucking did it. So cool, you don’t like them, but neither do I. There’s some stuff you just can’t get rid of, and I’m not going to spend the rest of my life hating myself for something I can’t change. I did it for 7 years, and that sucks. I regret it a lot. And there’s no, “but;” nothing positive came out of it. It helped me for maybe an hour, before just becoming another problem that I had to figure out how to solve by myself. So yes, I hate them too. I don’t wake up and look at them, and think they’re cool, and reminisce on how I got them. But I’ve done what I can. I got myself better after years, and years of always doing the exact same thing. They’re gross, and I’m not proud of them, but I did my best given the circumstances.

5. Yes, one cookie is sufficient. The serving size is two, but I’m not going to even try to fight that battle. After only eating fruit and crackers for a week, sometimes you want to splurge a little. Plus, it turns out that those foods have nowhere near enough calories to get you through the day without feeling lightheaded. If you do the math (like I do every day), you’d see that it actually turns out that I average with at least 500 extra calories I’m supposed to ingest by the end of the day that I don't. Multiply that by 7 days, and by the end of the week, there’s a nice little pillow of 3500 calories that were supposed to be used for energy but weren’t. That’s more than twice the amount I’m supposed to be eating. So if we really just sit down and think about it, is another cookie going to kill me? No. In the grand scheme of things, it’s more likely to keep me from passing out than it is to make me gain weight. Now, am I going to eat more and start making sure I get the recommended amount of calories? No. After years and years of constantly being asked if I really need another scoop of rice, or just being called gross every time skin was showing, I don’t really have any desire to try, and eat a “healthy” amount. Should I try to lose more weight? No, but I’m already off to a good start, and some part of me believes that if I do, I won’t be gross anymore. At the end of the day, food is terrifying. I don’t like it. I trained myself when I was younger to like the feeling of being hungry, and to hate feeling full. That’s something I can’t ever unlearn which while it’s concerning, it’s okay. I’m not stupid, and I don’t ever want to go back to how I used to be. I know I need to eat, and I know how much I need to eat in order to be able to get through the day. Being scared of food is, for lack of a better word, super scary. But so are tons things, including a lot of the things I’ve experienced in my nineteen and half years of wreaking havoc on this planet. So, fuck you. I’m eating the other cookie too. And yes I will 100 percent hate myself for it ten minutes later, but sometimes you just have to pick your battles.

6. Speaking of picking your battles, I’m not even going to try to convince you you’re wrong about this one. If you want to think it’s my fault, fine. This whole thing is exhausting anyways, and there’s really no point in me trying to defend a stance that I don’t even share myself. You’re right, it was my fault.

7. I’m not going to get over it. Give it up.

But you guys already knew all of that, because I’ve been telling you/showing you for years. I’m a dumbass, there’s no way in hell I could have hidden everything from you even if I really wanted to. That’s why it hurt so bad at the beginning, cause you knew me, and you still viewed me as disgusting. That’s okay. I mean, I’ve made it this far. Because I’ve accepted that I’m gross. You haven't accepted that I’m not totally okay all the time, which is on you. Not me. So yeah, I dress like a whore, and I have mementos from my past that I’m not proud of. I am disgusting. But who gives a fuck? I'm still here, I still love literally anyone that I meet. I still try to better myself every single day. I’m trying my best to keep on going despite everything that went wrong.

Plus, not everyone is like you all. I have amazing people in my life and they love me despite everything. Even if I am gross. You can throw a fit about it, but it was only a matter of time before I found better. I’m not going to give up my better just to go back to people who only acknowledged me when they needed to, “get one out.” I’ll never fully unlearn all the things you spent so long teaching me about myself, but I will learn new lessons on top of them. Did you know that people can love you for more than just your body? Or that there are people out there who legitimately want to listen to what you say? It’s amazing, and it almost makes everything y'all did, worth it; because without it, who knows if I’d be where I am, with the people I’m with?

I may be disgusting, but I’m also happy. Which is more than I can say for all of you.