Overcoming Toxic Self-Esteem

The body positivity movement has been a big talking point as of late, some say it's good to love your body whatever size you are and others say it's an unhealthy view to have as it still promotes obesity. There is a wealth of articles, reports and discussions on the topic circulating social media at the minute and it got me thinking about my own body and how I view myself both in the past and presently. I'm an advocate for self love and self care and have primed myself on that for a couple of years but when I sat back to truly think about my own journey with my body image, I soon realised it wasn't a happy story.

For the majority of my adult life I have remained the same shape, I'm tall and slim often fluctuating between a size 10 and a size 12, I have always had a reasonably good diet and would consider myself to be healthy now but for the best part of those years, I struggled with my body image, thinking it was never good enough.

I consider myself lucky to have experienced my teenage years without the influence of social media but even then it was the "social -self- comparison effect", I would always compare how I looked to how the other girls in my school looked, to how my friends looked and even to my teammates. My insecurities fed off of this and I ended up doing some things that weren't physically harmful but were definitely damaging to my mental health when it came to how I viewed myself.

As I moved into my late teens/early twenties my self image had become progressively worse, cellophane wraps, diet pills and drops, boned corsets, restrictive dieting and days without any food at all became a crutch for me. Any time my self worth would drop low, I would turn to a number of these measures thinking if I lost some weight or altered the shape of my body, or looked a certain way then things would be better and I'd feel better about myself. It never worked and I ended up in a worse position than when I had started.

Even as close as 5 years ago, I fell victim to the waist trainer craze. I was warned of the dangers of them from a friend but I ignored the warning. It wasn't until several months later that I noticed the muscles around my ribs were becoming extremely sore to touch and I felt I could have poked a hole through my side, the skin felt  delicate. Needless to say the waist trainer ended up in the trash!

Growing up as a teenager or young adult in today's society with the heavy influence of social media must be very confusing and it's frightening to think about what some young boys and girls could be doing to themselves because of the negative effect it has on them. Not to mention the sinister remedies they may turn to for the quick fix.

Looking back, I didn't see myself being of any worth back then and writing this now as a woman in my 30's makes me feel tremendously sad, to have spent almost two decades hating how I looked and felt in my body and never telling a soul about how I felt. It feels lonely for that girl.

Over the past couple of years however, I have begun to accept who I am and what my body looks like. I still have moments when I step on the scales daily and stand in front of the mirror ,staring at myself with that evil voice nagging away at the back of my mind but it's something I'm getting better with every day.

Currently I'm trying to build new and better habits and gaining a better understanding of what being healthy actually means and looks like, so it's a learning curve and a work in progress.

I think it's important to understand that although someone might appear to be confident in themselves, you never know what goes on in someone's mind and it's probably best not to pass judgement or make comments.

xx