bodies

by

She bought him a catfish body pillow. Seriously.

Trigger warning: cancer, illness, hospice mention, food mention, weight mention

When you lose a parent as a young kid, you have a lot of questions. “Did daddy like ___?” “Would he like this band or that band or this food or this ____?” I often wonder now if it was hard for my mom to constantly get these questions from me that I only asked because I was insatiably curious and I knew remarkably little about who my dad was personally. A lot of what I remember about my dad (and about my childhood in general) comes in images and in imagined scenarios of how I believe things would have gone. I don’t have many truly genuine memories of my father, but the ones I do have I treasure and actively make sure I never forget. One thing I know for sure about my dad was that he was stick thin. I remember him crossing his bony legs in the morning in his bathrobe as he read the newspaper and drank his coffee. My mom told me that his legs were so bony that he had to sleep with a pillow between them; my aunt even bought him a catfish body pillow (my dad loved to fish, so it was a perfect gift) to put between his legs. It looked like a catfish. Seriously.

Continue reading →

by

American Horror Story: Freak Show

I absolutely love these interviews that American Horror Story is putting out on YouTube. It definitely gives us a perspective on how those with unique bodies, view their own bodies, and learn to accept their own bodies.

by

From “Abs” to Men with a “V”

Abercrombie1

I remember in high school that it was “hot” for both guys and girls to have “abs” especially a “six-pack”. It was especially attractive if a guy or a girl had abs at all. It was almost like a major plus. I remember having conversations with my male classmates and they would often talk about going to the gym just to get “abs” so that they could get more girls to notice them and be more sexually attracted to them. However, it seemed to me that they also wanted to get “abs” just so that could feel better about themselves and their own body. It was almost as if they would feel more comfortable in their own skin if they had “abs”. One of my closest friends in high school had “abs”. My friend loved her “abs” because many guys thought that her abs were “hot”. She would always talk about how her abs really turned guys on when she would have sex with them. Having other guys express their excitement and arousal towards her body and her “abs” really made her feel good about herself. It often makes me wonder if those same guys would feel the same if she did not have “abs” and her stomach was just flat.

Continue reading →

by

Male/Female: To be or Not to Be

After reading Dean Spade Mutilating Gender essay I am baffled and saddened. It seems as if gender binary is causing more strife in society than one cares to recognize or admit. Why does every entity in life need to be categorized in order to be accepted? Due to the ancient history of gender roles/identity and my new achievement of joining Biologist I am sure the discovery of karyotyping is throwing a wrench in the system. Continue reading →

by

Attention Walmart Shoppers

“People of Walmart – Funny Pictures of People Shopping at Walmart.” Their slogan might be more accurate if they changed it to “Body Policing at its Finest.” Now, I understand rolling your eyes at something silly someone does at the store, or a weird way someone wears their hair. More specifically, I can totally understand “cringe-worthy” outfits that don’t support someone’s body type as I’m an avid What Not To Wear fan. But People of Walmart really sets the standard for public shaming, no matter what the reason. You can be fat, skinny, black, white, short, tall, male, female – it doesn’t matter. If there’s something off about you, even in the smallest sense, you could be subject to getting posted on this site. Continue reading →

by

A doctor’s view on health

I’ve always been active. In high school I was a year round athlete and my body reflected this. Looking back on pictures I can hardly believe that I looked like that because I always saw myself as huge. According to my weight which was 15-30 pounds higher than my friends I thought that I was so much larger than I was at 135 pounds, I had an extremely warped view on my body. Now as a senior in college I have gained about 20 pounds and it is a continuous struggle to love myself. There are days I stand in front of my mirror and feel empowered and beautiful and strong and there are days when I’m getting dressed with friends or looking at old pictures that I feel like somehow I’m failing, but why do I think that way? Continue reading →

by

I was invisible, but I am not that girl anymore

I have to write once more for this blog for my grade. I’m highly motivated by grades, so despite feeling as though I have nothing to say, here I am, typing. I thought maybe I’d write about how we adjust to our unique bodily abnormalities (I don’t love this word, but I’m at a loss for another). I thought about sharing my husband’s experience of processing the bodies of fallen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the forced emotional detachment he took on as body after body found its way on a table before him, waiting to be readied to head home in a plain wooden box, back to the states and no doubt a family that would never recover their loss. I thought about sharing the moment my friend, whose son died an hour after birth, told me she can’t bear to hold sleeping babies because it feels too much like holding a dead baby, and how that statement, so matter-of-fact for her, knocked the wind out of me and ripped a hole in my heart for her, right beside the one that grew as her belly swelled with the baby we both knew wouldn’t survive. Somehow, none of these felt like things I wanted to share. And as I stared at the screen, thinking, “I have nothing to say,” I recalled (with the help of some online diary entries) a time in my life when I had the reverse problem: so, so much to say, and no one to listen. And I knew. Despite how very little (very, very little) I want to share this story about myself, I need to. I owe it to my own slow recovery, the future of my children, and the potential readers who’ve maybe been here too. So, here we go.

*Deep breath* *Deep breath*

I don’t generally ascribe labels to myself (they are relentlessly negative), but most people who know feel comfortable placing “emotional” over my picture. It’s a fair assessment. As long as I can remember, I’ve been an emotional girl/woman. I cry a lot, sometimes for justified reasons (see above), sometimes because I’m easily overwhelmed by emotions. I hurt a lot, and for me, emotional pain is easily manifested physically. In times I’ve had my heart broken, I have felt an ache in my chest that made it hard to breathe. It is this essential truth about me that led me down the path of self-injury. And this truth that kept me under its weight for over 10 years. If you need a trigger warning, consider yourself warned. There won’t be images, but this will probably hurt.  Continue reading →

by

Should I go on a run today?

I haven’t been feeling great about my body lately.  It’s because I’ve been spending so much time at my desk or hunched over a book (thanks, finals).  But it’s also because I haven’t been able to wear my favorite pair of jeans since I got back from my time abroad (where I ate everything I wanted because cultural experience!).  I’m telling myself not to let a pair of pants make me feel this way about my body, but I’m feeling it. Continue reading →