My Experience: Body Positivity

January 17, 2017 — Today, I was scrolling through my subscription part in YouTube and saw Thomas Sanders' video about body positivity. He was talking about his own struggles with his body, and how he was not loving how he looked.

His video got me thinking, did I ever felt that way? Felt that I was ashamed of my body or the way I looked? To be honest...I kinda did. I guess you can't really avoid the negativity you feel towards yourself. As a kid (around 7-9) I never felt ashamed of the way I look; why would I when I've been surrounded by people I knew since I was 5, but when I was 10, I've been the shiest that I have ever been. I rarely talked and just sat there, around this time I was conscious about things I do, and how my hair looked. I can surely say, I was a dork when I was 10. By the age of 12, I was slowly aware of things, like my sweaty nose, my small mole on the left side of my lip and how tall I am. I was 5'6 in a class of 5'4s (guys included) the only one who was taller than me was a foreign classmate of mine who was 18.

My height was my greatest insecurity as a tween undergoing puberty. Every time someone would crack a joke saying I should give them their height, I would say they could have it because I didn't want to be tall. I felt like a weirdo being the tallest. I always get the "You should be proud of your height" speech from my family, but they were my family, to me their opinion didn't matter because they had to say it, and because they were all tall.

The age of 13, I fully accepted my height because I was part of the girls basketball team for my high school. I accepted it, even to the point that I wore shorts a lot and hated wearing pants, but even when I was starting to be confident there was another thing that got me body conscious, my dark armpits, until this very day, I'm very much conscious about it, but I just grew to accept that it's part of my body. I started to be more confident about myself from the age of 14-16. During my freshman to junior year, I was an active basketball player, so I was in shape, but when I was in senior year, I stopped and well, my pounds were catching up to me, but I still loved my body, how I looked, how I was still a bit slimmer...but as time progress I wasn't able to keep the shape I got until I became rounder. This was when I was a bit ashamed of how I looked, I covered myself up. I never wore clothes that fit perfectly, I had to always wear baggy clothes, I never wore sleeveless tops, or even wear swimsuits, I always wore shirt with the swimsuit underneath.

I never got the support from anyone saying I look fine or anything, even from my family...what I got was "If you lose a couple of pounds, you'll look pretty/better." Wow! Such supportive family. When I had enough, I just accepted myself because I was getting so upset about everything to the point that I hated being with family. I never socialized, I only stayed in my room or my parents room to watch TV. I hated it...so when I took up the courage to look myself in the mirror and say "You are enough." that was the time I realized, the only person I need to impress is myself.

After that realization, whenever my family comments about my weight, I always say "And so? I don't care what you think I look like. If I wanna lose weight, I will." and now, they don't bother me about the weight or to look thinner. I can never be bothered. Don't get it the wrong way, of course I wanna exercise, not because I wanna lose weight, but because I wanna stay healthy. Body positivity really affects you a lot, emotionally and mentally. If you think that you're not pretty enough or good looking enough, always remember it's how you look at yourself.

with love,

Kylene Adorkable