When I was on vacation in Barcelona, I wore shorts. That may seem like a regular, run-of-the-mill type situation (Shorts? In the summer? Groundbreaking.), but for me, this is a really huge development.
Confession time: I have a mostly manageable, but occasionally debilitating anxiety disorder. I’m primarily self-diagnosed, but after a crippling panic attack in or around the summer of 2012 (my family and I were at my uncle Thomas’ in North Carolina, he was having a party, I freaked the hell out), my mom, a licensed therapist, finally, thankfully, noticed I had a problem.
What does this have to do with me wearing shorts, you may ask? It means I live in perpetual terror of…too many things to list at the moment, but the big one is social interactions. That is to say, I’m constantly worried about people’s perceptions of me, and I care entirely too much about people’s opinions. Even when I’m just hanging out with friends, I’m talking a mile a minute, so fast that my brain can just barely filter what’s flying out of my mouth, and I spend two days after agonizing about everything I said and did.
This translates to massive self consciousness about my body. I understand objectively that on the sliding “all bodies are good bodies, from skinny to fat” spectrum, I’d be sitting closer to the skinnier end than the fat end. But it’s one of those situations where everything you hate about yourself is magnified to a hundred thousand because it’s you.
My thighs intimidated me for a long time. They slap together, and sweat pools in between them and irritates my skin. When I’m in a room with people that are skinnier than me, it’s an automatic reaction to compare myself to them, and I’m always on the losing side. It’s a stacked game, you see? Compare your unconventionally attractive body superficially to other people who are more conventionally attractive, knowing full well what you’re doing, and you feel bad about yourself regardless.
I fucking hate hating myself. It’s not healthy, it’s exhausting, and it’s caused me to do some horrible, mean, not-very-good-at-all things to my body, none of which it appreciated. I’m devoting myself to changing that. It’s not going to happen overnight, but I have to try. I am 9000% body positive, and will scream up and down any street on the planet that all bodies are good bodies and there’s not a damn thing wrong with being fat or skinny and hey hypothetical fat shamer nobody’s body is anyone’s business but their own body, but I desperately need to remember that my body is also included in that. Despite what the negative anxiety circle in my brain tells me, I have to remember that my body is also a good body. It’s been loyal, and stayed strong. It deserves better. And on top of that, to quote Nicki Minaj, “I’m tired of hiding my motherfuckin’ cellulite.”
In an attempt to remind myself of that, and in the interest of making a step toward improving my mental health, I’m wearing shorts and dresses all goddamn summer, barring laundry needs. Whenever that mean dragon of self-loathing and negative thoughts rears its ugly head, I’m gonna shout an almighty fuck you and scamper off into the sunset, my thighs jiggling merrily with each step.
Antoinette Kwadzogah