wallflower

stophatingyourbody:

My name is Kira, I am 23 years old, 5’2’’ and 150 lbs.  I have scars on my arms and legs from OCD/BDD picking and a lot of self-image issues.

 

Warning: Depression, OCD/BDD, Divorce, self-image, abandonment issues 

Since I was 14, I have been fighting a war within myself. Constantly barraged on both sides from not only OCD (which i probably have had since i was about 5 years old), but from depression as well.  The dark sometimes debilitating mental disease that sends me into the darkest corners of my mind; where all is lost and hopeless and life seems to hold no meaning whatsoever. 

 

I was on heavy medication for two years, both Prozac and Zoloft, both dosages so high that it made me mentally and emotionally dull.  The stump on your front lawn had more emotion and personality that I ever did for those two years. 

 

When i was in middle school, I was a pretty normal pre-teen girl. Just blossoming and starting to move from “Eww boy cooties” to “wow he’s cute”. I had a best friend who I had been in classes with since third grade, and she and Ii have ALWAYS been mistaken for sisters.  Life at home was good for the most part … then things changed.

 

My parents started fighting more and more.  Long loud arguments that had my youngest sister and I hiding in our room, pretending that we couldn’t hear them screaming, or mommy crying when daddy left, the door slamming behind him so hard the whole apartment shuddered. There was one day that I remember vividly.  My parents had been fighting, badly, and I sat on the computer in my room, doing something or other, probably playing The Sims, and tears just rolled down my cheeks.  My father came in to say goodbye… saw me crying and started telling me that everything was okay.

 

I remember saying through my tears, “No, nothings alright, it’s not okay.”  I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I didn’t want to be another statistic, I wanted and LIKED the fact that my parents were still together, and that we lived in the same apartment as a family unit.  But with the way the fighting was intensifying, and with how bad it was becoming at home, i just knew that it would happen.

 

Things started getting harder for me to do at school, grades would slip, effort on projects would wane, and I would stop wanting to help out or do things for my mother or my father.  My mother became concerned and took me to see a therapist, who was a counselor at Coconut Creek Middle at the time (i THINK, not too sure). Fast forward to going to a psychologist, who recommended that I go on meds to up my serotonin levels (a common problem with those who have depression).

 

I was on high dosages of both Prozac and Zoloft, both of which made me less of a person, and i had less quirks and personality than the computer that you are one while reading this.  People think I’m exaggerating when i say things like that, but then they hear from my mother and she backs up my story. The medication also made me balloon in size, going from whatever size I was to a size 16 juniors.  I was heavy, wore glasses, and an A-B student, who was actually respectful of my teachers and listened to them.

 

For all of that I was ridiculed and made fun of.  There was one class that someone stole my glasses from off my desk where I had placed them so that I could put my head down uninhibited and risk bending the frames.  I am blind as a bat without them on and stumbled about the portable trying to find them, all the while my classmates laughing at me.  It was hard to deal with, and combined with the meds I was on.. I can’t remember much of my middle school years, which is probably a good thing.

 

I have always had issues with my self-image. I’ve always been told that I “cleaned up nice”, that I was “cute”.  I was never the woman that every guy lusted over in school.  I always wore baggy clothes, not wanting to show off my “fat”.  M OCD caused me to pick and pop zits/blackheads all over my body, and I am scarred on my arms and legs because of it.

 

People insisted that I was beautiful, but I ignored them, pushing them off as wanting something from me. I did feel good when a high school boyfriend said I was an “exotic beauty” even though I feel like I’m just the “girl next door”.

 

It wasn’t until college when I met my (now ex) BF Jose, started to truly make me realize how beautiful I really am.  I could see in his eyes, and how he held me.  And of course he constantly told me that I was beautiful.  I didn’t believe him at first, but, after I told him that I loved him six months into the relationship, I knew that I was beautiful, to not only him, but to all of my friends in some way.  I blossomed with Jose, growing confidant and strong.

 

But the weight came back when I was involved in a car accident back in 2007, and had to go back onto meds and as a result the weight came back.  But Jose still said I was beautiful.  And I still felt it then.

 

I couldn’t dance afterwards, too much pain from my back injuries and I had also injured my knee (torn meniscus).  The lack of dancing also contributed to the depression, because outside of writing, dance was my outlet; my self-expression.

 

Then came the abandonment of my father and the resulting divorce of my parents, Jose breaking up with me a month or two later.  A little after that I started dancing again, this time belly dance.  I fell in love with the art, and the philosophy behind it.

 

All belly dancers are beautiful. No matter their size, shape, height, it is all about celebrating who and how you are. There are some AMAZING and famous dancers out there that are far from society’s “beautiful/ideal woman”. Take Mardi Love for example.  She is not super skinny and has a little extra and is part of one of the most prestigious tribal belly dancing troupes in the world.  Rachel Rice herself was inspired by a bigger dancer.

I have resolved to celebrate my shape now, and not mourn how I looked then. I look at the body shape of the females in my family and know now that I am not destined to be gorgeously tall and thin with a huge rack and an ample bottom (though that I have already).

 

I am proportionate, though I might not feel it all the time.  I am me, I am a daughter, a sister, a dancer and a girlfriend. Above all, I am a GODDESS, like any and every woman here.

Then (in college)

and now

http://akirarose.deviantart.com/gallery/27126388 - gallery of my scars

Follow me here if you wish: http://rosalindgypsy.tumblr.com/

BE BRAVE! JOIN THE REVOLUTION!

(via fyeahbellydance)