Begin with a body that varies from the Ideal. Nevermind the origins or validity of the Ideal, even if you had heard of such concepts or could comprehend the forces behind them, they would not matter to you, so powerful is the Ideal in your mind, and in the mind of the people around you, and the people around them, so powerful indeed that the Ideal is like a hurricane in its strength and mercilessness.
Strive to meet the Ideal. Refuse to give in to your body’s resistance. Discipline is virtuous, pain is weakness, and hunger is an illusion. When reason fails, abandon it in favor of madness, the madness of pills and fads and desperation. Self-flagellate. Count everything, even the sugar-free gum that you hope will somehow relieve your body’s desperate cries for nourishment. You don’t really need nourishment, after all, you only need to be healthy.
Hide. Be desperately ashamed of your body’s failure to comply with their your wishes. Cover it up. Stay at home. Sublimate your dreams and goals into yet more discipline. Your dreams and wants and goals vanish in the face of the Ideal.
As your desperation rises, your body becomes more and more damaged. Ignore it. Ignore that annoying voice in your mind that suggests that maybe you are making things needlessly harder for yourself. When you travel farther from the Ideal, blame no one but yourself. The Ideal is all that matters, and if you had just worked harder, been better, denied self a little more you could have reached it. Resolve to work harder. Resolve, again and again until any other resolution seems ludicrous.
Wake up one day to discover your body is a stranger. Stop yourself mid-flagellation to wonder if maybe the problem isn’t you after all. Look closely at that ideal, the one you have been chasing for so long. See its cracks and faults. Touch it, and realize that it is useless. Throw it away, cry, and then revel in the relief.
Begin again to discover the you that once was. And smile.
WOW! Just Wow! This is so moving, I’m practically speechless. Pass the tissues, please.
May I send this in an email to a friend who’s struggling with self-acceptance? I’ll direct him toward you, of course.
Absolutely you may! I hope it helps him.
D**n.
“You don’t really need nourishment, after all, you only need to be healthy.”
Nail, hammer, bang on the cognitive dissonance that is the Western beauty ideal.
After all, we’re only things to be looked at, right? So we don’t need energy to think, or live, or anything.
Amazing post.
I don’t mean to sound like Miss Schoolmarm, but —
did you mean “dissent” rather than “descent”?
No, I meant descent. When I started writing this post I had a mental picture of someone starting out healthy (mentally and physically) and then descending down into a hellish nightmare as a result of following the “Ideal”. The ascent begins again at the end, but mostly it is about the downward slide that I experienced, and that I imagine most people who get caught in the “I’m not good/ pretty/ thin/smart/talented/ whatever enough” trap experience.
No offense taken — I AM a schoolmarm.
Yes yes yes. Can you read my mind or what? Beautiful.