Journalistic Integrity, Part II

Once upon a time (7/12/2010), I posted a blog entry named "More of that Journalistic Integrity BS" in which, much like the Great Oz, I stepped out from behind the curtain to reveal myself:


I broke New Rule #3 ("I will not think badly about myself when I look in the mirror.") a gazillion times.
Heck, it's the rule I break most often, without fail. No only do I have an adversarial relationship with the mirror, I have an adversarial relationship with my body.  (For all the bravado of FGvW, Robby is pretty insecure).

For as much as I scrutinized the photo above, I don't have the traditional type of body dysmorphic disorder where I think I'm larger than I truly am.  I am quite the opposite.  When I close my eyes and run my hands over my body, I see and feel the person underneath the fat suit.  When I open my eyes, I'm disappointed with what I see--a body that doesn't represent who I am at this moment, but is the legacy of all the bad decisions that I've made and all the past pain in my life. I look at myself and don't see me. I see a prisoner.

This ties in to how many people say to me "but you aren't fat..." and how I feel bad calling myself FatGirlvsWorld when I know many women (and men) who are larger than I am.  It's the fat brain (the one that fears gaining it all back).  No matter how much weight I lose, how fast I run, how strong I am, or how much I truly love myself, I still think that my body just doesn't represent who I truly am on the inside.  In other words, there's a cognitive dissonance between who I think I am (mentally, physically, etc.) and the physical reality of who I am.  The result is frustration and scrutinizing.

Yesterday, I got a new bikini from H&M (as well as a dress and a light jacket).  When in the dressing room, I was utterly horrified by the way the lighting made me look, but I closed my eyes and tried to let my inner vixen make the decision about whether or not I wanted the bikini. Inner vixen said yes, I do want this bikini.

I put it on when I got home and wanted to show the world my purchase, but my old nemesis, the mirror started playing tricks on me:


But in the end, I posted the picture (at 2 am... hours after I took the photo):


Nota bene:  I'm not giving you the finger, I'm giving the fat the finger.  Why?

oh typos...

I feel like such a hypocrite when I am all "RAWR, YOU MUST LOVE YOUR BODY" and at the same time I'm deeply insecure -- but the truth of the matter is that perception sometimes feels truthier than the truth.  Who among us hasn't had the misalignment where your heart and mind completely love you, but your eyes betray that progress? 

So yes, I think too much.  I intellectualize things that should be visceral and natural.  But holding up that mirror to myself to understand why I think the way I do about my own body is the foundation work that I need in order to make a permanent change. Eventually the way I perceive myself/my body will match how I see myself/my body.  Make sense?

In other news, RAWR -- I look pretty hot in the new bikini, eh? It's a great color on my pale ass, Irish skin.

BTW, I love all the tweets and blog posts that are flying in the face of magazines' "Bikini Ready Body" -- all you really need to wear a bikini is SPF and chutzpah.