How are you, dear Andy? I miss you.
As it approaches summer, I’ve been looking at my body shape a little bit more than usual. Despite me consciously telling myself to eat more, I seem to still be at around 46-47kg these days.
Yesterday , I looked back at my selfies of the same outfit for 3 years because I want to see if there’s any difference.
2024:
2023:
2022:
There have been quite a few people who mentioned to me that I look slimmer than before, especially those aunties at work. I usually respond by joking that I cook healthier food in the UK for myself that’s why.
I don’t think most people would understand that this is actually part of the mental struggles. The reality is most people want to look slimmer. That’s also almost the only way I could talk myself out of my own anxious mind, that people don’t see me as worrying as I see myself for being underweight, and they might actually think I look better this way (maybe you’re one of them too.)
But deep inside, I actually feel ashamed of my body shape, because I see it as unhealthy. I see that I am skinny because of my depression and that I haven’t been exercising. I tried to eat more but I still don’t seem to gain more weight, and I am secretly frustrated by that. I thought of doing exercise but with my depression weighing me down, I just don’t have enough mental energy to motivate myself. And when I tried on my bottoms and they all no longer fit, and I can see my ribs from the mirror, that’s when it starts to feel scary.
It might be hard to believe that I actually cry over this matter. In the crying, I realised that the root of all of these anxious thoughts about my body is actually insecurity - the feeling that no one will choose me or like me because I don’t look attractive enough, or I am just not good enough. In fact, no matter I am underweight or overweight or normal, I would still see that I don’t have a good enough body for anyone to like me.
But tonight, I felt God responded to me on this. He reminded me that that is not true, I am not unwanted. He loves me a lot and he wants me to be able to see that I am worth loving too and it’s not dependent on my body shape.
That’s when I realised that while this body isn’t looking perfect now, it is actually this same body that has tolerated all my mental breakdowns for the last 2 years yet still tried her best to be functional, it didn’t even fall sick once during my whole year in the UK. In fact, I should be proud instead of being ashamed of her.
It might be true that it now requires some work to “restore” my body, but it’s definitely a body this is worth loving and worth the work. And even though I might find it mentally challenging to do all the normal things that will help my body, but I can always take one step at a time, and my body will wait for me.
Sharing these very vulnerable and internal thoughts with you, hope that it lightens you to love yourself too. Miss you.
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