Turns Out, I'm Beautiful

The most amazing thing has happened in my life the last few days: I've transitioned from feeling fat and uncomfortable in my skin to believing I'm beautiful and radiant.

I've been making a lot of strides lately. I'm balanced and happy (but not too happy) on my medication combo. Even my anxiety is in check. I've been working on strengthening friendships and reaching out to people who support me. I'm trying hard to change how I view myself as a student (I doubt myself a lot there) and passing all my classes this last semester despite one of them really challenging me has helped there. But I haven't really felt beautiful for a long time. I have moments when I feel beautiful, but they're encompassed by the feeling that I'm overweight and unattractive. Even my wonderful husband's support and encouragement and statements that he still finds me beautiful didn't really help. They would for a moment. Then I'd look down again and see my belly roll and go back to feeling unattractive.

The reality is I'm a solid 50+ lbs overweight and bigger than I've ever been in my life. And every pound I gain made me feel more and more unattractive. The burden I placed on myself as I gained weight is much more detrimental to my emotional health than the actual weight is to my physical health. I've never before had a lower self esteem while stable. It got so bad that my husband questioned whether or not I was still depressed because I doubted my own capabilities and attractiveness so much. I didn't have a good answer for him. I knew I wasn't depressed, but I definitely had a negative self-image.

I'm not sure exactly how my self-image changed and I'm the last person in the world who could try and help someone else figure out how to improve their self image. But in the last week I went from beating myself up for being overweight to feeling beautiful. And as I've changed emotionally, others have begun to notice and reinforce my beliefs.

I'd like to say it was all an internal battle: that my willpower and self determination was all it took to change my view of myself, but that's not true. One of the things that helped the most was buying a new wardrobe. I went shopping with my sisters and bought shirts that fit me, shirts that flatter me or stylistically hang loose. I think having a new, well fitting wardrobe made a big impact. And having people compliment me in the new clothes also made a big difference.

As strange as it seems, admitting that my weight gain is partially out of my control has been liberating. I'm not saying I can't make a difference, but part of what is going on is my medication. I haven't wanted to admit that my medication is part of my weight problem because it's so dang good for me in every other way. I'm so balanced and happy on it! I don't want it to be associated with anything negative. But the reality is I was warned by my doctor that even if I did everything right, ate well and exercised well, I might still gain weight on my mood stabilizer. And I haven't been doing everything right. I crave sugar like no other on this medication, so even if the medicine isn't causing me to gain weight directly, it's influencing me by causing me to crave sweets. Which I eat. I've gained 20 to 30 lbs (I'm not sure exactly) since I started this medication a year ago. It took me almost 3 years to gain that much weight before I started the medicine. There's definitely a connection. (Don't worry, I'm not going to just blame my medication and do nothing about it. Next step in my self improvement plan is to  change my diet and start exercising).

I don't know exactly how my self image changed. I think what finally happened is a combination of admitting my weight gain isn't all my fault, new clothes, compliments, lots and lots of love (and sister time), and most importantly, day after day after day of challenging my self doubts and negative thoughts. Mix all of those together and I finally have come out on top.

Turns out, I'm beautiful just the way I am.