I have always blamed myself for anything negative that has happened to my body. For example, for ectopic pregnancies (I have had 2, either one of which could have killed me). I chalk it up partly to having been taught nothing about my body or its natural functions as a child, something I think my mother had no idea how to do since she had received the same silent treatment. In her case, she seems to have weathered her physical life pretty well, notwithstanding the fact that she bore 3 children in her early twenties before the doctor asked her what type of birth control she used. “What’s birth control?” my mother purportedly asked.
For me, I interpreted her parental silence as negative judgement - my body is something to be ashamed of and I’m not worth taking care of - and grew up with a deep sense of shame and even guilt, imagining that everything that happened to me was somehow my fault. Including ectopic pregnancies. The first revelation that perhaps another point of view was possible came a decade or two ago when a therapist asked me, after I had shared my guilt and shame over the ectopic pregnancies, why on earth I had decided that they were my fault. “You will never know how or why they happened - why on earth would you blame yourself for them?” I was thunderstruck - you mean that it might not be my fault? I didn’t do anything wrong?
My father (who died 20 years ago), who left our home early and who I really didn’t get to know until I was in my 30s, was severely crippled by childhood arthritis when he was a young child. His arms and legs were gnarled and twisted like ancient branches in a forest, and I found him creepy as a child and, before I got to know him well, embarrassing as an adult. To this day I marvel when I see a healthy-limbed father pick up or play with a child, something my father could never do and I certainly never experienced. The truth is, I sometimes wonder how different I might be had I had some sort of physical comfort or the ability to play with my own father.
Luckily, I got to know and love my father before he died and cherish the close relationship we were able to forge. It also made me acutely aware of the many people who live with physical differences, in his case crippling arthritis that prevented him from walking without crutches and later a wheelchair (and boy do I get steamed when people take Handicapped parking spaces that don’t need them!). I am grateful for the time I had with my father yet will likely forever be amazed watching able bodied men horse around with their own kids, a sight which still leaves me awestruck.
In terms of my own sense of physical shame, the evolution continues - recently I had another revelation when a doctor suggested that the readings from my recent physical were mostly very good - I had assumed, courtesy of my lingering shame, that the results were mostly bad. That I had done something wrong - had that second glass of wine perhaps, or enjoyed dessert at a recent party. But then the doctor clarified that my mostly Mediterranean style eating habits were wonderful and that the areas that needed improvement or medication were due not to any bad habits or ‘fault’ of my own but to genetics. “No matter what you do, these numbers are not going to change much - it runs in your family and you can’t undo genetics.”
Wow, another lightning bolt. It’s not my fault. You’d think that now, as a certified adult with my own adult child, this sense that everything bad that befalls me is my own fault, would have long sense passed. But no. Not quite, not completely. I am working on it, and I suppose that we can fairly say that life is a work in progress at any age.
As a parent, I very definitely wanted my child to grow up with a sense of pride and strength, of knowledge about and happy ownership of his own body. When the time came, I made sure that he was well versed on how his body works, including in terms of sexuality. I wanted him to recognize his own beauty, his strength, and the importance of taking care of himself - as well as any possible partners - physically and mentally. We even had an age-appropriate book recommended by a friend who was in early childhood education, one that showed in cartoon like but realistic drawings how bodies work and addressed the comforting notion that we, every one of us, reside in our body and need to know how to respect and take care of it.
These days I work to appreciate the strong and amazing body in which I live - imperfect, sometimes bigger in one place and smaller in another than I might deem ideal - but one I cherish and celebrate. I love that young people today seem to push healthily back against the old tropes of “a perfect body” that I grew up with - progress indeed, though we still have a ways to go.
It has taken my lifetime thus far but, bit by bit, I am learning to consider my Self as a beautiful and ever-changing work of living art. To be less quick to assign blame or shame to myself, and to recognize that none of us, perhaps especially we women, manage to completely escape the age-old issues of body image and self-worth.
So take a moment to celebrate your Body and Self! We live in these amazingly resilient yet fragile physical vessels that benefit from our own love and care. And all of us deserve to consider ourselves as the magical, amazing beings that we are.
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