(I started writing this post with the last few paragraphs in mind, I
wanted to speak to you about my strange attitude towards my own body’s physical
aging process. But I had to keep going
back to set the scene. So this post is
all over the place, and covers many topics. It is a long and hard read. Be warned, there are some graphic and hard to
read pieces. Don’t read if fragile. Drug abuse, miscarriage and loss mentioned. I also want to say that this is about how I
feel. About my body. It has absolutely
nothing to do with what I think of you, your body, about society’s view on any
of the topics I have covered. If your reaction is ‘if that is how she feels
about herself then what must she think of me’, then you have not understood my post.
Because this is how I feel about myself.
It has nothing to do with how I view you or anyone else. Ok?)
I have a strange
relationship with my body. I don’t hate
it; I don’t abuse it, not any more at least. There have been times when I have been embarrassed by it, and there have
been times when I have been proud of it. And there have been times when it has let me down terribly.
When I was young,
I hardly noticed it. It was merely a
mechanism to physically express the needs of my will. But as I got older, and
more socially aware, things started to change.
When I was a
teenager at school I was terribly embarrassed by my body. I was so painfully shy about my thin legs
that I used to sit long after the bell had gone to end break time just so that
I wouldn’t have to walk past people with my thin thin thin legs. I hated them. I hated been tall, standing out. I felt tall, gangly, ungainly. Ugly.
Then, when I was a
young adult, I felt terribly self-conscious about my boobs, they were so
big. I walked hunched over so that
people wouldn’t notice them. One of the
best things I ever did for my self-confidence was getting a breast reduction
for my 21st birthday.
As a university
student, away from home for the first time, I found my new found freedom
intoxicating. I drank too much; I slept
with far too many men. I had no respect
for my body.
Then, at an
unusually late age, my late twenties, I discovered new and more dangerous ways
to push my body to new limits, I discovered the rave scene. I was in heaven and I embraced it like a
religious follower at a cult meeting. It
was a sub-culture that I loved being part of. I loved everything about it, the music, the dancing (I love dancing),
the feeling of belonging, the drugs. Oh, the drugs. The drugs were an amazing discovery for me. A dangerous
discovery.
I was part of the
‘cool’ drug crowd. We were social drug
users, and while some of us, me, were addicted (although we would deny this
vehemently) we had certain parameters, boundaries if you will, around our drug
use. There were some drugs we would
never use. Heroin. Using heroin meant you were a drug addict. We foolishly told ourselves that we simply
used drugs like E and coke, we weren’t addicted. We all kept our jobs; we never stole money or
sold our little sister’s bicycle for drugs. We were cool, we were hip, we were ‘high class’ addicts.
Ecstasy was our
drug of choice. Raves are all about
‘E’. No matter what anyone else tells
you. The problem is that the more you
use Ecstasy, the more you need to use to get the same high. So from using one pill a night, it went to
two, then three, four… The of course the
more you use, the harsher the long term side-effects. And the harder it is to socialize without it.
I loved Ecstasy, I
loved the way it made me feel. For many
people Ecstasy is about the ‘loving’ feeling. You feel so happy, loving, at peace with the
world. You just love everyone. It is a kissy, huggy, massaging type of drug.
The thing I loved
about E was the physical feelings E gave me. When you ‘come up’ on E (when the drug kicks
in), you start ‘rushing’. It feels as if
you can actually feel the blood rushing through your body and you whole body becomes
one big sensory zone. If I brushed my
fingertips lightly against my arm I could feel every single nerve ending, every
hair follicle. It felt amazing. I could
feel the beat of the music against my skin. I could feel the beads of sweat on my back as
if they were magnified and slowed down. Every
thing is heightened. I loved the
feeling, I felt as if I was my body’s conductor, playing the most amazing piece
of music ever. I pushed pushed pushed,
took more drugs, skating the slippery line between being in control and crashing
over the edge.
People said it was
bad for you. I didn’t care.
I got into coke
for a while and that is a dangerous drug. That is an addictive drug. Thank goodness I somehow managed to escape
that dark pit.
I got thin, very
thin. I was about 10 pound underweight. I was skeletal, and I loved it. I never considered myself an addict, although
looking back it is obvious I was. But at
the time I was working, function, hell, I even did my MBA while drugging. And passed, well.
And then I met
Marko. Actually, the night I met Marko,
a Sunday night before a work day, I had taken half an E. Enough to give me a buzz but not enough to
make me spaced out.
Marko is very anti
drugs. I obviously didn’t tell him in
the beginning that I was using drugs, although he soon found out. But by that time I was using much less and
never with him around. He had never seen
me on drugs. It became once a month,
then once every second month. But I couldn’t
stop it completely. It was my little
crutch.
And then one
night, the girls and I went on a big binge and we were going to meet up with
Marko and his friends later. I had taken
an E but it had not kicked in. So I did
a few lines of coke. Still nothing. So I had a tiny bit of speed. Nothing. And then I smoked a joint. And everything
kicked in at once. I was completed
stoned out of my mind. And Marko saw me.
Stoned. For the first time ever. He looked at me and said ‘if you ever do that
shit again I will leave you, in an instant’.
It was August 1999,
I was 30 years old. It was the last time
I ever used drugs.
It was hard
stopping. It was only then that I realized
how addicted I was, and how much part of my life drugs has become. I have a very addictive personality. Very. But I worked through it and I am
obviously very pleased I have stopped. (This
is why as an ex-smoker I can’t even have ONE cigarette, because if I have one, I
will have 30)
And then, in 2000
my infertility hell ride started and my relationship with my body took a whole new
turn in disappointment, disgust. My body let me down terribly. I felt embarrassed, angry, betrayed by my
body. My body was poked, prodded,
injected, operated on, cut, scarred. I put on weight, I lost weight. I got pregnant, I miscarried. My body fatally failed my one son, failed to
provide him with whatever he needed to live, and he died within. My other son
was cut out of my body, ripped out too early, and then died. I was left with leaking breasts and a raw
wound. And no son. Needless to say, infertility did little to
improve my relationship with my body.
And now, now that
all of that is behind me, I have for the first time realized what a complex,
and often unhealthy, relationship I have with my body.
What has brought
this to the fore is that for the first time I am noticing physical signs of
aging in my body. I hate it. My reaction to it scares me, Perhaps I was too wrapped up with the
infertility stuff to notice, or perhaps it is just more noticeable now. But I am aging. My skin is getting wrinkly, soft. My face is getting lined. And I have to force myself, over and over, not
to give in to the disgust I feel about my body.
I also do this
stupid stupid thing. I hate that I do this, and I feel completely dickhead’ish
even telling you, but I look at my kids perfect, beautiful faces and I feel
sorry for them that they have this old, ugly mother. They should have a
beautiful mother, not this one that looks so lined, splotchy, tired.
When I blogged
about the Botox thing a while ago there were a few of you who said that you
loved your aging body, you loved the softness, the lines. You said you felt
proud of the history your body told. And
oh god, I am desperately trying to find some of that in myself.
Instead, I look at
myself in the mirror and I feel disgust. Not all the time, but if I don’t stop it, I will
get waves of disgust at how I look in the mirror. I look at my thick middle, the c section scar,
my boobs, my butt. And I shudder. And then I tell myself to STOP DOING THAT.
Doing the Botox
was a mistake I think. My sister jokingly
said at the time, ‘you know that Botox is the crack of cosmetic surgery, once
you start you can’t stop’. OMG, she was right. I want so badly to do it again. It
is calling me, the Botox. But I can’t
afford it, I can’t justify spending that amount of money. If it lasted, fine. But having to spend so much money only to
have it wear off? I don’t know. And yet, when I stare at the lines on my face
I keep thinking ‘but it is only X number of dollars/Rands….’ But I really can’t afford it now. I can’t justify dipping into my savings
account to inject poison into my forehead because I hate my few lines. Pity!
I know this is an
unhealthy attitude, and I am very VERY aware that passing any of this shit on
would be so damaging to my kids. I also
know that we pass on stuff subconsciously, and that without realizing it, I could,
if I am not careful, pass on my unhealthy relationship on to my kids.
And so, for my
children’s sake and my own sake, I need to stop this disrespect and flashes of
self-loathing. I need to somehow forget
the past and accept that this is the best body I have and it is going to have
to carry me to my old(er) age and so I better respect it and look after it. I need it to be around a while longer so that I
can take care of my kids. And that is my
biggest motivator of all.*
I need to learn to
love the skin I am in, no matter what has happened in the past.
It is not going to
be easy though. Old habits die hard.
*Funny, I tried to stop smoking for so many years, and I couldn’t. The health warnings had absolutely no affect
on me. Yet, for my children, I can, and
will, do anything. I stopped smoking
instantly. They really are my biggest
motivator.
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