I put my weapons down

I have abused you. For so many years I have done to you, what I would despise and judge as unacceptable and cruel, if I saw it being done to someone else.
Yet I did it to you.

I have willingly starved you. I have intoxicated you. I have numbed you.

I hurt you. I rejected you. I shamed you.

I denied you. I ignored you. I despised you.

I punished you.

I abandoned you.

All my life I have been at war with the one and only who will stay with me, until the end. The one who will not leave me, unless I broke her into an ocean of shattered pieces.

This is a manifest to my body. A manifest of love and devotion. A peace endorsement.

Making peace with the own body after a lifetime of war, is a bit like finding home.

At 8 I was abused by a 14 year old boy. I felt ashamed because I could have said I didn’t want that. But I didn’t. I felt ashamed, because I should have done something. Did I in the end secretly agree to it? Bloody hell, I was 8. I did not agree to anything consciously.
You little 8 year old self were not guilty of anything! This shame should not have been felt by you. It belongs to your abuser.

When I was 12, I started to eat anything that would comfort me and appease the howling storm my father’s death had caused inside. Needless to say that storm could not be calmed by sugary treats.

At 14, people I loved started calling me chubby and too big and “pretty but a little fat”. My new candy consisted of diet pills and laxatives. I loathed my body like it was a disgusting parasite, that I was condemned to live with. Had someone given me poison to just kill of my body, without terminating my mind and soul - I might have taken it.

At 15 I had stuffed my body to grow to its biggest shape yet. I felt sluggish and always hungry. My heart was hungry for the love it couldn’t have. For the acknowledgement I couldn’t give to it.  

With 16 I decided the only way to still be able to faux-mend my soul with candy and cheese and still lose weight, was to eat and throw up. Also I felt disgusted by my body and my unceasing hunger. So my body clearly deserved some level of castigation.

At 17 my first boyfriend wasn’t allowed to look at me naked. I felt too ashamed of my body. I hated my breasts and my pregnancy-look-alike-tummy, and my thighs and my arms. I couldn’t even stand to look at myself. So I topped up my strategy. The improved combat plan was now to starve myself in combination with binge eating and throwing up.
Quite efficient on the weight losing end - very detrimental in every other way.

At 18 I threw up less and went to gym a lot more. I was finally thin enough to go there and not feel completely out of place. I still felt like everyone was judging me. How could they not all be disgusted? Surely they must see the same wobble-bobble that I saw. But I felt strong and I started to make up for my pounds by becoming overly competitive. I pledged to myself that I would never give up. I would never let anyone see that my body was exhausted or in pain. I would do any kind of sports or challenges and climb any mountain, and I would let them all think I did it with ease.
For the consequent ten years my body suffered silently.

By the age of 21 I had more or less conquered the eating disorders on the battlefield. I managed to maintain a healthy weight by working out and changing my diet radically.

But my war was not even close to coming to an end.

I shamed myself for my need to be loved, and I felt inappropriate and unworthy in most ways.

But at least now I looked pretty on the outside. And I convinced myself that as long as you look pretty, people think all is good and you are happy.

I still didn’t like myself. I always felt my arms were too fat. My thighs and my hips were too wide. My breasts didn’t even feel like they belonged to my body. I guess this is the kind of body you need if you are planning to go to war with it.
It would carry a lot and it could endure a thunderstorm, that’s for sure.

I didn’t feel worth being loved, because my body wasn’t “perfect” by definition, and I felt I had nothing else to offer because all that is so bloody amazing about me, was hidden under a thick layer of shame and hate.

On occasion, when I felt abandoned because I couldn't hear myself, I would still stuff chocolate into my body and bring it back out again. Or I would intoxicate myself partying and drinking, until I was numb enough to feel happy.

When someone made an offensive and hurtful comment about me or my body, I would secretly agree to them and just feel even more devastated at the same time, as I felt approved in my self-destructive theory.

The change came when I realised that all this had been a painful limbo of trying to escape all the pain inside of me. I decided to not surrender to the pain and the shame. I realised that I could only lose this battle against myself, because in reality I wasn’t at war with myself. I was combatting this self image I had manifested around me.

The only way I could win this battle was if I could ally with my body. I learned to allow myself, to be my own companion.
For five years now, I have worked hard to let go of this insanely detrimental self-image.
Lo and behold I learned to listen to my body. To accept her and to give to her what she needs.

I had to turn 32 before I could stand in front of a mirror naked, loving what I see with all my heart.
My beautiful body, I see you! I love all of your little quirks and flaws, and scars. You are a bloody masterpiece.
I mean you have been designed with intelligence and integrity.

Look at all the supercool features you have. You can regulate your temperature. You can show me exactly what I need to pay attention to, when I am a little ignorant. You grew little hairs in the nose and around the eyes, to keep out sweat and dirt.
And you are a kickass motherfucking fighter. And you have endured SO much!

This is my manifest to you, beauty. I will stand up for you. And I will never ever be at war with you again. I love you!

And I am also writing this to each and every woman and girl out there. It is time to put the weapons down and look into the mirror. See who you really are and know your own worth.

Next time you are secretly or overtly shaming another woman for something, take a breath. And ask yourself: Why does this touch me so much? What aspect of myself am I seeing in that other person? What am I scared of? Then give yourself a damn big hug.
And after that, give some love to the sister in front of you. We all carry the same shame and pain and scars.

Sometimes we can’t walk away from the battlefield on our own, because we have been injured and beaten and shattered so much, that we have lost orientation. We simply don't know the way home anymore. 

 Let’s take each other’s hand and help one another to make peace with ourselves. Let us guide each other away from the battlefield. Let us take each other home!

This is my manifest. To my own body and to your body. I will not help you to reload those weapons, to fight that war any longer. I will love you and your body, until you can do the same.