Grimace and Bear It

A little thing you may or may not know about me: I’ve got a very defensive personality. I snap easily when I feel I’m being threatened. The arms cross, the brow furrows and the attitude of a moody teenager positively reeks from me. I hate it. I try to stop it, because I know it’s counter-productive and halts any attempt at adult discussion, but it’s sometimes almost impossible to rein in. It doesn’t always happen. But more often than I’d like it does, and I beat myself up about it A LOT.

I’m also insecure about my body – I’m scarred and bruised from surgery and seemingly endless procedures, and medication means my weight fluctuates so regularly that I can go from balloon to pancake and back again in a matter of minutes. When I’m bloated I feel embarrassed and ugly. I feel ashamed of my appearance. (So you see how the defensive personality might cause a problem here; if someone so much as glances at my stomach I am on them faster than Nutella on toast).

I’m well aware this defensiveness and my occasional hatred of my own female form is nowhere near a good attitude to have, but at least it’s real, and honest. I’d love to be a shining example of woman-hood who could wholeheartedly embrace her curves and teach others to do the same: and I like to think I do on the second point certainly; I’m my friends’ biggest cheer-leaders when they doubt their own (unmistakable to me) beauty. Only I can’t embrace my ‘curves’ because (my cracking rack aside) mines aren’t natural. They are caused by a crippling illness. The difference between these two pictures for example is 10 minutes. The first was pre-meal, the second minutes after dinner.

Bloating is painful and very uncomfortable. It’s constricting and makes me incredibly self-conscious. Even around the man I love. I don’t like to see myself looking this way mainly because it never seems to be a true reflection of me; even though it quite literally IS a reflection of me. 

In much the same way my scar did when it was fresh and new, it makes me feel ‘diseased’. I know it’s the not fit for purpose parts of my insides that are causing my physical appearance to be altered and it reminds me of what I’m dealing with. I can’t hide under smocks all my life, I have to grimace and bear it.  

This week I’ve struggled with work as my joint pain has escalated. My arthritis is causing my hands and knees to swell and ache. The pain can be overwhelming and incredibly frustrating. I suffer from nerve damage too, (another fun side effect from chronic illness) and that too has been reminding me there is pain to be found everywhere if I look hard enough. Thanks carcass! Joint and nerve pain make me feel old and I’m not. Combined with Crohn’s bloating I feel like a beached whale that can’t so much open a jar at the minute. Although whales don’t have pose-able thumbs and no call for opening jars I suppose, so one nil to me there I guess.

I’d love to be more accepting of what my disease does to my body but I can’t. I won’t. My body is MINE. So why does it feel parts of it are being controlled by some outside force trying to halt the inevitable process of Jon Hamm falling in love with me?

Of course ALL women bloat. You do. You DO; don’t lie Janet no one believes you. You just put gorgeous filters on your Instagram pictures or stand coquettishly behind vases of flowers/your fatter friend so we don’t notice. That’s fine, whatever works for you; just remember when we don’t admit our bodies are flawed (whatever that means) we alienate our own kind. We tell our daughters and sisters and mothers that their bodies are something to be hidden. So WHAT if you stomach swells after a meal? Would you leave your husband if /WHEN his does the same? No, exactly. 

Letting my body dictate how I view myself is stopping me enjoying the short time I have to do everything I can with it to make myself and other people happy. Sometimes we all just need to power through the self-consciousness. There are several things I’d like to see written on my gravestone when the time comes and ‘DIED ALONE DUE TO BLOAT SELF-PITY, SURVIVED/EATEN BY HER 45814845 CATS’ is not one of them.*

*some potential alternatives:

‘DIED TRYING TO OPEN A JUMBO NUTELLA JAR’

‘DIED AFTER BEING ATTACKED MY A GANG OF KILLER WHALES EXACTING REVENGE FOR A BADLY RECEIVED 2016 BLOG POST’