The First Time by Alexandra Niforos
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e, as a society, love to treasure the serendipity of a “first time.” Whether it is something intimate (a first kiss), materialistic (a first car), or jovial (a first sleepover), we take great care in remembering our “first times” and looking back on them fondly. But why do we never talk about the scarring first times, the ones that may haunt us for years to come, the ones we never hope to experience again? It was on my 10th birthday. That afternoon I went to an event for my dad’s family. Feeling excited about my ascent into double-digits, I put on a brand new outfit I had bought just for that day: a snug light green v-neck shirt with a matching floral skirt. I felt on top of the world. But later that day, as I waited patiently at the table while my family got my cake ready, a relative of mine said, “Honey, you should really suck in your stomach.” Though they likely stemmed from that person’s insecurity, those words burrowed their way into my previously pure and positive outlook on my self-image. These words took approximately two seconds to say, but have echoed in my head for the past nine years of my life. Being a preteen who is not in love with their body isn’t exactly groundbreaking news. But let me tell you: from the ages of ten to fourteen I hated my body. This one specific instance of body-shaming is not to blame for everything that followed, but it was my first introduction to the concept of insecurity. After being told that tight clothes accentuate the things I should be ashamed of, I avoided them like the plague; I wore oversized t-shirts every single day of 6th grade. I started making excuses for why I could not attend pool parties, school dances, and, eventually, most social activities. The less I was noticed, the better. I dreaded telling my mom I outgrew clothes almost as much as I dreaded having to go to a store to try on new ones. I tried to look in mirrors as little as possible, because when I did it ended in tears. A friend once told me that we only notice the flaws
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in others that we see in ourselves. I picked apart other people’s bodies in my mind, and anytime I saw someone who wasn’t stick thin, I assumed they were as unhappy with the way they looked as I was. I still haven’t completely conquered these thoughts. I tried many forms of exercise and food restriction, but I got bored and lost motivation quickly when I didn’t see instant results. Nothing made me immediately skinnier or happier—which I equated as one in the same. I ran cross country my first year of high school for fun, with no intention of losing weight, but at the end of the season I was shocked to find out I weighed 135 pounds. I had reached my dreams of being thinner, so shouldn’t my insecurity have ended right then and there? Every time a family member or friend said “You look amazing!” I found myself growing more and more unhappy. The thing about commenting on other people’s weight is that (shocker!), you shouldn’t. As I got more attention for finally being a “socially acceptable” weight, all I could think was “was I really that grotesque before?” When I realized that looking like how I had always wanted to look wasn’t going to make me happy, I enabled myself to start the process of mending my broken self-image. Learning to love yourself is a journey. I don’t have all of the answers here, but I do have starting points. I think discovering feminism and the body positive movement was a start. The idea of just choosing love for myself instead of hatred at first seemed far-fetched. But what did I have to lose? I unfollowed social media accounts that promoted toxic messages, I started calling people out when they said insensitive things about how others look, and I began to search in the mirror for a positive outlook on the traits I once saw as shameful. The thing about insecurity is that it is always going to be present in my life: as hard as I try to fight it, insecurity will fight back just as hard. Small thoughts in the back of my mind still remind me of how much space I take up or how I look eating in front of other people. I don’t worry though, because while insecurity still sometimes wins these battles, I have won the war.
