The First Time

We, 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 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.

Now that I am past the point of living in a permanent state of misery, my eyes are open to the toxicity in our society that causes these types of insecurities in the first place. Little kids don’t wake up one day and decide to hate their body: it is something that is taught by others. So when I overhear gossip revolving around other people’s bodies or watch a popular TV show with an overweight person as the butt of the joke (cough cough, the Fat Monica bit on Friends), I am angered by the shallow cruelty that sometimes persists in smallminded people. Every time a friend tells me that they don’t think they look skinny or pretty enough in a photo, my inner Leslie Knope wants to grab them and shake them and yell, “You perfect sunflower! How are you not seeing what I’m seeing?”

Why do we not talk to ourselves the way we talk to our best friends? I stopped thinking negative thoughts about myself as soon as I realized this. I abolished my old habit of constantly comparing myself to others and thinking “I wish I was like that,” turning it into the ability to look at people and just simply admire them for the natural beauty they possess. My instagram comments of “wow you’re so pretty i’m jealous” transformed into a simple “you are SO beautiful!” This also required me to come to terms with the fact that beauty is exhibited through so many facets. Have you ever seen someone completely absorbed in a book they’re reading? Watched someone talk about something they’re passionate about? Looked at a group of friends laughing over dinner? People are so incredibly beautiful just in the way they exist.

I am so grateful to (currently) be on the up-and-up about my body image. I am fortunate to have always been legitimately healthy, even when doctors and my peers and the media made me feel like I wasn’t. I am lucky I never had to deal with darker outlets for insecurity. I am mostly glad I can look back on my tenth birthday and only feel unbelievable sadness for the person who felt it was acceptable to comment on a child’s weight. While first-times have weighed heavily on my life, I have also found comfort in them. I will never forget the freedom I felt the first time I decided to love myself.

By Alexandra Niforos