For a good portion of my life, I had a very unhealthy relationship with my body. Instead of loving myself, I found myself always criticizing my body. I had an eating disorder at an early age. Growing up, I had adults telling me I couldn’t have seconds or that if I wasn’t careful that I would get a big butt. In school, I was bullied for being chubby, even though when I look back, I was much smaller than I am now. It wasn’t until I did my first pin up shoot that I started my body positive journey and started truly loving myself just as I am.
Why I ended up doing a Pin Up Shoot In the First Place
When I did my first pin up shoot back in 2013, I felt at one of my lowest points in life. My weight was at its heaviest. I just lost a baby That miscarriage messed me up so much that I dealt with trauma for years because of it. I only did the shoot because my husband had made the comment that he wanted pictures of me. His job required him to be gone for weeks, sometimes months. So when I saw that a local photographer was doing pin up shoots for Valentine’s Day, I decided to do it for him.
When I first walked into the studio, I wanted to just get in and get out. I chose some more conservative pieces for the shoot. However, after sitting and talking to the make up artist and seeing how amazing my hair and make up looked, it gave me a confidence boost. As I started posing for the camera, I loosened up a bit. Then I saw the photos. The person staring back at me was someone I didn’t recognize. However, I wanted to be that person. That person was fat and fabulous…and that person was buried somewhere inside me and just dying to come out!
The Self Love and Body Positive Journey
You could say that I got a thirst for the camera after that. I find it ironic, considering how I hid from the camera for years. There are hardly any photos of me from when my big kids were little. However, I wanted to shoot again.
The next shoot I did was a mommy and me one. I ordered the dress from a small little shop online (which sadly doesn’t exist anymore). After the shoot, the shop wanted to use my photo as their social media cover photo for a while. Putting myself out there like that was kinda scary. However, it gave me such a rush.
The little changes
After that, I found myself changing up my wardrobe. I started looking for more fashion forward pieces. I started wearing pin up clothing in public. Heck, I bought a two-piece bathing suit! I also started finding little pockets of community online of fat people looking fabulous and loving themselves as they were. It made me realize that I had been too critical of my body for far too long. My self love and body positivity journey truly began at that point.
How Pin Up Helped me become an advocate for body positivity
As I began to love myself more and become more confident in my skin, I wanted to share that desire with others. So often in society, we are taught that skinny is pretty and that if we just lost enough weight, everything would be better. We are taught to hate ourselves for not looking a certain way. However, not all of us are meant to look a certain way. We are all meant to be different. Some people cannot lose weight. Some people are skinny and still have health issues. Not only that, if you don’t love yourself now, you won’t love yourself even if your body changes. There will always be something else to hate.
Learning to love myself and find things I loved about my body has been a long process. Every day, I still work on it. Knowing how it changed my life for the better makes me want to share my story with others. It makes me want to help others love themselves and find beauty in themselves.
Using My Platform
After going through health issues and seeing how screwed up our system is in that fat people are often ignored because of weight, it made me want to use my platform to help others advocate for themselves. Even though I lost weight, my health issues didn’t just suddenly vanish. I had a neurologist ignore me because of my size, even though my issue stemmed from a brain injury and not from being overweight. It is frustrating to not get treated the same. I want others to know it is not acceptable!
The Wrap Up
Life didn’t improve overnight. It definitely still has its moments (I say as I am currently dealing with major PPD). However, I wish I could go back and hug my younger self and tell them they are beautiful!
My body positivity journey is a continuous one. There is always room for growth.
I know it is easy to hate on one’s self. Being so overloaded with social media that portrays looking a certain way as being the only way doesn’t help either. Once you start finding things to love about yourself, the better off you will be. Even if you want to lose weight, you still need to love yourself just as you are in that moment. Know that you are worthy. Your body is worthy. It deserves all the love.
If you want some body positivity inspiration and fashion fun, be sure to follow @prissymissydoll on Instagram!
good for you!! It so many people like the kardashin who make women feel like there are not perfect. BUT they are the one’s that are not showing the real picture.