#body-image

I hate posting these but it helps me feel validated even just uploading them online so I feel like it’s out there but it’s also in a “safe” space, as in not many people I know irl know what’s going on because I’m also super ashamed of it. Sorry about this post. No guilt if you don’t read it. By all means, skip it. I just needed to yell into the void.

Hey there, mermaid! I hope your day is going swimmingly (ha ha). Well Iam glad that you have written into MHA! I have a lot of advice for improvingself-worth and self-esteem. I understand what it’s like going through a roughbreak up. I do agree that you need to start focusing on yourself. I can giveyou some advice on how to do these things.

Dealing with a break up is one of the hardest things that I have everbeen through. So I understand why you would need some help. To start focusingon yourself, I would first start with self-care. Everybody has to take care ofthemselves and sometimes people with mental illness struggle with this.Self-care is very important and can start to help your self-esteem as well ifyou keep up with it. You can start slowly with just showering and brushingteeth. These are big accomplishments! Doing these things will help with yourself-esteem.

Another way to boost your self-worth is to hang around people who careabout you. If you surround yourself with the right type of people, then youwill start to feel way better about yourself. These people will let you talkand vent to them and that will help out a lot as well.

Try to set goals for yourself. Try to make little ones as well as biggerones. Have little things to accomplish and then you can reflect at theend of the day and see how well you’ve done. This will help you feel betterbecause you have done something important.

Journaling can really help withthese negative thought patterns. This helps you to get your feelings out andyou don’t have to worry about someone else seeing it. Expressing feelings is agood way to let out negative thoughts and feel clearer.

I know that you can get throughthis! Remember that we have a live chat service that is available to everyone.You can send in a request or see if an admin has posted that they are online.If you feel like you are in immediate danger please go to the hospital. I wantyou to be safe.

I wish you luck!

Contents Page

-Rachel

He doesn’t like my photos. Doesn’t leave comments. Doesn’t show up for me the way he does for other women. And that was fine—until I saw his name today, over and over, under photo after photo of girls who look nothing like me. He gave himself away in the way he responded to them. In the hearts. In the hunger.

We’re not exclusive. We never said this was serious. Technically, he didn’t do anything wrong. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t land.

Because I’ve let him see me. Let him in. Let him take up space in my body, and maybe even in places I don’t want to admit. And still, I stay invisible.

It’s not that I want to be posted about. It’s not that I need some grand display. I just can’t ignore the difference between how freely he offers his attention to others and how quiet he stays when it comes to me.

I don’t think it’s about how I act. I think it’s about how I look.

I don’t have the kind of body you show off. I have the kind you want in private, behind messages that expire, in rooms where no one else is watching.

And when you’ve lived in a body like mine—a body that’s been the object of desire and shame in equal measure—you start to recognize that silence has a shape. You start to wonder if you’re being hidden.

Even if no rules were broken, even if I said I was fine with things being open, I still feel a little erased.

Because I don’t want to be tolerated. I don’t want to be the one who gets the afterthoughts while others get the performance. I want someone who wants me without shrinking. Without making it quiet. Without turning me into something small and secret.

I feel exposed when someone looks at my body. Not seen—exposed. There’s shame. Embarrassment. That twitchy, skin-crawling urge to hide. Like maybe if I stay turned just right, keep the light low enough, I can control what they notice. Maybe I can stay desirable by staying slightly out of reach.

But once I’m on my knees, something changes. In front of the right person—in front of my person—I feel beautiful. I feel like I have a purpose. I feel wanted in a way that quiets all the static.

I still get conflicted. About showing my stomach. My arms. The front of me. The parts where loose skin and stretch marks show up like proof. Proof that I’ve changed. That I’ve survived things. That this body has been lived in and fought with. Sometimes I feel like I’m only beautiful from behind—until I turn around and all my trauma is on display. I hate that it feels like that. But it does.

And still—I offer it. Not because I love it. But because I’m trying to live in it again.

Submission lets me experience my body differently. I step into it like a room I was afraid to enter. I move like it might actually be mine. It’s not about performance. It’s about belonging to something—someone—in a way that makes me feel real.

I still struggle to separate being wanted from being accepted. And honestly, I’m not sure I want to feel the difference. Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Once you realize you were only ever being wanted, it’s hard to keep handing yourself over like it’s safe.

But I crave being taken. I don’t need a pedestal. I need a grip. I need to be used like I’m already chosen.

The bravest thing I’ve done with my body? Letting it be recorded. And watching it back. Watching the stretch marks. The angles I avoid. The softness I wish I could edit out. Watching it all—and not looking away.

This is so important fact that needs to be addressed boys/guys/men have same problems as females do the only difference is that guys don’t talk about it or are afraid to, because of the fear of what people will think of them.

People should stop telling men to “man up”, it’s very unhealthy and dangerous to men to be told that (also it could be classed as a form of bullying), it makes men bottle up and not express how we are feeling, it’s ok to show you are emotional, it’s ok not to be ok, it’s ok to talk about your feelings.