On self-worth

After a couple more days of miserable bingeing, mostly in self-pity at how I am at my highest weight ever and my ~*~crush~*~ will never like me and nobody will want to be my friend at my new job and all these relatives visiting us are going to judge me and my family are monitoring my eating like a hawk, I figured a couple of things out.

a) It is normal to oscillate daily between feeling attractive and unattractive. Some days I think I look cute, pretty, even gorgeous. Other days my hair is frizzy and my skin is dry and I look fat and 13 years old. I am fairly confident that most humans experience the same thing. It happens, and I should roll with it without letting it devastate me.
b) There is nothing wrong with enjoying my own beauty when I feel that I possess it. It's okay to be attractive for me and only for me, in the same way that I confidently dress up and enjoy fashion solely for myself. In some ways I actually feel lucky that I have never felt obliged to dress up to attract others.
c) I constantly objectify myself by viewing my physical self through the eyes of others. I imagine (almost unconsciously) how strangers feel irritated at the space I take up, the disgust of new acquaintances, the irritation of men who would find me attractive if I were thinner. Even when I assume compliments at the usual body parts people seem to like, this practice never fails to make me feel weak and unworthy. Which leads to...
d) I will never again see myself through others' eyes. To put it crudely, this gives them the power to evaluate my worth, inevitably resulting in my devaluation and pushing my self-worth beyond the reach of the self. This might seem a naive and hippy-ish philosophy, but if I am going to give myself to other people in love and friendship and respect, it must be the whole of me, as a whole person. Fragments are not enough.
e) Confidence is but a mute glow on a distance horizon for me, but I have a vague sense that this is all about power. For someone who is so aggressive and confrontational, I am constantly giving my power away; to food, to men, to other people. I am only just starting to realise this
f) Whilst full-on burlesque or pinup aren't exactly my style, I really appreciate the confidence that goes with the image, I guess in the same way that all this punk/riotgrrl shit might have were it not super-trendy right now and I not a strident contrarian. I had a friend (who sadly as of last week is not my friend anymore, something else that has been getting me down) who almost exclusively wears printed A-line dresses, and girl just works it.

I sometimes feel embarrassed by how vain I am, always staring into mirrors and reflective surfaces. I now understand that this is a symptom of the constant evaluation and re-evaluation of my own worth. Do I look presentable? How about now? Oh no, my hair has frizzed at the front, nobody will want to speak to me, better go home and try again tomorrow. In articles about therapy, I read over and over again that women felt essentially unworthy of recovery. I scoffed at this notion; how could anyone feel unworthy of recovery? I didn't even know what worth meant. I still don't. But at least, as of today, I'm thinking about it.

I'm glad that I realised this, because I was truthfully on the verge of trying another diet. Body acceptance feels nigh on impossible when a second chin is firmly in the picture and my underwear leaves red welts. This might sound a bit silly, but (probably because my posture is so bad) I hold myself up at the cheekbones, so when they are submerged in fluid and flesh, I feel that I've lost my core.

I'll leave you with a few posts that have led me to the conclusions above.
1. The Fat Nutritionist - You're pretty good looking (for a girl). "Beauty is a cultural construct designed to keep people balanced on a knife-edge of anxiety over the potential loss of status, and the rabid desire to gain it." I will probably quote this another ten times on this blog.
2. Tavi Gevinson's musings on being attractive (I know, Rookie is annoyingly twee, but she is more self-aware at 15 than I am in my 20s)
3. Ami Angelowicz and Winona Dimeo - 10 Better Body Affirmations for Women