askchapo

Oh cmon. I think even if you asked for workout tips(the only way I can imagine these comments being appropriate) and saying your diet isn't satisfying, they should express acceptance and encouragement to embrace how you are already, and just try to tell you how to feel better. And that's if you're actually preparing to accomplish a physical feat in the future(like hiking or walking/running further with less breaks), already in mid-exercise(by expressing you're already doing great and to keep it up), among other scenarios that I can't think of rn.

But on their own, these comments don't seem okay to be telling most thin people.

Sounds like youre refusing to absorb other's self projections and not lashing out. I have no idea if your exact version is completely healthy, but it sure sounds like a safe shell.

I like showing myself off because I want to feel as radiant and beautiful as possible. I think that's the way more people could feel. And that never feeling and expressing our radiance can be a waste of our life. I wonder how I can do both, what you're doing and what I'm trying to do at once.

I used to give all people compassion each time I noticed someone acting insecure, but this often hasn't worked because so many people act and talk in bad faith. It's their shell, and when you point out their insecurity by saying its okay to look/be insert an okay thing to be, they usually will deflect and won't allow a crack in their shell for light to be let in. It's sad, I know what it's like to be in the dark about my beauty. Since reaching my highest ever weight, I'm recently very in the dark about it again. I feel like if I vulnerably act and dress like I'm proud of my body, people will feel entitled to shaming me. In their head and out loud with me in earshot of them.

I love crop tops, but idk how to deal with having a hanging belly for the first time. I think its unflattering. Strange because that girl with a large belly in a crop top was way fatter, and I my first thought was "WOAH She rocks!"

maybe remind yourself that showing off your body in a very small way impacts societal norms as well.

Right, people think dress codes are an actual thing. You can dress traditionally to your culture, but me going outside of it isn't actually breaking anything but other's personal rules for themselves. Oftentimes those rules are ways they shamefully limit themselves.

And institutionally, for example it's not actually inappropriate to go braless and dress in a miniskirt at the work office, HR just doesn't want a sexual harassment lawsuit on their hands and that's why they often try to make workers look sexless as possible. To them lawsuits waste time and money, and capitalizing on a workplace as highly as possible means enforcing a sexless uniform.

And beauty and health institutions capitalize off shame. If I go out with a freely hanging belly I could slow down my path in allowing these industrial standards to run my life. Maybe I should surprise everyone by wearing a crop top eventually.

Oh hell yeah! You can protect yourself and you're still fit. I wanna practice a mean right hook too.

Disability that's reinforced by societal failings suck. I am disabled and I understand my own case of this. And my body is still mine as long as I'm alive. I will do my best to see it in the light of self compassion and see it's still beautiful after everything. My body endlessly does me noble deeds in that, regardless of all harm I've suffered, it lends me life and keeps me alive. When I show myself off, I'm displaying that this is what resilience looks like. And I can be increasingly grateful for my resilience and happier about my image. I'm starting to think, "I suffer so much, who in my position has time for feeling shame about the thing in this universe that's done me the most favors?"

I remember a woman, who survived being a comfort woman at the hands of Japanese soldiers who'd invaded China, expressed that life is so beautiful that if she could only subsist on wild herbs to see it, she would. This helped me with SI from my trauma and disability, and helped me value my body more.

It's okay if you don't feel this is true for you. There are aspects of each emotional moment you can be introspective about, and you've clearly been very materialistic about what causes your despair. I just hope you're proud of your resilience and are not ashamed if you ever want to show it off body-wise. Because the onus of the bodily damage you suffer is on mass societal failure, not you. While not everyone wants to show off their forms of scars along with the rest of their body, I try to choose visibility.

Maybe for you right now, the point is not to see that your body is a deeply magical thing, but I think its good to return to that understanding when you feel slightly better in little moments.