body talks with pixiebaroque

body talks is a series where i invite people to talk about their feelings and thoughts
on their bodies and their journey of how they got to the point where they are today.
this could give us a new perspective on how others feel about their bodies and could help everyone of us to understand that we are not alone with our feelings.

illustration by me of @pixiebaroque

I've spent over twenty years of my life dreaming of the perfect body. I would postpone things, that I really wanted to do, to until after I would've lost weight. Whatever problem I had, I would blame it on being overweight. And that behaviour didn't come from nowhere: It's what I was taught from my surroundings. People at school would bully me because of my weight, and people in my support-system would try to get me to lose weight, so the bullying would stop. Doctors would never listen to any of my issues and just tell me to lose weight. On the mainstream media, people like me only existed to be ridiculed.

My favourite daydream was coming back to school after summer holidays with the perfect body. That, for me, was everything that needed to happen for all my problems to disappear – because my surroundings never taught me anything else. From this pressure, all I have gained was more weight.

So I went on with my shadow life. What was the point of going out to dance and party with friends, when I would just look out of place? What was the point of getting invested in fashion and makeup, when I never saw anyone like me on tv, wearing cute clothes and makeup? What was the point of anything, really, when I needed my dream of a thin body to enjoy it?

During my childhood and teens, I've struggled immensely with my gender identity, too. I never identified or wanted to identify as anything other than female, yet I felt like I didn't have the right to claim my femininity.
Women in the media were always depicted as elegant, gentle, fairy-like creatures. I was loud, a little vulgar, chaotic and clumsy as all hell. I felt like I didn't have the right to claim my femininity, yet desperately yearned for it. Same goes for my sexuality: While I had a high libido very early on, I again didn't feel, like I had the right to. I would be kinda weird and uncomfortable about the whole sex thing for a long time, because I felt it wasn't my place as an unconventionally attractive girl to have a libido at all. At the same time, secretly, I was obsessed with sexual topics because of outwardly avoiding them.

I wish I could say what it was, that changed how I view myself. But I like to think that I just couldn't hold my authentic self in anymore. I couldn't keep from doing the stuff I really wanted to do - couldn't keep from being me. A lot definitely changed, when I moved to Vienna to go to university there. I moved into a dorm room with my best friend, who would very soon become my girlfriend and now, ten years later, is my fiancée. We learned a lot from each other – I especially learned how to appreciate myself and my body. I got to feel like a woman for the first time in my life.

It would still take a few years for me to make one drastic change: I knew that, if I ever wanted to love my body, I would need to stop exposing myself only to what the mainstream media deems beautiful. I started following people with all kinds of bodytypes on social media, getting inspired by their fashion styles and life in general. My brain detoxed from two centuries of fatphobia and thin- privilege. That was the key time for me to feel beautiful in my own skin and enjoy my body.

illustration by me of @pixiebaroque

But the journey didn't stop there – in fact, it never stops. Selflove isn't a skill you learn once and never unlearn, it's like a plant you need to care for, give water and sunlight to, or maybe even entirely regrow.

Since learning to love my body, there have been occasions where I have unlearned it, too. There are still good days and bad days. But there's one important difference: I have learned not to postpone everything in my life to the day, when I am beautiful enough. I have learned, that I can do and enjoy everything I want to do and enjoy - no matter how much I love my body at the time.

It's in the little things, like playing around with cool hairdyes and -cuts, makeup and fashion styles, getting tattooed, going out with friends and meeting new people, without being scared of whether they like me. And there are the big things, like starting out as burlesque performer, going to naked readings, hosting events, being out there and living my creative, authentic self.

I do have wishes and goals for the future, but they don't weigh me down anymore – instead, they lift me up. I want to be able to go the the doctors I need without fear of not being taken seriously, and I want to be able to tell them off and demand appropriate medical treatment, when they fuck up. I want to repair my relationship to food and learn how to eat intuitively and without thinking of my weight. With lots of time and selflove, I will get there. Meanwhile, I will allow myself to enjoy life in all its shades and forms with whatever body I have.

- Pixie Baroque @pixiebaroque