A Letter of Apology to My Body

I have one body.

And this is my one body. For today. For tomorrow. And for every single day of my future.

So why am I so willing to spend every ounce of my energy tearing my body down when I should be dedicating every chance I can get to building my body up?

Why am I so willing to spend my energy hating my body instead of loving it? Finding every flaw about it instead of embracing every strength it holds? Criticizing every failure instead of praising every success?

Why am I so willing to ignore my body’s pleas for compassion, rest, and love as I continue to pound it with hatred, pain, and insensitivity? To torture it with starvation and ceaseless physical exertion instead of feeding it with food, love, and understanding? To hand it over to my eating disorder instead of standing up and taking it for my own? To tear up, beat down, and throw away a gift that was given specifically to me, abandoning it to the death grip of a monster?

Whether I like it or not, this is my body. And choosing to hate my body only tears me down, using up the energy that could be used to build my body up and taking me further and further away from the best possible version of my body. Choosing to hate my body makes the journey through life painful, miserable, and depressing, as I am constantly trying to run from a figure I cannot escape from, never stopping to try out truly living in my own body. Choosing to hate my body fulfills the eating disorder and strips away Shell.

So why not learn to like it? And let’s say something crazy. Not just like it, but love it? Why not learn to love it, embrace it and all its potential, giving it a chance to shine its light, showing the world the incredible light it holds within and so desperately wishes to share? Why not learn to love what my body can do for me, walking, speaking, writing, dancing, running, swimming, skipping, jumping, playing, laughing, smiling, living? Why not learn to show myself and my body the love that I so willingly show to others?

I am able to find all of the beautiful, amazing qualities in others, looking at each and every body as amazing and beautiful in its own way. So why is it so hard to apply this belief to myself? Why do I believe I am the exception? Why do I believe the lies of the eating disorder that are continually pounded into my head?

Lie after lie after lie: You are the unfortunate girl with far too many imperfections to possibly be happy with her body. You are the girl with too much fat on her thighs, stomach, cheeks, and hips. You are the girl with too much acne to possibly be anywhere near pretty, people must look at you with disgust. You are the girl with a nose that is too big, eyes that are too small, cheeks that are too wide, hair that is too frizzy, boobs and a butt that are too small, a figure that is out of shape, thunder thighs instead of tiny legs, a muffin top instead of a six pack. The list goes on and on. The imperfections never end in the eyes of my eating disorder.

And so I spend countless hours of the day tormented with a hateful view of my body as the eating disorder distorts my vision and demands that I stand in front of the mirror to analyze each and every flaw that it picks out and magnifies. The mirror has become my enemy, teaming up with the eating disorder to taunt and intensify each imperfection, each flaw, and tear down my self-esteem, my self-love, and ultimately, tear down my body.

The saddest part is that it has become so natural to hate upon my body and try, at all costs, to avoid my body that I am unaware that I am even engaging in such self-hatred and avoidance. I avoid mirrors and reflections at all costs. But when I do catch a glimpse, I am immediately draw in to find as many flaws as I can, and I am filled with disgust. I pick out clothing specifically to hide the features I hate the most, that I can’t stand to show to the world. I stare straight ahead while showering and avoid eye contact with any part of my body. And when I do catch a glimpse of my body, an immediate rush of panic and disappointment take over my body as my distorted vision fills my mind with unreal images and beliefs. I close my eyes when I am brushing my teeth, combing my hair, and getting ready in the morning so I can avoid the ugliness of the face staring back at me. I sit in class and fear that others are just as disgusted with my body as I am, that they are silently judging all of my flaws, all of my fatness and ugliness and imperfectness. I stare at models in advertisements and on websites and make a mental list of every way their bodies exceed mine. I scroll through instagram, facebook, and snapchat, constantly comparing myself to the pictures I see, and immediately seeing myself as fatter, uglier, weaker, and inferior to the people present in the posts. I avoid being in pictures at all costs, extremely fearful of having my ugliness captured on camera. And the list goes on. And on. And on.

And this self-hatred does not stop there. It manifests itself in the form of torture that the eating disorder drives me to engage in, against my own body. It manifests itself in restriction, depriving my body of the necessary nutrition to survive and enjoy life. Suffering in hunger as the monster in my head praises my choice to deprive my body and “fix” its imperfections. It manifests itself in over-exercise, pounding my body into the ground as I run countless miles and walk countless more. Driving my body through the pain and exhaustion that amplifies with every step, through the screaming for rest, through the pleas for a chance for compassion and love. Each and every behavior tearing my body down instead of building my body up.

And I am so incredibly sick of living this way. Of living in the constant torment of hating my body. Of never being able to live in harmony with my body because I am too weak to stand up to my eating disorder and all of its lies.

So before I can change, I know there is an important step I must take. I must apologize to my body. To apologize for the countless years I have lived against it instead of for it. To apologize for the countless years I have tortured my body in attempts to “perfect” it. To apologize for the countless years I have torn my body down instead of building my body up.

So I have taken the first step towards self-acceptance, self-compassion, and self-love, and I have written a letter of apology to my body.

Dear Shell’s Body,

From the deepest, most sincere part of my heart, I am truly sorry. I am truly sorry for betraying you in the worst way possible, by treating you with the most hateful forms of hatred instead of treating you with the most loving forms of love, by treating you as my deepest enemy instead of my closest friend, by using every ounce of your energy against you, tearing you to the ground instead of building you up to the sky. I am truly sorry for looking down upon you with disgust, frustration, and discontent, belittling you with the worst of insults, picking out each and every perceived flaw that my distorted eyes pretend to see. I am truly sorry for torturing you with starvation, countless hours of exercise, miles on miles of running and walking, countless days in hospital settings with the most painful and scariest of conditions, and ceaseless, hate-filled, cruel, bullying self-talk that constantly aims to tear you down. I am truly sorry for putting you through all the pain in the world as a result of my obedience to the deceptive and deathly eating disorder. Your screams and cries for care, rest, and love are masked by the relentless, painful, monstrous voice of the eating disorder, who I have put first, before my own body. And for that, I couldn’t be more ashamed.

How could I possibly have treated you with such hatred and torture for over ten years without tearing you down completely? How are you still standing? Still living? Why have you continued to fight for me, to sustain me, to carry me through life when I have fought so hard to escape from you and tear you down? How could you possibly forgive me? WHY would you ever forgive me?

You deserve to be treated with the utmost love, respect, support, care, attention, protection, concern, and appreciation. And I have failed you countless times, allowing the eating disorder to grasp your fragile figure and strip you of any possible love, respect, support, care, attention, protection, concern, and appreciation, scarring your beauty and radiance with its ugly wrath. I have believed the lies of the eating disorder to the point of threatening your existence. And you have so patiently held on to our life despite my ignorance of you and your all-encompassing beauty and potential.

There is no way I could possibly make this up to you. But I will spend each and every moment of the rest of our life attempting to make up for the absolutely horrible, torturous, and hateful way I have treated you for the past ten years. You have stood by me through every single moment of this life, through my highest and lowest moments, fighting for us regardless of the strength and energy that it took. And now it is my turn to stand by you. And return all of the strength, energy, support, nurturance, and possibility you have shown me, and more.

You are probably very hesitant to believe this kind of statement, as it has proven to be empty lies whenever I have made such statements in the past. So, in order to make this time different than the many previous attempts in which I have asked for your forgiveness, I have developed a list of promises to you, that you can hold me to and remind me of whenever the eating disorder threatens to tear apart our relationship again. This is a list of promises dedicated to building you up to be the best possible version of yourself with all of the love, care, and support I am capable of giving. You deserve the best, so here are my promises for the best:

1. I promise that I will replace all of the lies of the eating disorder with positive self-talk and self-compassion, combatting each statement of self-hate with a statement of self-love.

2. I promise that I will feed you. I will feed you food, and whatever food you desire, love, and enough love to counteract all of the hatred I have shown you, rest, and enough rest to repair all of the damage you have accumulated, care, and enough care to build you up to the full potential you hold, compassion, and enough compassion to restore the weakened esteem you have developed to its greatest potential, knowledge, and enough knowledge to pursue whatever dreams you desire, opportunity, and enough opportunity to bring your dreams to life, happiness, and enough happiness to restore the sadness and defeat that you have developed from the constant self hatred, and life, enough life to live your best life and give life to everyone you meet, give life to the world and change the world.

3. I promise that I will listen to you. With every ounce of my energy. I will not allow the eating disorder to mask your requests for love, life, and happiness.

4. I promise that I will reach out for help when I am tempted to allow the eating disorder to harm you again. I will never allow myself to put you through the torturous moments of my lowest points in my eating disorder. I promise I will accept the help of others in bringing me closer to you.

5. I promise that I will make you my best friend and treat you exactly as I treat each and every person I meet. With as much love, care, respect, compassion, humbleness, patience, and acceptance as I view and treat others with. Because it is not fair to you to spend all of my kindness on the world and not have any left for you.

6. I promise that I will embrace you. I will no longer avoid you, hide from you, and try my hardest to escape from you. I will look in the mirror and use all of my strength and power to accept and love the reflection that stares back at me. I will dress you up in clothes that I enjoy because of the way they compliment you and accentuate your features. I will look at pictures that are taken of you and approve of them, and even learn to love them, as they represent much more than the superficiality of appearance, and rather, they represent the amazing memories that you have allowed me to partake in. I will replace all forms of body checking with a positive body affirmation that lifts me up instead of bringing me down.

7. I promise I will focus on you and not compare you to others. Because I know that each and every body is different and beautiful in its own way, and it is completely unfair to you and to others to be envious of the figures of others when you hold your own beauty and radiance.

8. I promise I will thank you each and every day for the capabilities you give me. The capability to walk, speak, write, run, jump, skip, dance, swim, laugh, smile, learn, and live. I will replace every criticism the eating disorder has for each part of my body and replace it with a message of gratitude to each body part.

9. I promise I will restore you to your healthy weight that you so desperately desire to be. I will push past the screams of the eating disorder to build you up to the body you deserve to be. I will not let the eating disorder take away any more of your life in its desire to diminish you to nothingness. I will restore you to life.

10. I promise I will release you from the chains of the eating disorder and will free you into the world of love, hope, happiness, and life. I will bring us to recovery so that we can rebuild the life that the eating disorder took away from us.

11. I promise that I will build you up with everything I have so that you can build others up to everything that they can be. I will give you whatever is necessary to make the biggest difference possible in this world. I will love you so that you can teach others to love themselves. I will love you so that I can save you so that you can save others.

You are my body. And we share the same life ahead of us. I promise we are in this together. And I will never betray you again, leaving you to navigate this big, scary world alone. We are in this together. And we will get through this together.

There are not enough words to express how deeply sorry I am for the past ten years of hatred, betrayal, and pain I have put you through. I hope that in keeping my promises this time, you will accept my apology and accept me back as a friend, maybe even a best friend. And to conclude my apology, I would like to fill you with some long overdue love, compassion, and life.

I love you, body. I love you for your beauty, your strength, your resilience, your power, your capabilities, your radiance, and your ability to carry me through life. I love you for remaining by my side no matter what I have put you through, no matter how much hatred I punished you with, no matter how many reasons and chances you had to give me up. I love you for being stronger than the eating disorder and fighting for me when I lacked the strength to fight for myself. I love you for being you. No matter what.

I love you, body.

And I have one last question for you. Will you forgive me?

Sincerely,

Shell

I cannot even begin to explain how powerful and freeing this exercise was. How incredibly immense of a first step this was in returning my mind and body to harmony instead of hatred. I know that negative self-talk, poor self-esteem, and body image issues are widespread issues that affect not just individuals with eating disorders, but a wide variety of people. I encourage ANY individual who has ever had difficulties with any of these issues to complete a similar letter of apology to your body, as it is an incredibly powerful tool in restoring the positive connection between your mind and body. Join me in my journey towards self-love, I promise it will be worth it.

So now that I have apologized. What’s next?

The next step is putting this letter of apology into action. Following through with the promises I have made to my body. Converting self-hatred into self-love. And most importantly, freeing my body from the chains of the eating disorder and letting my body finally be free in a world of recovery.

This will not be easy. This will be one of the most difficult changes I have to make. But I have made a promise to my body. And I will not break these promises.

I have one body.

And this is my one body. For today. For tomorrow. And for every single day of my future.

And with all of the self-love, self-compassion, and self-care in the world, this body has the potential to change the world.