The fear of talking about my body

Alexis YaTa
Sep 6, 2018 · 5 min read

First, I wanna apologize if my english is not as good as it used to be, I haven’t practiced writing in a while. I also ask anybody who wants to give me an input on what I write, or just share your experience; I’m open to everything.

I’m a 22 year old mexican girl who’s always been thought as someone that’s pretty, thin and should never complain about the way she looks. I was supposed to keep my mouth shut when everybody else said they felt fat, ugly, ashamed; otherwise I would here the typical “you’re thin, what do yo have to complain about?”, “don’t even talk about how hard it is for you to look in the mirror”.

I’m not trying to write about anything but the way I used to feel & the way I’m feeling now. Everybody is fighting their own fight, but this is my experience and the way I hear my friends talk about themselves (which really hurts me ’cause my friends are beautiful women). This is the first time I write publicly about the topic somewhere that’s not my Instagram feed, please be patient.


“You can eat anything and always be thin”, “I’m so jealous, I wish I was you.”

-Believe me, you don’t wanna be me, I hate me. -

Looking in the mirror was a fight for me too, always thinking “I’m the thin friend, I’m pretty, I’m not that bad… Then why don’t I feel enough?”

I guess beauty standards affect all of us. Being the thin friend meant I had to pretend like I didn’t put much thought on what I ate, or what clothes I wore or the amount of exercise I needed to do. Well, it was the opposite. I was dancing all the hours I could, eating as little as I found posible and couldn’t stand looking at myself in pictures; I always found something wrong with me, even if my friends couldn’t see it.

It wasn’t that I didn’t feel pretty or “hot”, it was that I didn’t feel pretty ENOUGH, or hot ENOUGH, or even smart ENOUGH sometimes. You know, people like certain type of girls; I should look, talk and think like those girls, shouldn’t I?

I also thought I was the only girl who could possibly felt that way (’cause I’m the only girl with problems in the world, right?) Nobody was talking to me about it and I couldn’t talk to anybody about it, I felt dumb. So I spent like 10 years feeling that way, just pretending everything was ok.


I wanna be one of those girls, I wanna feel good in my underwear; even if it’s not sexy underwear. I’ll make it sexy.

Last year I turned 21 and had always dreamed of being on a photoshoot. I didn’t want to be a famous model or anything, I just wanted to feel confortable in front of the camera. I happen to have this friend with talent for photography and asked him to help with my little project. By this time everything I looked on Instagram was girls on lingerie or naked and thought I wanna be one of those girls, I wanna feel good in my underwear; even if it’s not sexy underwear. Luckily, my friend said hell yeah! But neither of us had ever done those kind of photos. What could go wrong, right?

-by @thegracida on Instagram

We got a location (the roof on my grandma’s apartment), a friend for moral support, he got his camera and I got naked. It was awkward, but as we kept going it got easier. After we finish the shooting I was so damn excited, I made it through!

I wanted more, I had a taste of what I could do and how beautiful I actually was, and I wasn’t gonna stop there.

I started posting this photos on Instagram, not because I wanted fame or followers. I wanted my friends and any other girl who felt the way I did to know they weren’t the only ones. It was also kind of a bet with myself; I needed to talk about my feelings, and Instagram helped a little with that.

I started receiving comments on how good de photos were, how good I looked, compliments on how brave I was for posting “that kind of photos”. But the good part didn’t come until a girl from the other side of the world DM me and thanked me for inspiring her, for helping her build up the courage to stand in front of a mirror and not wanting to scream.

by @lailadbs on Instagram

My girls (I feel) started getting this positive vibe and believing in it. Every day I saw them getting braver, understanding themselves; not only their bodies, but their hearts. They started talking about how they felt a little more every day and made a stand about it. We go out just to take pictures of each other and actually enjoy it.


People often ask me if I really felt that way ’cause I never seemed like “the type of girl that has self esteem issues”. There’s no “type”, there’s no way of knowing other people’s struggle. We don’t advertise it, we’re not supposed to.

I wanted someone to read this tiny story because this was how I started, this is what’s helping me. Maybe it can help someone else too, or maybe it doesn’t; but if anyone reads and recognizes the feeling, I hope you talk about it.

Surround yourself with people who is going to support every single thing that gives you even the tiniest moment of happiness and give a little of that back to the world. I hope that if you know someone who’s never really okay with herself/himself you encourage them, help them a little. Sometimes we need to look ourselves through other people’s eyes to see what we’re missing.

by @bas_tiian on Instagram

“If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.” -Bukowski

Alexis YaTa

Written by

2007 Music Enthusiast. Animal Lover. College Student. Kind of writing my diary here.

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