Mental Health
Learning to Love My Imperfect Self
This essay contains references to eating disorders.
I am on a journey of sorts, learning to love my imperfect self. To give you an idea of the difficulty of this journey, it took me 3 minutes to snap that selfie and another half an hour to find the courage to publish it. Because this is the internet and I cannot wait to read the “Ermahgerd you’re so old and ugly” comments.
I’m 56 years old. The collagen in my face is disappearing, I have a chin and a half, my forehead is wrinkled, as is the skin under my eyes, and I cut my own bangs in October and I regret that decision on a molecular level. I am physically imperfect.
My brain is also imperfect. My brain is, to put it bluntly, broken. My neural pathways were formed by trauma, so I see the world very differently than most people. I cry too much. I have more empathy than is probably healthy. I hate crowds unless I’m with my husband. I developed driving anxiety a few years ago. I live with mental health issues. I am psychologically and emotionally imperfect.
I really want to remove that selfie. I can feel my heart rate increasing as I look at it. God dammit.
Last September, I received very bad news from my doctor.
Since starting to live healthier, I have lost 10 pounds, I exercise at least 5 days a week, and I try hard not to eat after 6:30 PM. I am attempting to lose weight in a good way, and that’s where it gets a little dicey.
(trigger warnings)
As a young adult, I became anorexic. Anorexia didn’t work for me, though, because I love food. It was impossible for me to not eat. I discovered binging and purging. I could eat whatever I wanted and just throw it back up. An entire tube of frozen cookie dough. A pound cake. Burger King.
I spent my twenties unhealthily thin, I just didn’t see it that way. I thought I looked perfect. My mental health was a nightmare, but if I looked perfect, I could ignore the darkness and white noise and the cutting. And binging wasn’t that bad, lots of girls did it. Models did it, ballerinas did it, and some of my friends did it.
What I didn’t realize was bulimia leaves a lasting mark on your body. I’ve had gum graft surgery and need more, and throwing up multiple times a day made my TMJ worse. Four years of trying to look perfect destroyed my gums and jaw.
Women are told so often that we have to look young and thin and perfect. Photoshop your thighs and tummy, and use a filter to get rid of your pores and wrinkles. Get lipo, filler, and Botox, dye your hair, and use shapewear. You’re not allowed to look like you.
Women spend billions of dollars each year trying to look younger, and I am one of those women. I have Herbivore bakuchiol serums, Maelove brightening serum, I am waiting for my Josie Maran retinol night cream to be delivered, and I use salicylic acid treatment on my nose to make my pores look smaller. I even have one of those rollers that “depuffs” my eye area.
Now I’m 56, almost 57. I have stretch marks and cellulite. I will never look the way I looked back then. My brain is still wonky, but I haven’t self-harmed in a while, I no longer have suicidal ideation, and my really bad days occur less frequently. I am learning to love my imperfect body, my imperfect face, and my imperfect brain.
After everything, I still have moments where I crave being whatever society deems perfect. But I’m learning to ignore society. I’m learning to accept my age and my wrinkles, and I am learning to love my imperfect self. Which is why I’m keeping that selfie at the top of this essay.
It’s just me. And I am enough, imperfections and all.
