Long Overdue Update

Hello readers!

Sorry that I haven’t written anything in a while! There has been so much going on, and even though there have been things I have wanted to write about, it’s been a little hard for me to find the time. There has been some changes in my life, however, that I think are important for me to write about, so here I am! Hopefully I will keep writing more often!

So, this week was a little rough for me. Earlier this week, I had a doctor appointment, and this appointment caused me quite a bit of anxiety. Male readers: if you’re uncomfortable reading about women’s health issues, probably stop reading now. 🙂

Over the last few months, my period has been absent. I have had pretty much always had inconsistent cycles. I even went on birth control to try to regulate it, which actually didn’t work well for me. After I decided to stop taking birth control pills, it took a long time before my cycle had any sort of regularity. It still never came like clockwork, and it would sometimes be longer, shorter, or more painful. I thought it was normal. I thought it was something that I would always have to deal with. Then, a few months ago, I didn’t have a period at all. The another two months went by without a trace of one. At first, I didn’t think it was anything to worry about. But, 3 missed periods is a bit much for me. I have taken so many pregnancy tests, and they have all been negative. I’m almost a pro at it!

Then, about a week ago, I started spotting. I wondered if my cycle was finally going to start regulating itself again. I had some cramping, and some of the normal symptoms. But, I also had soreness and tightness in my abdomen that was new for me. This made me concerned, so I made an appointment to go to the doctor.

The leadup to the appointment was a little stressful and tearful for me. I can’t describe why I have been so apprehensive, or sad, or anxious, but it’s how I feel. These feelings have been clouding my daily life, so figuring out what’s going on has been really important to me. After telling the doctor what I have been experiencing, it didn’t take her long at all to say that she thought it sounded like Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). I had done some research and knew a little bit about it, so I was glad that she could rather quickly identify what she thought was wrong. After talking to me about it, she ordered blood tests, and told me to make an appointment for an ultrasound and yearly checkup. The ultrasound is this coming Monday, and the exam is 2 weeks later.

Since the appointment, I have been anxiously awaiting my blood test results, in hopes that they would give us some indication of what is going on with me. Being anxious means that I generally convince myself that I have cancer, which is just not healthy to worry about all the time. Yesterday, I got the results of my results, and my blood test results are consistent with the symptoms of PCOS. I still have an ultrasound to see what the cysts on my ovaries looks like, and an exam, which I am overdue for.

Getting a pretty clear PCOS diagnosis has not only been liberating and relieving, but also terrifying and sad. Having PCOS basically means that I have a hormone imbalance that does not allow me to ovulate. This affects everything from my monthly cycle, to my levels of acne and body hair, to my weight, to my insulin levels, to how I feel emotionally: self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and fertility. It affects about 10% of women, and is not always easy to diagnose, because some doctors are not aware of what PCOS is, and do not know that the symptoms are different for everyone. I have experienced anxiety, slight depression, anxiety, absent periods, cramping, and soreness. More often than not, I have soreness where my ovary is. My emotions have been completely messed up, sometimes I feel great, sometimes I break down in tears. Not only do I feel that, as a woman, I am broken, I also hate how I look, have definitely struggled with anxiety.

Having PCOS is not a death sentence. It just means that there are steps I need to take in order to be healthy. It’s terrifying because I have to take some pretty strong medicine in order to manage the symptoms. It’s also terrifying to think that there is a chance that I will remain infertile, and never will be able to conceive. I really hope that the doctor was able to diagnose me early.enough where treating it will not be such a struggle.

One of the main things I have noticed in reading about other women who have had PCOS is that it is normal to feel alone or isolated, but no one should. There are so many women out there that are willing to share in the experience, and now I am one of them. This is all very new and overwhelming for me. I hope that soon I will get in a routine to manage my symptoms. I do not want to spend most of my days with discomfort or anxiety. I hope that I am able to find a community of women who are supportive and can help with tips and tricks on dealing with PCOS.

I apologize if this is too much information, or something that you don;t want to read about, but I think that I will continue to have posts about this, so I thought it would be good to start from the beginning.

Let me know! Does anyone reading this have PCOS or know someone who has it? Let’s talk about it in the comments!

Deep Thoughts Thursday: Chrissy Teigen and the Love Your Lines Movement

I was planning on writing about modesty and dress codes, a topic I am rather opinionated about. I am putting that post on hold, however, to cover something that relates to the body image post I recently published. This week, Chrissy Teigen, the wife of John Legend, posted a photo to Instagram showing stretch marks on her legs. This set off a huge amount of support for her in the online community. Hearing about it was really inspirational to me, and something I wanted to explore more. Even though it is a topic I have sort of covered, I feel like the more we talk about it, the more aware everyone will be, and maybe something will change.

There has been a Love Your Lines campaign online for a while now, where women can post photos of their stretch marks. Some would ask why women would want to do this, and why other people would care. The goal is to let women know that having stretch marks is absolutely notmal, and not something to be ashamed of. There are hashtags on Twitter and other social media sites for these posts, including #stretchmarks, #stretchies, #tigerstripes, and #loveyourlines. Many of the women posting pictures are moms, particularly new moms. But, some are people that have gained or lost weight, or simply people that have gone through puberty. The comments on these posts are overwhelmingly supportive.

Lately, there has been a growing emphasis on real beauty, rather than accepting the photoshopped images we are bombarded with in magazines and online. I love that there is now an ongoing conversation about photoshop and how the fake images we see are actually damaging. It’s scary to think about how these images are affecting young people. Constantly sering altered photos of people we are told are the most beautiful people in the world sets an artificial and unattainable standard of beauty. This sets everyone up to not only fail, but also to feel insecure and downtrodden. A good example of this is the fact that the photos of me that I love the most are from my wedding day, engagement photos, and my senior photo from college. The thing all these photos have in common is that they were all edited. I know this says more about me and my insecurities than it does about my actual beauty. When I am reading magazines, I frequently forget that the images are not real. At least I know they have been photoshopped, and that everyone has “flaws”.

The weird thing about this issue is that when someone does post a photo that shows them without being edited and airbrushed, people call it “brave”. This is true in the world and on social media. While I would agree that it is brave to put yourself in a position of vulnerability, I think it’s sad that people have to feel vulnerable being their true selves. Have we gotten too used to airbrushing away any flaw that seeing anyone posting a “real” picture challenges us? Why do we criticize or allow other people to criticize those who are trying to be real and break this cycle of artificial beauty we are living in?

I don’t know what it will take to fix this. I wish I did. I hope that someday when I have kids I will be able to teach them (both girls and boys) about real beauty and the dangers of buying into this artificial beauty lie. I think I was raised with a good head on my shoulders, and I do not buy into this as much as some other people do, but I still have a tendency to compare myself to the women in magazines. For now, I can only hope that there is a resolution soon, and we can all start loving ourselves and being proud of who we are, flaws and all.

Deep Thoughts Thursday: The Haircut That Made Me Think

This past weekend, I got a haircut. I’m not talking one of those haircuts where you get an inch trimmed off, and it doesn’t look much different than when you entered the salon. I got a hair cut. Now, my hair is six inches lighter, and considering how thick my hair is, I feel so much more freedom! I love making these huge, drastic changes in length and color. I think when I am older and grey, I will be one of the ladies who dyes my hair pastel purple and doesn’t care if anyone gives me funny looks. At least that’s my hope.

As insignificant as it is in the big picture, this haircut really got me thinking about women and body image. About the ideals of what is beautiful, acceptable, and preferable. I have spent a few days thinking about it and doing some reading, and it’s the thought I would like to share with you guys on this fine (but chilly) Thursday.

Where does one begin when talking about body image and self-esteem? I can tell you this: I remember comparing how I looked to how other girls in school looked when I was in either Kindergarten or First grade. I was about 6. I don’t remember anything specific, I just remember noticing that the older girls were way prettier than I thought I was, and noticing that I was taller than a lot of my classmates (a fact that caused a lot of teasing and would be 100% the opposite by the time I graduated high school). From that point on, I don’t think a time has passed that I haven’t compared how I perceive myself to how other women look. It doesn’t help that pre-teens and teenagers can be really cruel with how they tease others, and the things I was teased about still bother me sometimes, even though I am a completely different person now, look totally different, and am far removed from those years. Even when I wish I was a kid again, I would want to skip those cruel years.

By the time I was 18, I definitely felt that I was overweight and had a goal of losing 15 pounds. It didn’t happen, and has only gotten worse in the last 10+ years. The reason I mention this is that I look back on photos of myself in high school, and no, I wasn’t skin and bones, but I was beautiful. I didn’t feel that way at all. And I don’t always feel that way about myself now. I spend more time beating myself up over how I look than I do on finding things I like about myself. It can be debilitating at times.

And I am not alone. In 11 Facts about Body Image, I learned some really sad things. The thing that stuck with me the most is that there was a study that found that 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies. This causes many of them to diet (which can often have its own set of troubles) in order to gain an “ideal” shape. However, this article also noted that only about 5% of women naturally possess the mainstream “ideal” body shape. Women definitely aren’t the only ones affected by this.

One of the podcasts I frequently listen to (and encourage others to listen to as well), is Stuff Mom Never Told You. It is a podcast by two women, in which they discuss all kinds of topics, generally relating to women, but not always. They had a podcast on May 5, 2014 called “The Body Shaming Epidemic”, in which they discuss the issues surrounding shaming people for what their body looks like, both fat and thin. I would say that fat shaming has probably been around a lot longer than thin shaming, but I could be completely wrong about that. It just seems like people who are overweight have been the focus of criticism more often than those who are thin. It causes us to get this idea that there is really only one right body type, and even though that ideal has changed throughout the ages, what is “in” now seems to be the only thing people desire.

This podcast cited a few studies, all of which had some really interesting information, and it actually makes me really sad, and makes me want to work harder to overcome my own issues with my body image. There was a study of children that found that they had a weight bias by the age of 5. So young! I feel like children shouldn’t be concerned with whether a particular body shape is good or bad, but they certainly already had opinions. Those opinions don’t really seem to change as we get older. We view overweight people as less desireable and that they lack control. This causes so many negative thoughts for people who feel that they are overweight. Even if they lose the weight, those feelings don’t go away overnight.

These biases and shaming pit women against each other, instead of allowing ourselves to work together so everyone can be healthy and happy,and supporting each other as we reach our goal of being healthy. As the podcast mentions, it is essentially a way for women to figure out the best way to be objectified, because the goal isn’t to be healthy, no matter what size, the goal is to be the “perfect” size. Generally, those ideals are set by society, and much of it relates to what “men” find attractive. I put men in quotes because my husband thinks I’m beautiful and doesn’t agree with society’s ideals, but apparently there is a group of men out there that are tastemakers when it comes to what size and shape is ideal for women. Most women will never meet these ideals, which leaves them feeling undesirable and defeated.

Feeling defeated isn’t a great place to start on a journey to being healthy. I will admit, I am now beginning to be more interested in how to be healthy than how to be thin, even though if I had three wishes from a genie, one of them would be to be the same weight I was senior year of high school again (but without the baby fat). I have come to terms with the fact that my body shape will never allow me to have a thigh gap, or to be a model. I will always be short and have wide hips.

As I was looking for ideas on how to cut my hair, I was looking for haircuts that would work for my face shape, and it made me really self-conscious of how I look. Now that the cutting is done, I find myself second guessing my choice, because I have nothing to hide my round cheeks and “problem areas” with. I feel more exposed. Even though I get tons of compliments that my new hair suits me, I still can’t get that nagging voice out of my head.

I hope that the more we talk about these issues, the easier it will be to overcome them. My hope is that someday, when I have a daughter, I can teach her to love herself for who she is. I hope she can put being healthy above being ideal.