No to be Managed
a letter to my body
I know this may seem like it’s coming out of nowhere, but I’ve been thinking for some time, and through therapy I’ve done some digging…and I’ve realized that I’ve been at war with you since my first glance in the mirror.
And while it hasn’t been a full-on assault, I have certainly battled you and treated you like the source of my problems for the past 42 years.
Our struggle started in first grade, really. I was a new student, starting later in the year after moving from Charleston, in a small school in an even smaller town. And while you weren’t wrong exactly, you certainly weren’t right...the freckles wouldn’t scrub off no matter how hard I tried. A cowlick that was smack in the front of my hair refused me bangs no matter how many failed attempts (and yes, I tried more times than I should’ve).
I tried constantly to change...to blend...because I wanted to look like the cool group of girls, the ones who were long-time family friends and thick as thieves...the ones who seemed to live in their bodies without the daily scan and negotiation routine I was already running with mine. They were the ones who would notice me playing too close beside them...close enough that I’d convinced myself I was playing with them…and then they would whisper and laugh and then run away.
And then the teeth...good lord...the teeth came in, the front two far too big and stuck out a little (a lot) too far forward. I was maybe seven…eight years old…and already had a hatred for you...you did NOT cooperate...you were too different in all the ways I didn’t ask for and certainly couldn’t fix...no matter how long I would sit with my knee pressed against my teeth, hoping they would magically push back in. It was never enough.
By middle school, we found a new metric, didn’t we? Whether the boys noticed you, whether they chose to talk to you...whether pretty was something you would ever qualify for. That word would never be used for you in middle school...instead, that same group of girls, now larger in numbers and still as resistant as ever to letting me join their ranks…they would call me a pozer…a loser...or even worse, they wouldn’t call me at all. I was nothing to them.
As a child of the 80s and 90s, I grew up watching Saved by the Bell, 90210, and Clueless. There was a look that was praised as beautiful and popular, the one everyone wanted to be like and to be around. Daily, I would look in the mirror…scan and criticize…I would try my best to make you look like the Kelly Kapowskis…the Chers…the Brendas of the world...but I always fell short, and you always came across as not enough.
Our growing involvement in church and youth group gave us a boost of confidence here and there, but growing up in purity culture, it also gave my daily body monitoring an official purpose. Every Sunday, and especially at summer bible camp, I heard the same lessons in rotating language: you, my body, were a temple...something to be kept pure and holy for the Lord, yes...but more importantly, for my future husband.
For a moment, I took that in, and I believed it...that my wanting to be noticed was vanity...selfishness...a distraction from what you were actually created for. I knew then, more than ever, it was my job to keep you in line. The boys around me couldn’t possibly be held responsible for what they felt when they looked at you...it was on us, the girls, to not give them reasons “to stumble”.
I had already, unsuccessfully, tried to manage and control you from day one...but this was the moment where I stopped thinking of you as only mine. This is when you became something I needed to manage for others…monitoring you for their safety, for their relationships with God. I was twelve…thirteen…fourteen years old, and it had become clear to me: the correct relationship with you was vigilant oversight...not acceptance, not curiosity, definitely not care...just pure, dutiful oversight.
When my teenage boyfriend’s hand would find its way up my shirt, the blame was squarely on me...on my body...you had lured him, caused him to want to. We were blamed, especially in those awkward post-makeout moments, scolded for being “too willing” and “too cute”...reminded that it was our responsibility to keep them in check, to make sure we didn’t go too far. The sin lived in me, the control was mine, the blame was yours.
I thought marriage would settle this battle between us, once and for all. At 22, I thought handing you over to the right person, the one I’d saved you for, would finally answer the question of whether you were enough.
But it didn’t. You didn’t quite look like the women he’d been with before, or the ones that would still catch his eye. He would make comments...sideways ones delivered as love and helpfulness...maybe you should go for a run or maybe the gym might make you feel better. And after a brief ceasefire, those shots were fired, and I was right back in the audit, doing that same scanning and monitoring, running the same math that never came out right.
I started buying clothes, different styles and different fits, trying to look like and dress like the confident version I wanted to be…that I thought he wanted. But those clothes never quite fit, and I engaged in a series of years-long battles of misguided control and even grew a bona fide shopping addiction.
And then, in our first year of marriage, he went on a trip with his friends and came home with a confession. Somehow, I forgave him...instantly.
To this day, I’m still trying to figure out why that forgiveness was so easy to give out to others, but never to myself. In the moment of his confession, my first thoughts were ones of anger and blame…not for him, but for me. They were directed entirely at you...surely something about my body wasn’t giving him what he needed...surely this was our failure. We were taught for years that you were responsible for the actions of the men around me. That theology had an obvious conclusion...he wouldn’t have done it if I had been enough.
And yet, I still wasn’t.
We moved on, together, and had what I thought were the golden years. In our 20s and 30s, life looked good...good job, good friends, run club and kickball leagues, concerts and restaurants, beach trips and playing house.
On the inside? You and I were engaging in one of our most silent, hardest battles yet.
We watched everyone around us get pregnant, have babies, and start building their families. We quietly battled for seven years, trying to get pregnant. Sure, you passed all the doctor’s tests with flying colors...everything looked “fine” and primed, ready to do the work you were supposed to do…you were designed to do. I mean, come on...women were literally the only ones who could make babies…it’s our God-given gift and purpose, right?
And every month, for seven years, my period would come with the same fucking verdict...NO. This was one of the most damning pieces of evidence for what I’d believed since the bucked teeth and the cowlick...this body…my body…was NOT right. It was NOT enough…this body was truly broken.
I finally had an official word for the uncertainty, the unwillingness to adapt and change, the non-compliance with every attempt at control. You were broken.
I hated you more in those seven years than in any other stretch of our life together. I lived and breathed every day with grief and disappointment...but only on the inside. On the outside, the world saw us happy, joyful, smiling, cracking jokes about being an “infertile myrtle”...appearing confident and solid and okay in our skin.
It was inside, and every moment in the mirror, that I hated you…for not cooperating, for failing, for being broken.
The only time in my 42 years of living that I stopped hating you was when I finally got divorced and moved out on my own.
Those years were ironically filled with the hardest circumstances of my adult life...newly out of a 17-year marriage, single motherhood, hundreds of miles from family, between careers, building from scratch…alone.
And you...you had big opinions about it all, and you let me know…dramatically.
My gut was in revolt, rejecting any and all food, and the weight fell off...thirty-three pounds to be exact. At first, honestly, I kind of liked it. But I caught myself in that mirror…I mean, yes, the wobbly bits had disappeared, and it wasn’t healthy, and I knew it. Your revolt was loud and disruptive enough that I couldn’t manage around it. For the first time in my entire life, I had to actually listen to you.
It was the first honest conversation we’d ever had. Forced on me, yes...but on that I had to finally listen to what you had to say. I stopped molding you for someone else’s gaze…stopped handing you the same old judgements.
Maybe these were actually the golden years? The ones, in the middle of my life’s chaos, where I stopped monitoring and judging you for an audience. The comments stopped…the fertility tracking most certainly stopped…and this temple finally stopped having a congregation.
It was in that silence, in those quiet days…something shifted. Ease, contentment, and gratitude had finally taken up residence after a 40yr absence. For the first time in a VERY long time, I felt solid.
I didn’t even realize the war had stopped at first…I guess when you’ve been fighting the same battles your whole life, you don’t actually recognize peace at first.
And then...I got married again.
This time is different...Yas thinks you’re beautiful and says so, often. He’s never once made a comment that wasn’t generous, and I believe him. I love him for it.
And yet...as I prepared for my wedding dress, my old judgmental scanning slowly and silently crept back in. Without any obvious trigger, the audit of whether you were enough was back, dressed up this time as concern for my middle-aged health.
As we considered trying for a baby before menopause officially closed the window, the grief cycle and the self-loathing returned with it. Each month, the waiting...the wondering...and each month, the same answer. Each time, more evidence that you were still...despite our recent years of peace...still broken.
Last week, I shared all of this with my therapist, and she suggested we have this conversation...that I write you a letter. She helped me realize…the root of it all…was self-blame.
I’ve managed you and managed my emotions for other people’s comfort and acceptance for my entire life. I’ve given that same pre-emptive apology for who I am before anyone has asked me to. I’ve scanned faces to calculate how much of me is, well, too much.
All of this began with you...in those first moments in the mirror when I tried to scrub my freckles off or push my teeth back with my knees...in the moments when the church gave me the measuring stick for compliance and moral responsibility...in those moments in my first marriage when our struggles became failures of you...in the infertile years, in the grief of being broken beyond control.
It’s in these most recent years of peace that I finally learned to hear you, to notice, and was able to receive what you’ve been trying to tell me. My chest tightening when a conversation gets hard, my throat going dry before I’ve found the words...those are you, doing what you’ve actually done for decades...telling me that my micro-managing is becoming too much to sustain. You’ve sent me messages this whole time, and I’m finally learning you were never the problem to solve.
This war with you? This self-blame? This hatred I’ve had for my own body? It’s the wall I built as a child, the one that’s been there all along…and I’ve just kept rearranging my life around it ever since.
I’ve spent the past 42 years trying to manage you…protect you…control you…improve you…apologize for you…and you know what?
I. am. tired.
Maybe it’s time to finally hear what you, and my therapist, have been trying to tell me all along:
I can support you…
but I cannot control you…
you are not broken.
I want to hear that…to believe it…but I know…I'm not quite there.
And yet, this is what I KNOW…this is what I owe you…
I am sorry.
I’m sorry for the scanning and the monitoring…
for the distrust and for the judgement…
for the monitoring and the responsibility that wasn’t yours…
for the hatred and for the control…
for not listening or noticing the messages you’ve tried to send me.
I’m sorry for being at war with you for this long.
Maybe it’s finally time to lay down our swords.
Maybe it’s finally time to listen.
Maybe it’s finally time to accept that you are you…and you are me.
We are not to be managed.