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- All
- // no.01
- // no.02
- // no.03
- // no.04
- // no.05
- // no.06
- // no.07
- // no.08
- // no.09
- // no.10
- // no.11
- // no.12
- // no.13
- // no.14
- // no.15
- //no.15
- A.M.
- Alex
- Alexx
- Alice
- Alice M
- Alicja
- Amira
- Amy
- Andi
- Becky
- Beverley
- Bipolar Abdul
- Carolina
- Caroline
- Cerowyn
- Chloé
- Christine
- Constanze
- Dorothy
- Eliza
- Ellen
- Emi
- Emilie
- Emma
- Eugénie
- Fern
- Freyja
- Genesia
- Gervaise
- Gözde
- Hannah
- Ivvy
- Ivy
- Izy
- Jacqueline
- Jade
- Jayna
- Jennifer
- Jessica
- Jessica B
- Joanne
- Judy
- Julia
- Kaitlin
- Kate
- Kate Ng
- Katie
- Kenny
- Laura
- Lena
- Lila
- Lily
- Lisa
- Liv
- Liz
- Lou Fox
- Lucy
- Maddy
- Manisha
- Margarita
- Mary & Lily
- Nanou
- Naomi
- Naomi C.
- Naomi N.
- Nicole
- Noemi
- Olivia
- Olivia W
- Paula
- Pauline
- Périne
- Rachel
- Rachel G
- Rachel W
- Rebecca
- Roisin
- Rosie
- Roz
- Ruby
- Sam
- Sarah
- Seema
- Sophie
- Sophs
- Stephanie
- Sue
- Tanushree
- Tasha
- Val
- Vida
- Vlada
I don't know how it happened or when it exactly happened. Was there a particular moment that sent me down this path, or did I slip into it gradually? I have flashes of memories of random events; As the youngest child often dismissed by everyone, In tears, asking my mum if she thinks I am pretty and her reply: 'You are just average.'
Female. White. English. Irish. Middle Class. Picture her. What do you see? Waif-like? Skinny? Pale? Bones. Hip bones? Vertebrae? Ribs? That's the body you would expect from a white, English, Irish, Middle-Class woman. Right?
I have always tried to do everything I was supposed to from a young age. I hated it because I never felt like I fit anywhere. So, I made a friend – a voice inside my head.
___Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
For as long as I can remember, I have had an issue with my body and wanted to change it – to ‘perfect’ it. If my body was perfect, I would be perfect – everyone would love and adore me.
I've spent most of my life trying to be perfect - perfect daughter, perfect student, perfect body, perfect everything - and that ended up making me physically ill.
___I'm here, I'm loved, I'm grateful
I've been everywhere from a size 6 to a size 20 and all in the space of 6 years. After being sexually abused as a 7-year-old, I turned to food and subsequently had a disastrous relationship with my body and myself. I spent my whole childhood trying to diet and change myself.
An arching scythe mark of pale pinks, shiny nudes and rippled silver casts up from my lower tummy, falling with a surgeon's delicacy inches from my right hip. A scar so glorious and sexy, I can't be told otherwise.
I have never felt like I loved myself, even liked myself. Growing up, I was constantly picked apart by my mother telling me I was too big, too thin or that I looked like my male cousin (which as a pubescent girl wasn't something that I wanted to hear). Nothing was ever right.
When the world ground to a halt mid-March 2020, I had mixed feelings. Sure, the world was going into an (to use the word in every single email sent since March) “unprecedented” time and no one knew what was going to happen - but the chance to just… stop. Process. Ground myself. It wasn’t something I’d had much of a chance to do before. Doing nothing is something I actively avoid, and had more and more since September, when my father passed away. Watching your dad die in your early twenties is not something I’d wish on my worst enemy.
I am a 34-year-old freelancing, single mother to the most beautiful 3-year-old girl. I left an unhealthy relationship last year, and we have since managed to divorce amicably. My work has become a dream come true, working on storytelling, communications, illustration and photography for wonderful, small, sustainable brands.
___All I wanted was to be thin
I have spent every day of my life, as far back as I can remember, wanting just one thing. To be thin. It would be the greatest thing that could ever happen to me. I would give up ten years of my life to just be thin and to never have to think about my body and why it wasn’t right, ever again. That was all I wanted.
___No longer ashamed to be full of myself
I always just stuck out somehow. I was the tallest girl in my class, probably the weirdest too. I'm an only child and I didn't have a normal family life either. My dad left when I was 4 and my mother's mental health problems inevitably meant I grew up in foster care, which was definitely soul-destroying.