Summary

The author recounts their complex relationship with their body due to early-onset puberty, sexual abuse, societal expectations, and health issues.

Abstract

The author describes a lifelong struggle with their body image, stemming from childhood experiences such as an early asthma attack that made them aware of their physical vulnerability. They detail how early puberty led to unwanted attention and sexualization, including abuse by someone they trusted, and how this affected their self-perception and interactions with peers and adults. The author discusses the impact of these experiences on their relationship with food and their body, leading to a cycle of weight gain and loss in an attempt to control how others perceive them. Despite these challenges, the author is committed to a journey of self-care and healing, aiming to reconcile their mind, spirit, and body.

Opinions

The author feels betrayed by their body's early development and the subsequent health and social issues that arose.
They express a sense of injustice at being sexualized and objectified from a young age, which was exacerbated by the reactions of family members and society at large.
The author believes that the overly sexualizing of a child's body is a significant problem and has personally experienced its detrimental effects.
There is a clear frustration with the adult women in their life who judged them for their physical development and accused them of promiscuity.
The author acknowledges struggling with body positivity and has a complicated relationship with food, comfort eating, and their own body image.
They are critical of the way their body was policed by others, including being told to diet by dance teachers and being shamed by their school's vice principal.
The author is working towards self-acceptance and healing, recognizing the need to be kind to their body and reconcile their physical form with their mind and spirit.

Reconciling with My Organic Space Suit

Years of bullying and sexual abuse has led to a struggle between my physical body, mind, and spirit.

Somehow as a child, I always saw my body as a space my true self inhabited.

I kid you not; there were moments where I felt betrayed by my body and its imperfections, quirks, and weaknesses. I always knew it was separate from who I was.

Perhaps it was the religious upbringing with the always drilled dogma that my body is a temple.

At seven years old, I woke in the middle of the night, unable to breathe. My lungs weren’t functioning — gaseous exchange wasn’t taking place.

It was my first asthma attack. The first inkling that my body’s versatility couldn’t be trusted. A health trauma that made me zero in on my mortality in a real way.

A year later, my body began to change physically. I was going through a premature metamorphosis initiated by the hormones that I couldn’t control. The moment puberty begins for a black girl, her entire world shifts.

The women in the family begin to treat her differently, as an enemy, the men look at her with suspicion, and everyone outside of the family sexualizes her changing body.

For me, my body had betrayed me, forced me to grow up a lot sooner than I wanted to. I had to wear a bra all the time because god forbid my too big nipples protruded through the material of my clothes. I was eight years old.

Men began to notice my body teetering on the precipice of womanhood, and they pounced. Matters made no difference if I was wearing a school uniform and pigtails; the contours of my curves were on full display.

Asthma got progressively worse, and so I had to go on oral steroids, which exacerbated my shape. Just before my 10th birthday, I began menstruating and entered a fresh hell I didn’t think was possible. My body had betrayed me again.

I looked like a little miniature woman now, and he took notice. My grandmother, mother, and her sister in laws left my brother and me alone one night as they went out to make preparations for my uncle’s wedding.

He was practically family, so they trusted him. To him, though, he seized the opportunity to explore this new body I found myself in.

They made me hate my body even more than I already did men that saw it as an object of desire. The boys at school made fun of me; the girls felt I was so lucky to have changed so quickly, my dance teachers wanted me to diet because I was no more extended ballet thin, a complex began to form.

Have you ever heard of someone having PTSD as a result of early-onset puberty?

I was judged by the adult women in my life, family, or otherwise, as being overly sexual because of the shape my body took. It was the furthest from the truth. They accused me of being “fast” and trying to be noticed by men. I couldn’t wear specific clothing because it would garner the wrong attention.

It didn’t matter what I wore. I got the attention all the same.

By 9th grade, I switched schools. I was the new girl, 1 of 2, and again my body’s form took center stage. The senior boys tried their hand, and the senior girls immediately began to spread rumors about me.

“She walks like she gets fucked every night before school.” “You can tell she’s a hoe, look at that shape, you only get an ass like that from doing doggy style all the time.”

The rumors build to such a crescendo that one day while sitting in class, my name was announced over the PA system summoning me to the Vice Principal’s office. For what, I wasn’t sure at the time.

What she said to me after I sat down has stayed with me. As she told them, they became etched in my bones.

“You’ve built up quite the reputation since you’ve arrived. I see you. Sauntering through the halls, swaying those hips back and forth. Trying to get attention.”

I was 13; I had no idea what this woman was talking about, well I did but, I was incredulous all the same. I couldn’t believe an adult was saying these things to me based on some high school gossip. Rendered speechless, I had no biting retort. All I felt was a shame.

All anyone saw when I was around was sex made flesh, and they couldn’t reconcile the child that I was with the body that outwardly dripped sex. But that’s the problem the overly sexualizing of a child’s body.

Growing up, I internalized a lot of negativity where my body was concerned. Which sometimes I wonder if that’s why I have such a bad relationship with food and comfort eating.

The years after high school, I packed on the pounds, all in a vain attempt to not be noticed, but even fat couldn’t hide my curvaceous body.

I struggle with body positivity. I don’t trust this organic space suit. I don’t trust the reactions it stirs up in others, but I’m trying my best to love and take care of it. I fall off the wagon regularly.

I lash out on my body and blame it for all the misfortunes I’ve had, be it the rumors of my youth, the molestation, the sexual assault as an adult, or any of the health issues I’ve had over the years.

Presently, I’m working on self-care, being kind to my body, reconciling the differences between my spirit-mind and my organic space suit. It’s a long, arduous journey, but I’m willing to do the work to right the wrongs and heal all three of us.