This week in thoughts: I am her, and she is me.

(or, why do you only develop hindsight as you age?)

(TW: this post contains discussions around eating disorders and body image, grief and loss.)

The other day, an old school friend of mine sent me a picture. The picture is of me. I am about 14, and you can vaguely see the acne which has started to fade, on my cheeks. I have mousy hair, and a Miss Selfridge T-shirt on that I was absolutely obsessed with at the time. I am smiling, seemingly happy, despite the fact that I think I’d already started to butcher my eyebrows.

But behind the smile, I was not happy. The reality is that I was about a year away from developing the eating disorder that would stay with me for the next two decades and really unsure of who I was. I often felt lonely- different from my peers, a mixture of silly and immature, combined with a fierce intellect that I didn’t appreciate, or really understand. I was bookish and bright but struggling at school and additionally, in my homelife; which had become isolating and difficult to navigate.

As I studied the picture of my younger self, through adult eyes, something struck me. Firstly, that I was lovely. And cute. So cute. My hair is a lovely rich dark blonde, my arms; delicate and naturally pale, and you can just see the curvy body shape, that I grew to hate, starting to work its way out, and into the world (I also look like my late dad; but that’s a different story). Secondly, an overwhelming realisation that I experience these feelings whenever I reflect on these past versions of myself. This overwhelming ‘wave’ of sadness and deep regret for not loving myself harder at the time,

I look at the photo, and I feel completely protective over the girl in it. It is grainy and faded, but the memory of how I felt at that time, is still very much in focus; a decade and more of struggling with self- acceptance, identity and cripplingly low sense of self-worth. Flitting between bulimia and chronic dieting, and harming myself in often dangerous ways- an intense and greuling self-loathing that has permeated a lot of my life.

Eating disorders (and chronic dieting) rob you of a life. I talk about my own eating disorder and subsequent recovery here, but essentially I developed bulimia at 15; combining constant dieting with bingeing and purging until I was almost 30, and continuing to diet until I was around 38. I’m now 44.

14 year old me in that iconic Miss Selfridge T-Shirt.

When I think about these darker moments of my life; I have always separated myself from that person. When I first lost a lot of weight post uni (after discovering dieting) I turned my back on the girl that came before, including 14 year old awkward me- I didn’t want to be associated with them anymore and as I embraced a new iteration of me; the separation between her, and I, began.

Masking who I was, and pretending that those past incarnations of myself didn’t exist have deeply and irrevocably harmed who I am today. Shutting out teenage me, early twenties me and other versions has confused my understanding of who I am and I think this is part of why it took me so long to realise that I am neurodivergent. I had become so skilled at pretending to be someone else, that I didn’t really recognise my truest self. It is only now that I am recovered from my ED and understand my brain and my differences better that I can accept who I was before and not feel shame or embarrassment when I look back; which is something I think a lot of people can relate too.

With the trend cycling of the early 2000s in full throttle, I am currently knee deep in nostalgia, thinking about my twenties; the clothes that I wore and the places that I went, jobs I had, the boyfriends I dumped. The endless dieting, and intense hunger; never fulfilling my potential but substituting low weight for ambition. My Body was always front and centre of my existence but despite how much I punished it, it was never good enough.

I look at that picture and others from various phases of my life and I feel acutely aware of my current age, and positioning in life, and the depressing fact that I was always lovely but never felt it. I look at photos on Facebook; pregnant and postpartum me; my thoughts centered around weight loss and see a lovely new mum with her beautiful daughter. I look at my wedding pictures and I see a bride who wasted hours of her day fixated on her face and arms; which are both beautiful. I look at photos from last year when I had a wobble about my weight; the old thoughts of dieting creeping in, and instead see a woman who is finally fulfilling her potential. I look at photos from last week where I felt uncomfortable in my jeans, my tummy squishier and more rounded than ever and with fresh eyes, I instead see a woman who is thriving. A woman who is writing, creating and working for herself and who is sharing herself with the world.

I am learning that life, and each propement of it, are unduly swift. I know that in 10 years I will look back at my 40 something year old self and marvel at the person I was and that I absolutely have to love myself in the moment and not just in hindsight. It is bittersweet to regard yourself as lovely, but only when enough time has passed that you are able to do so. No. We have to feel these things in the now, as tricky as it is, we must because it is better to do that, even with difficulty than regret not honouring yourself properly in that very time frame.

I think 14 year old me would think it was pretty cool that her future self is not only writing and being creative (things she excelled in at school but abandoned when she was unwell) but that we now know why we always felt so different and are thriving because of it and not despite it.

My promise to myself, and to her, is to love myself harder in the moment, despite how hard it might feel. We’ve wasted a lot of time not liking ourselves and there just isn’t enough time for it. Me, and all of my former selves are worthy of radical acceptance. And so are yours, and YOU.

Nina x