#mybodystory

[mingethemerciless-blog]

The trials and tribulations of minge.

I’m a very scruffy person, when I was 13 I went through the usual teenage trial of having my teeth straightened, they had to take 4 molars out because they were pushing the others into such bizarre states of wonk that the orthodontist barely knew where to start.

I wore those badges of adolescent awkwardness for near enough two years. My friends all came out with american style smiles. Mine, although slightly straighter, remained resolutely, stereotypically british and scruffy.

Twenty years later I was walking at a smart pace down the track to the bus stop. I had washed and styled my hair, picked out an outfit which I hope said “responsible” and “in full control of her mental faculties” By necessity it included a slightly impractical maxi skirt, but I had learned over the years, that this was the best uniform for my current endeavour.

On the bus my reflection in the window told me that my luxuriant shiney bob had inexplicably flattened in places where I needed volume and frizzed up at the points where I had taken hours to smooth it out, the former gelam now looked distinctly greasy.

I fiddled nervously with my hair and the collar of my shirt until I arrived at the hospital.

This hospital is where I was born. Sitting at the top of a hill, it has one of the best views over the city that I have ever seen. I stared out of the window and almost calmed myself down, this might be the last chance I got to convince these people to help me...

My name was called, I shook the doctors hand.

“I hear you’ve been having some trouble with your periods” he understated.

Since the age of 23 I have been winning awards, if only in my own mind, for “worlds longest period” and “most blood lost without fatality.”

I launched into my unflinching and well practised description of the ping pong ball sized blood clots. The time one fell out of me in the shower and was so huge and heavy I was convinced I’d just given birth to an alien, I picked it up to check if it had a face, bits of it fell off and clogged the drain. I calmly recounted the years and years of seeping dread, the fact that I hadn’t gone swimming, worn white or finished a meal without a sickly slug of feroglobin in years.

I wasn’t scared any more, Cancer had suggested itself in my mind on and off for several years, but, as a nurse once blandly put it: “If it was cancer you’d be dead by now.”

My mind was throwing out tendrils of thought about my other dread. Pregnancy. When I was 18 I calmly accepted what I was told when I said I didn’t want children: 

“You’ll change your mind” they would say in a funny sing-song way.

 I’d probably want them when I was a proper adult, say, 25 years old.

25 came around, I was in no way a proper adult nor did I yet want children. No problem, there was plenty of time for me to want them, I’d just think about it a whole lot and then I’d want them.

30 came around, and I could no longer deny, the thought of pregnancy repulsed me. To be a host body to a parasitic bundle of flesh, to have my blood drawn away from me and into this other being. The idea of my cunt tearing open, a living thing coming out of me. A living thing with my weak jawline? With my scruffy hair? What if I didn’t love it? What if it turned out to be as intolerable a little shit as most of the children I’d ever met were? What if it grew up and went on being an intolerable little shit...come to think of it like most of the adults I’d ever met were?  What if, instead of doing something which changed the world for the better, it just became another consumer. Oh god what if it voted for Rees-Mogg? What if that apocalypse we’ve been promised actually happened and I had to raise an intolerable little shit in a cave whilst fighting off mutant tories and puerperal fever?

A more realistic and terrifying thought was never far from my conscious mind: What if I was raped? What if an abortion was too traumatic or, in the sadly likely event of an NHS sell off, too expensive? What if the current trends continue even further and an abortion was simply unavailable? Would I find someone clean and steady handed enough to do it on the kitchen table? Could I find the right hedgerow ingredients? Would I survive that?

“Do you want children?”

I was very glad that this came up.

“Definitely not, in fact I’d like to ask for a tubal ligation.”

“That won’t help with the bleeding”

“I know, it’s a separate issue, but I think it’s relevant…”

On the young man's face I saw faint hint of the bemused horror I’d seen on my GPs face when I had first asked, almost the beginning of a nervous laugh, although none had gone so far as to laugh at me yet…

My GP had looked at me the way teachers would look at me when I told them I’d lost my library card or forgotten my essay. Faux shock, the kindly-meant disappointment of a grandparent seeing you make a youthful blunder. His voice had come out with just the merest subtle hint of a condescending laugh in it when he told me he could refer me to a specialist but it was unlikely they’d give “someone like you” such a “drastic” operation.

Someone like me? Scruffy? Irresponsible? Disorganised? 

And how was maintaining my personal status quo drastic? Surely having to fire a fully dependant, sapient life out of my pelvis was far more drastic than just...carrying on as I was?

In any event, none of the appointments that GP had made had referenced my desire to get the snip, almost as if he didn’t even write it on the request he sent...

The current gynaecologist shook off the uncanny look he had given me for asking the forbidden question and asked if he could “scan me” Oh great, another date with the dildo-cam…

I’ve had this scan done so many times, my cervix is directly connected to the pain centers of the brain, one mere prod and all hell breaks loose in my nerves, it’s no good telling doctors this, they adhere rigidly to the “some women experience discomfort” school of thought.

The young nurse was wonderful, allowing me to squeeze her hand when the probe swept over my diva of a cervix and white stars of agony danced on the ceiling above me.

“You have a very large ectropion on your cervix, it’s probably causing a lot of the bleeding”

“Yes, I’ve been told that many times…”

“Hmm, we could get rid of this ectropion with silver nitrate, it might help stop the bleeding?”

Holy shit, you mean there was a way to get rid of that thing all along?!

I consented as calmly as I could.

The next thing I knew he was jabbing my insides with chemical soaked lollipop sticks, but I was more than willing for this to happen after 10 years of inaction and casual shrugs at my wayward cervix.

I was told to brace myself for “gritty discharge” as bits of burnt cervix dropped out of me along with all the other nonsense going on down there.

Later, pants back on, veins blossoming with green bruising from the “hormone level” blood tests, my innards were laid out in bland yet descriptive medical descriptions.

My womb had a “septum” which immediately made me think that it had a face, a scornful, angry face I would dearly love to punch for the years of ruined underwear, bedsheets and dates.

My right ovary was polycystic,

“This can lead to diabetes and heart disease later in life so you’ll have to be wary of gaining weight…”

My body type is made up of circles, I have rounded hips, boobs, thighs and face, when I was younger I worried briefly that I was chubby, but I was active and I ate well, I could still see my ribs and I could power walk up the hill to my house without so much as a sweat. I gave the doctor a blank look, he still hadn’t discussed my tubal options yet...

The doctor now took on a slightly lower, more cautious tone, evidently more scared of upsetting me with this next information than he had been by talking about my weight.

“You may find it slightly harder to get pregnant...but it’s by no means impossible”

I did a double take. 

“...That’s really not a problem for me...what with the tubal ligation request and all…” I hinted cheerfully.

He made a neutral sound and moved on with a list of my uterine shortcomings.

My left ovary was “very mobile” (my mind gave it a beard and a bindle stick) and showed some evidence of endometriosis.

“I’ve never had any symptoms of that…”

“Again this can lead to some minor complications in conception and pregnancy…”

Was I speaking klingon? Was I mispronouncing “tubal ligation”? Was IVF so much cheaper than the lady snip that they’d rather I reproduced despite my clear desire not to do so and regret an actual living human?

“You have some signs that there may be polyps in your uterus, that’s not harmful but they may be contributing to the bleeding, in which case, we can remove them.”

I was booked in for a hysteroscopy, which sounded painful in spite of the “some women experience discomfort” platitude, and a review in 3 months time.

“Do you have any questions?”

I took a deep breath, I knew this was a separate issue but I had to bring this up whenever I could because there was no obvious way to request it otherwise.

“How do I go about getting the tubal ligation?”

The look of horror came back, much stronger this time, the poor sod had run out of things to distract me with, his face turned to a look of utter defeat.

“I wouldn’t even consider doing that until you had exhausted all other contraceptive options and had fertility counselling, have you considered the mirena coil? It’s progesterone only and most women find it very good…”

My mind flashed back to the last “progesterone only” treatment I’d had: Migraines had hidden the worst of the symptoms for the best part of 6 months, by the time they were under control again the real problem became tragically apparent. My sex drive was so low that I could barely tolerate a hug, in desperation I had the little plastic rod dug out of my arm with a scalpel, but my libido never fully recovered, don’t try telling me the effects aren’t permanent…

A further flashback to the copper coil. The way it dug itself into the side of my womb, the way it hurt, exactly how much and how long it hurt for, How there had been no one in my local GP surgery willing to remove it for me (grab the string and pull, I refuse to believe that this requires a specialist qualification on top of medical training.) The serious thought I gave to yanking it out myself, only stopping when the prospect of a torn cervix put me off. 

A rich history of contraceptive pills danced through my brain, mood swings, swollen boobs and most memorably a migraine so bad that I called NHS Direct and was told to monitor myself for signs of a potentially fatal brain haemorrhage...

The time they’d tried to stop the bleeding with anti-inflammatories and discovered my allergy to this group of medications when I broke out in a measles style rash.

Those memories don’t blur with time, at least they haven’t yet.

“Statistics show that you would regret being sterilized, you don’t have a family”

For a brief second my imagination took me to an episode of The Twilight Zone. I don’t have a family? Shit! What happened to them? My siblings? My partner? My parents? My friends?

The anger when I realised what he really meant seeped through my mind like a blood clot through a pad.

“You don’t share DNA with anyone who came out of you therefore you have no family”

“You haven’t had to push your family with your pelvic floor therefore they don’t count”

“If you eventually decide to adopt that won’t count either”

“Everyone you currently live with, love and rely on will reject and abandon you because you didn’t give birth to them.”

Blood clots, along with anger of that magnitude tend to flood the sanitary pad or mind.

Luckily, I have had years of practise at crossing my legs and trying to discreetly aim my crotch at the driest part of the pad. This, in effect, was how I ordered my mind at that moment.

“Don’t yell at NHS people, they have enough problems. The poor man was just working off a script, of course they have to be careful, one litigious malcontent could set these heroes back years…”

I left, with no clearer an idea of how to get my tubes tied and no idea why this was the first time, cysts, polyps and septums had been discovered after so many tests over so many years.

Back home I attempted to find out how much private hospitals charged for tubal ligation. “Anywhere between $700 and $10,000 depending on your insurance provider”  ecosia informed me in very american and somewhat unhelpful terms.

An inquiry to Spire healthcare yielded an unapologetic result of £3000, that’s a lot of minimum wage hours and late rent payments, besides £200 of that was for a consultation in which they might refuse me anyway. 

I wondered if those places in Turkey where they do cheap facelifts might consider my case...Would having scalpels jabbed into me in a country where I couldn’t speak the language followed by a cramped and cheap flight be more or less unbearable than a kitchen table abortion? Either way the word “botched” was never far from my mind.

When the day came for my hysteroscopy I steeled myself for another try. The gynaecologist was a lovely, calm young woman with curly hair. She spent a long time reassuring me that I was in control and could stop the procedure at any time. She told me that she would take a biopsy from my womb lining in addition to shoving a camera up where no camera had gone before. She showed me the camera. I wish she hadn’t.

“See, it’s very small.”

It was slightly smaller than a pencil. Small compared to a baby maybe. But I knew exactly how big that thing was going to feel in my stupid nervy cervix. Turns out I was wrong.

It was far bigger and far sharper and far more white hot than I thought possible. 

The nurses squeezed my hand and told me it would be over soon.

I never stopped her, I wanted this done, I wanted to know what the hell was wrong with me. I wanted to show what a good patient I was, how in control of my mind and body I was, how I would take the responsibility of dealing with sterilization without regret...

I learned just how exponential pain can be.

When someone said “This will take another five seconds” I discovered how long five seconds can feel.

I found out, to my displeasure, that passing out does not necessarily stop you feeling pain, it simply stops you moving. I learned just how wonderful the overworked and underpaid folks of the NHS really are when they brought me water and later tea and let me sit in a comfy chair and shake without telling me that they needed me to get a grip and move on because they had a full waiting room…

The results were discussed with me. There were no polyps, there was no septum, what's more, my womb was perfectly shaped to receive a mirena coil…

Sterilization wouldn’t stop the bleeding, it was a separate issue. The mirena would stop the bleeding and stop any pregnancy. Sure I’d have to have it ripped out of the most sensitive, nerve rich part of me and then stuffed back in broadside first every three years, assuming I hadn’t emigrated and the NHS was still there that is. And the progesterone might...exacerbate certain things, but that would probably settle down...

 I sighed, drained my tea and smoothed down my faithful maxi skirt. 

Alright uterus, you don’t like me and I don’t like you, but it looks like we’re in this together. Here’s another burning hoop for us to jump through, lets give these folks the show they’ve been waiting for...

[sweetymaleficent-blog]

I ❤ MY BODY 🐷❤ Ph: @pmartu . . . . . #spain#thisphoto#body#mybodyartist#mybodymychoice#myboobs#mylove#babypig#lovemybody#mybodystory#lovemyself#babygirls#inkmodels#inkstagram#tatoogirl#barcellona#barcelona#❤️#📸❤️#lovely#homesweethome (presso Barcelona, Spain) https://www.instagram.com/p/BuG0C18HGUI/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=faao0sy3o44t

[n-anjuli]

[livingketo]

Greatings from a Birthday grill party! None scale victory : Im wearing a crop top for the first since being 18❗️❗️😱😎😎 #croptop #nonescalevictory #keto #ketofood #ketotransformation #ketodiet #ketoweightloss #ketoweightlossjourney #ketoweightlosstransformation #ketogirl #ketomeal #ketojourney #ketowayoflife #myfood #weightlossjourney #weightlosstransformation #weightlost #weightlossjourney #gettinginshape #summerwibes #postpartumbody #postpartumfitness #mybodyisready #mybodyafterbabies #mybodystory

[nnueve]

¿Dónde están, que no las veo? He estado haciendo un poco de investigación estos últimos días, con muchísima ayuda, sobre el papel de la mujer en el diseño y su falta de visibilidad. Lo más preocupante es ver que los organismos e instituciones que deberían luchar contra esta injusticia, son causantes de gran parte de esta falta de representación. #feminismo #feminista #igualdad #feminism #feminisme #feminist #lenguaje #machista #micromachismos #girlpower #efímerabelleza #powerofwomen #mybodystory #feminism #equality #egalitarian #feministmovement #equal #woman #activism #womansrights #equalrights

[qbl-queensbelike-blog]

And one day she discovered that she was fierce, and strong, and full of fire, and that not even she could hold herself back because her passion burned brighter than her fears.

[hobobuzz]

New #hoboken tweet. I'm pretty sure #Hoboken & #WonderWoman @WonderWomanFilm will be trending later tonight.

[curvesncurlsuk]

Friendly reminder ☀️ #bodyconfidence #bodypositivebabe #bodypositive #bopowarrior #bodyposi #bodypositivity #psblogger #plussizeblogger #psbloggers #selflovebringsbeauty #theconfidencecorner #mybodystory #mybodymybff http://ift.tt/2tGWHB2

[blue-egg-adventures]

So, this may seem silly to some...but I realize that others besides myself have a hard time accepting how they look. I’ve always had a hard time with certain features of my face. Some days I’m okay with it and others I just wish I looked like a Disney or anime character. I know deep down that I was created this way. But getting my heart to feel okay with that and happy about it doesn’t always happen. So....enter Lotor. I have many reasons for choosing to cosplay Lotor - his redemption arc in season 5, his awesome hair (hehe), his hight (I’m 6 feet tall) but I also figured I could pull off his elvish look since my face fit that look fairly well. I had a blast! And then I saw this photo from the SacAnime official photographer. And for the first time, I’m not just okay with, but happy with my profile shot. Can I just say, I look amazing? 🤣 I never liked my face at this point of view. Up till now I’ve just tolerated photos from this angle, or cringed inside when I’ve seen them. But here, I’m somehow able to see myself differently, and I don’t mean that I have to cosplay Lotor all the time in order to be okay with my face 😆 This photo is helping me take another step forward with accepting how I was made and being glad about it, all of it. If you read all this, thanks. The second photo has the awesome @mohagonugget, my fellow Lotor cosplayer! Third photo is the best screenshots of Lotor’s profile I could find. ⠀⠀ #itsablueegglife #bodypositivity #mybodystory #princelotor #lotor #voltronlegendarydefender #lotorcosplay #princelotorcosplay #voltroncosplay #voltronlegendarydefendercosplay #ajlocascio #cosplaygirl #cosplaygirlsofinstagram #sacanime #sacanime2018 #sacanimesummer2018 #sacanimesummer #animecosplay #voltroncosplay #voltroncosplayer #calledtobecreative #creativelife #roadtoredemption #redemption #abeautifulmess #livecreatively #cosplaygirls #cosplayheals #calledtocreate #seekinspirecreate @preview.app https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn5TzvAB2Yf/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1rz9awrcnv1oj

[amanda-j-armstrong]

Man: "You're better at photoshop than I let on." Me.... waits to long to say FUCK YOU! What is that???? thats #sexist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #mybodystory s #feminism #equality #egalitarian #intersectionality #feministmovement #equal #woman #learn #feminist #activism #intersectionalfeminism #memes #positivity #happiness #bodypositivity #womansrights #intersectionalfeminist #equalrights #loveislove #activist #bodypositive #MeToo #ImadeThis #menmadethismess

[stylelikeu]

Repost from Dana Suchow, who we featured in our Closets series and bravely shared what was underneath the surface: @dothehotpants This is important. • This is from 2010. From my @StyleLikeU interview. Before they started the "what's underneath project" and were just interviewing fashionable people about their fashionable journeys. I didn't have a blog yet. And I was waiting tables (under the table) trying to survive in a new city. But none of that is important. What IS important about this photo, is that it was taken during the absolute worst period of my eating disorder. If there was a bulimia rock bottom. This picture is it. I was running 5 miles sometimes 2x a day, weighing myself before and after each run, measuring my food in serving sizes (driving my roommate crazy), stealing food, and even keeping peanut butter in the freezer so I couldn’t binge on it. (That didn't stop me tho, and one time I did try to binge on frozen peanut butter, but just ended up bending the knife in half and cutting my hand pretty bad.) I may look “healthy” in this photo, but believe me, my mind was FAR from it. The morning before this interview, I was so nervous about how I’d look on camera, that I went on a run, binged, then went on a run again. This photo made the rounds on Tumblr again recently, and I need to set the story straight. This image, and the actual truth behind it, just goes to show that you NEVER know the true story of someone just from a sexy photo online. This woman looking at you? She's not happy. She's not healthy. And she certainly did not feel sexy. This woman is NOT the image of an ideal body and is not something you should aspire to be. Because your mind is a part of your body, and mine was out of control. I am no longer this woman, but NO ONE should ever want to be her. NO ONE should ever compare their body to hers. And NO ONE should ever look at this photo and feel "less than." Because a sexy picture might say a thousand words, but it will never say the right ones. • #DoTheHotpants #MyBodyStory #truestyleisselfacceptance #iamwhatsunderneath

[mybodyliberation]

#Repost @dothehotpants (@get_repost) ・・・ Guys I want to share something really special with you today and my heart is full because honestly if there was a time that if you told me that I could really and truly love everything that I am created to be...I wouldn't have believed you. Now here we are years later and not only am I loving me and YOU GUYS for who you are and the fact that we're enough but I get to share that AND I get featured on the blog on one of the women who has helped me in my own body positive journey! So please visit the blog, I'll link her and in my profile and give it a read and I hope it can bless someone today! . . . http://dothehotpants.com/2017/07/25/mybodystory-michelle-2/ #blogger #bopo #bodypositive #effyourbeautystandards #dothehotpants #blackgirlmagic

[curvesncurlsuk]

The first step on the road my darlings 🌸 you got this. . . . . #bodypositive #bodyconfidence #bodyposi #bopo #theconfidencecorner #selflovebringsbeauty #mybodystory http://ift.tt/2jGS9JP

[curvesncurlsuk]

Friendly reminder ☀️ #bodyconfidence #bodypositivebabe #bodypositive #bopowarrior #bodyposi #bodypositivity #psblogger #plussizeblogger #psbloggers #selflovebringsbeauty #theconfidencecorner #mybodystory #mybodymybff http://ift.tt/2tHmYz0