Final Draft- Change it All

cHANGE iT aLL

I've been blessed to have grown up in a fantastic family, my parents are together and a striving view of what I look for in love and partnership. My  sister and I are best friends and have been since a very young age. I have grown up in a safe and beautiful neighborhood, not rich, not poor, just comfortable. I grew up wondering how I was so lucky when others were not. Why I had but no family problems when others were drowning in the struggles of their home life. It was almost as if I were waiting for my time of hardship to come. I didn’t even know it was it when it happened. The way society has paved a specific path with certain expectations of not only body image but what to strive and work for in future goals has come together in one period of my life to control me, confuse me, but also change my perspective, work for improvement and overall made me the person who I am today.

Pre-College

I was an active child, my parents always allowing me to try different sports and activities. I started swimming when I was very young all the way up until high school with varying sports in between but I really focused in on dance through my high school years. I was very involved, I was on the competition and performance team meaning I had anywhere from 1 to 5 hours of dance every night. I had a very close group of friends at school, a good class schedule, great grades and a good amount of extracurricular activities to take part in. I was pretty much going with the flow and following what other people were doing. My classes were easy to pick in high school and there wasn’t a huge variety to choose from, they are pretty much picked out for you. You have math and science and English, the honors classes or different focuses on subjects and then some room for extra classes to choose from. When it came to thinking about what you wanted to do with your life and interest of majors, I was at a loss. I was in a 2 year business program called DECA, it was a great class and all my friends were in it however the realm of business wasn’t calling to me.  I did very well in school but it seemed as if I was just going class to class with no real drive and passion for what I was learning.

Senior Graduation Ceremony

First Semester

 I decided on Ohio University my senior year. With my older sister there and having fallen in love with the campus, I was ready for college to begin. I was still unable to decide a major, so I went in undecided being placed in a communications learning community. I had finished dance and didn't really want to continue on with it in college, it was a great experience and I loved being involved with the art and people but it wasn't something I wanted to study. Being a dancer, the amount of physical activity I had was a lot so my diet wasn't always a concern and I always stayed fit. When my freshman year started, I continued with my habits as I always did. I started seeing changes in my body. While I had always struggled with acne, my face was breaking out in a way I had never seen before.

 "My face is in constant flux as the acne flares up and down on different areas of my skin. I start to hate my reflection but become obsessed with looking at the mirror."(Damsky, p.135).

Lee Damsky recognizes many different struggles of the female body and what it can do to you. Not feeling comfortable with your skin is one thing but take away the confidence in your body and I started to feel like a person I didn't know. All of a sudden, my clothes weren't fitting the same and I would just end up putting sweatpants and sweatshirts on.  It took about 3 months for me to really realize that I went from a pretty balanced lifestyle to one where I needed to make the decisions in order for it to stay that way. It wasn’t as if I was lying in bed every day stuffing my face with endless amounts of junk food, but for what my body was used to, it was a change. I gained anywhere from 20-40 pounds in those short months, I was not only mad at myself but also at my family for not hinting at this quick change. I started exercising more and watching my diet, but I wasn't seeing any progress. In the midst of all this, I was not enjoying my classes, was in confusion as what to choose for the next semester and felt like I hadn't found a place to fit in in Athens. With no idea what I wanted to study, getting involved on campus was a challenge and while I met friends, it was a lot harder than I thought. I ended first semester not the way I had wanted but started to recognize how often I was relating my assignments to animal related topics. I decided to take more biology courses second semester and see if I could take the love for animals I always had and turn it into my schoolwork.

A comparison:
Left: Sorority Initiation Ceremony, October Freshman Year (5 months from picture above)
Right: Sorority Initiation Ceremony, October Sophomore Year

Second Semester

Second semester came and I was still not feeling any better. I had joined a sorority but was very limited to activity. Second semester was definitely the hardest time for me. I wasn’t seeing any weight loss and I had no idea why. I started feeling very down all the time, taking four to five hour naps a day, and constantly irritated with the people I came so close with first semester. I could feel myself being hostile toward people but couldn’t help it. I would rarely go out if it wasn’t with my sister and felt myself growing away from my friends. I held an interview with people in my life at this time to see their view on how I was acting or changes they saw. 

"I think she was upset a lot more than I had ever seen her before. A lot more "annoyed" with everyone and I think it stemmed from not feeling comfortable. Between her lack of direction in addition to the physical and mental transition from high school, I think it resulted in her pushing away friends and other activities"(Rovniak, sister).

It was an extremely confusing time for me and I didn't know how to make it better. I have never been one for complaining and I usually find myself keeping my struggles to myself. With the weight gain, feelings of depression and not fitting in well between classes and friends, I found myself constantly having negative thoughts and criticizing myself. They say that you are your worst critic and that is correct. Dove recently came out with a new ad called #OneBeautifulThought that takes statements women wrote about themselves, and then had them spoken around them in a public setting to see their reaction. It was completely eye opening and brought me back to my freshman year and even today. If you were to say some of the things you say to yourself out loud, women may realize what they are doing to themselves. It takes one beautiful thought to change your perspective on yourself, and this video shows that.

 "The notion that our bodies make us who we are is twisted into an equation between our appearance and our self-worth." (Damsky, p.141).

 Women need to start looking at their bodies in a beautiful way, see that everyone is unique and we all have quirks and parts we hate, but those are the things that make us who we are, and make us beautiful.

Biggest support

Biggest support

       When it came to school and what I wanted to study I wondered why I had never looked into animal programs more. A lot of my friends and graduates from my high school went into business related majors, and  it seemed like everyone had the same plan or general idea of what they wanted to do in college. I remember having jokes made when I would talk about animals or go out of my way to pet a dog. It became something I didn’t talk about and when I missed school to shadow a zookeeper, I told all my friends I had to miss for personal reasons. The society in which I was surrounded by seemed to have plans and expectations en-grained in your head, and it wasn't until college that I realized it and that I did not fit that mold. I started doing all my papers, speeches, and projects on animals. Friends and classmates started to notice and ask why I wasn’t studying them. It was like a whole new atmosphere of people telling me that with the amount of passion for it, they had no idea why I was ever so confused. My environment in high school was so different that it had completely blinded me to the fact that I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I declared my major to Wildlife and Conservation Biology the beginning of my sophomore year and it was the best thing I have ever done. Unfortunately with such a heavy course major, I am packing all my classes in between summer courses and semester in order to graduate on time. I cant help but think what my life would be like if I had been in a supporting environment that uplifted and encouraged my fascination in animals rather than suppress it.

 " I remember it very vividly, you came home for Thanksgiving and talked about how you were going to start working out and eating healthy. By the end of the year, your drive for school and focus was much more positive and finding yourself a group of friends and a place to belong is when I remember everything begin to improve." (Rovniak, Deb)

By the end of the year, things were getting better. I started meeting more people in my sorority and had made more friends in the dorm. I was excited for sophomore year because I would be living in my sorority house and was becoming a lot closer with the girls. My weight still wasn’t changing the way I wanted it too, it was like something was stopping me from losing it no matter how much exercise I did or what I ate. The summer before college I was prescribed to birth control and switched different prescriptions a few times within the first couple months due to acne side effects. When freshman year was over, I returned home for the summer and that was the first time I thought that maybe this recent prescription was having a negative effect on my body. I did some research and saw complaints of weight gain, difficulty of weight loss, depression, and acne. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it earlier. I immediately stopped taking my prescription. I went all summer without it and it was as if I had to start my whole fitness journey over again. While there were so many factors to the struggles of my freshman year, there was no way of pinpointing to a specific thing. Luckily, I slowly started seeing changes, I had joined a gym over the summer and was living a very healthy lifestyle. In all that time, nothing had played out the way I wanted, yet I was always determined to go through this struggle in a healthy way. Today, we see so many girls fighting through eating disorders and putting themselves in very harmful situation to fit the idea of female beauty and I was determined to make it through in a natural and healthy way.

Sophomore Year

Sophomore year started and I got very involved with my fitness. I had friends supporting me and joining in trying to eat healthy and workout. My sophomore year was when things turned around for me. It took a few months but progress was coming fast. I made plenty of friends and finally felt like I was where I wanted to be in school, socially, physically and intellectually. While I can say that I am still very critical of my body at times, I have never been happier. I don’t want to be skinny, I want to be strong. My body has changed and I can say that I worked and struggled to get to where I am today. Within the mindset of body image and weight loss, the hardest thing to hear is when girls compare themselves to one another. Throughout this journey, I have learned that it is not “I wish I had those legs, that butt, strong abs, and on and on and on” because then that wouldn’t be you, women are actually saying they don’t want to be apart of themselves. The way I see it is I can make the best of my abs, my arms, my legs, my body, my style and mind to the way I want them to be, but I know that I could never have anyone else’s and I am absolutely okay with that. This video  shows various people being asked the same question and the responses between the age groups are astounding. At what time do we start seeing us in such critical points where all we can do is think of the negatives and not the positives? Why can a child say they see nothing to change with their body, except for maybe a mermaid tail, while teens and adults are picking a part all those things that make them who they are? Our society has hurt us. Growing up in a time where the media and beauty is so specific has skewed our views and everyone needs to start seeing not only what we are doing to ourselves but what we are doing to others and also affecting teens and children about to enter this time.

 "Now feeling beautiful, to me, is a measure of how close I am to what feels right as a way to be and live. My beauty comes from having my own style, living my own way and knowing my own mind." (Demsky)

It is a part of accepting yourself and realizing that you cant be someone else but you can make yourself the best you can be, no matter what shape, size, color, and style.

Interning at a sanctuary in CO with large carnivores

       
  I didn't do this for anyone but myself. I continue to strive to strengthen my mind and body. It is not a struggle but a journey, and while it was an extremely difficult time in my life, my outlooks on body image, how women talk and treat themselves, and opinions on finding your passion and pursuing it no matter what is a much healthier and positive way. When I return home, my family supports every decision I make and encourages me to pursue all my dreams. When adults or even old friends ask me what I am doing, and the first question I usually get is "What are you going to do with that?"  or "Does that make a lot of money?", it is only a reminder that it is the environment and society that I put myself in and allow to affect me that will skew and shape my dreams and goals. I am no longer a confused 18 year old with no known passion or drive and a never ending thought that I could only be beautiful being thin with long blond hair and following the ways as everyone else. I am now an independent individual who flies to Colorado to pursue her dreams working with exotic animals, I chop my hair and dye it pink and purple and will continue to live in a way where society and the environment I live in does not control that.  Its like the elderly women said, she wouldn’t want to change anything because then she wouldn’t be herself. And if you can’t be yourself, no matter the shape, size, beauties and imperfections, than who can you be?

Volunteer at Athens Shelter

References

Comfortable: 50 People 1 Question. Dir. Jason Y. Lee. Jubilee Project, 29 Oct. 2014. Web. 25 Apr. 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0tEcxLDDd4.

Damsky, Lee. "Beauty Secrets." Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image. By Ophira Edut. Emeryville, CA: Seal, 2003. 133-43. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.        
  

#OneBeautifulThought. Dir. Dove. #OneBeautifulThought. Dove France, 10 Mar. 2015. Web. 25 Apr. 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tM2Z0-zFcw.

Rovniak, Deboral L. "Transition." Online interview. 16 Apr. 2015.

Rovniak, Jessica A. "Transition." Online interview. 17 Apr. 2015.

Pictures provided by myself showing family and friends, my internship, hiking and my first and most recent 5K races I have done.