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Today I want to chat about blindness and body confidence.
Body confidence is something I have always struggled with. From swollen knees, ankles and wrists due to arthritis, being ginger and the smallest kid in highschool (even in year 11), and not getting my period until 16 years old, I never saw anyone that looked like me.
Yes there were ginger girls, petite girls, flat-chested girls and even disabled kids in my school but when your hair colour, lack of height, lack of boobs and lack of mobility and eventually your deteriorating vision is constantly being pointed out to you and used as a weapon against you by your peers, you want to be anyone else but yourself.
Boys didn’t fancy me because I was ginger, short or a wheelchair user. Girls didn’t like me because I wasn’t the coolest, the smartest, the prettiest or the sportiest. But mostly people didn’t like me because I never put up with their bullshit. I was the kid that told everyone in class to shut up so I could learn.
I was a kid that quite literally had to chase people around school when they took my wheelchair or scooter for a joy ride: calling them a bunch of profanities as I got it back. But I was also the kid that stuck up for my friends when they got bullied.
I was more of a leader and a sheep but as soon as I got the spotlight and have people watching or judging me I would shrink and fold because I would rather have people say nothing about me than say something negative about me.
I know high school isn’t everyone’s best years but I felt that I truly started to grow (Not literally) and build some confidence after I left school.
By the time I left school I had a solid group of friends who were my cheerleaders as well as my confidants but due to my rapidly deteriorating eyesight I moved away from home and took my A-levels at a college for the Blind.
Dying my hair blond, having more mobility than I’d ever had my entire childhood, finally growing boobs and being in a metaphorical boat with people that got my disability, made work accessible and getting up to mischief with my new found friends gave me a new lease of life.
The freedom that came with living away from home and presenting to the world who I wanted them to see built my self confidence as well as my body confidence.
I was still immature though and cared deeply about peoples perceptions of me so I lied about being a virgin. A few weeks later I was outed by my friend during a game of truth and dare because of course she knew the truth.
I remember the embarrassment and shame I felt being outed in front of my new friends. Although back home I never lied or shied away from being known as a virgin. So why lie?
Mostly I felt an innate sense of peer pressure because at that exact moment everyone around the circle had already answered yes and I didn’t want to be left out or seen as different once again.
It’s strange that the sense of peer pressure can make you second guess yourself or act differently just because you want to fit in. But I learnt a very valuable lesson that day.
There was so many things I couldn’t change about myself, and even if I wanted to or not, the one thing I didn’t want to be seen as was a liar.
By the time I was 18, I had lost my virginity to the boy I loved. He told me I was beautiful every day even when I would point out my perceived flaws and imperfections.
And even though self self acceptance and body confidence should come from within, I owe a lot to him four making me feel that my shape and size was good enough.
So much so, that when we broke up, my biggest fear was that no one would ever fancy me again.
I had put my self-esteem and body confidence in his grasp which I then placed upon a pedestal. So it took months of learning to accept myself for who I was and build body confidence without the approval of someone else.
By the time I reached university, I had lost even more vision and I felt that this became part of my identity.
Did boys think I was attractive? How would I tell if I can’t see their facial expressions or body language unless they were right in front of me and all the lights were on?
I guess University taught me more lessons, people will find you attractive, and if they do, they will let you know.
Welovedates.com has asked me to talk about body positivity, blindness and body confidence, which with access to online dating in some ways has helped cast a wider net to find that other fish in the sea. While also giving people with disabilities a platform to meet more people with ease.
In a lot of ways losing my vision helped me love and appreciate my body more than I thought possible. I couldn’t see what “beautiful beauty standards “looked like, I wasn’t seeing the approval of others, most importantly men and their attraction to me, because my body had put me through hell and yet here I was still standing.
I never feel more confident when I am eating well and exercising but I also got married to the love of my life being the heaviest I’ve ever weighed. I knew Grant was going to think I looked beautiful, it was our wedding day and he was my husband to be but the biggest takeaway I found is that although blind people of course can be shallow, just like anyone else, loving my body for it’s curves and scars is far more important to me than looking slim and feeling it too.
Blindness and body confidence is a journey and there are going to be days when I don’t feel my prettiest, look my best or think I could do with losing weight but not seeing the Instagram photos, the video editing, the magazine/television airbrushing and all the “imperfections” pointed out by trolls online, I will never again have that worry because whether or not I conform to beauty standards or expectations, my body is strong, it is beautiful and I love it for exactly what it is.
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You never cease to amaze me! Stay happy & smile always. Love you. Xx