All posts by Tammy Danan

Part-poet, part-writer, and full-blooded human megaphone of the oppressed, Tammy focuses on covering heavy topics and under-reported stories. To keep herself sane, she explores the intersection of life, pop culture, entrepreneurship and anything LGBTQ+. She gets by with the old smell of typewriter, the sound of tattoo machines and unlimited wet cappuccino.

You Have Body Image Issues, and That’s Okay

Finding a reason to love ourselves is not as easy as most people think. For some, it may come as human nature. But there are many people out there who find it an everyday battle to face the mirror, much less find something beautiful in what they see. And no, if you’re experiencing it, that doesn’t mean you’re a defective creation of this universe. Body dysmorphia is one of today’s familiar concerns in both men and women. But people who don’t identify as man or a woman, and those who don’t prefer labels also deal with body image issue just as equally.

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I asked author-poet Ashe Vernon about it. An out and proud agender person, Ashe has been vocal about the various issues society is facing today, including body image.

Ashe Vernon
Ashe Vernon

 

For starters, how would you describe a body image issue?

I think it’s anytime someone is unhappy with their body; it can be weight-related or gender presentation- related or any number of things.

 

What can you share about your personal experience with this?

I’ve had issues with body image my whole life. For me, body image gets even more complicated because I’m both overweight and agender, so I’ve had all different kinds of dysphoria when it comes to my body. But honestly, one of the very first things I can remember was being at a sleepover when I was in middle school. All the other girls there were slender and beautiful and I was chubby and kind of awkward. The girls all started tying their t-shirts up to show their stomach. I laughed and made a joke when I did it too, and most of the girls laughed at whatever I had said. But I’ll never forget the girl who turned with this disgusted look on her face and said “please DON’T”. That’s the first time I remember feeling actively ashamed of my body.

I was bullied in elementary school, too, for my weight. There was an older boy who used to follow me around singing “she’s Roly Poly Oly, she’s small and fat and round.”

 

Did you have any self-denial about it?

I think there was a period of time right when I started college where I tried to convince myself that I was “over” my body issues. After all, I’d worked SO hard to love my body, and I think I saw it as a personal failure if I relapsed into self-loathing. I wasn’t willing to admit that it was going to be a life-long process with ups and downs. I was also a theatre major, watching all of the best female roles go to girls with tiny waistlines and that was discouraging, and made it feel like trying to climb a tower of sand. I spent a huge part of my college years convinced that no matter how much I loved my body, nobody else ever would.

What’s the process of trying to understand these issues like?

For me, the first thing I did was remove the word ‘ugly’ from my vocabulary. I made an effort to find something beautiful about every single person I saw, even if it was just a small thing. Instead of mentally criticizing the people around me, I praised them. She had gorgeous hair and he had a genuine smile and her blouse looked great on her. After a while, the positives started to outweigh the negatives, in everyone. A little while longer, and it started to become easier to see the positives in me.

 

Was it easy to get friends and family on board? How much has changed since you became more open about it?

Without a doubt. These days, I have a very supportive network of people in my life. I don’t let negative influences into my personal circle. Even on the days where I don’t feel all that beautiful, there’s always people who love me and who accept me for who I am.

 

Can you describe what a bad day and a good day look like?

These days, bad days aren’t quite as bad as they used to be. Usually when I know I’m having a bad day I try to avoid mirrors and be gentle with myself. If I catch myself being overly critical, I redirect my attention to something else and distract myself from it, and usually by the end of the day I’m at least calm if not positive. But it’s taken me a lot of years to get to this point.

A good day has me glowing. Some good days I’m wearing makeup and other good days I’m not, but those are the days when I have no doubt in my mind that I’m beautiful and worthy of love.

 

Is there one thing about body image issue that you’ve already conquered but is still sometimes knocking on your door?

The hardest thing for me has always been my breasts. I’m a 38FF, so they’ve caused me a lot of grief throughout my life. On top of the back pain and just general inconvenience of having large breasts, not to mention how many men in my life have blatantly stared at them while talking to me, but also when I was younger I hated them because I felt like they made me look even bigger than I was. I had friends of similar body types but smaller breasts and I always felt like they looked more slender than me.

But it went deeper than that, and for a lot of years I had trouble understanding. As I started to figure out my gender identity, I realized that part of my hatred for them was tied into that.

I’ve put a lot of work into accepting my body for it what it is, but sometimes I still struggle accepting them. Honestly, I’m planning on getting a breast reduction once I can afford it.

 

What is your current perception of a “perfect body”?

Every body is perfect.

 

Anything you want to tell women dealing with body image issues?

You’ve been brought up in a world that tells you that you were intended to be consumed–that you should be pleasing and fit into the mold that was made for you. It’s not true. Your body is already perfect because it’s already yours. Loving yourself is so much more important than any dress size.

 

 

Google has 22.5 million results if you search “body image issues” and almost 10 million if you search “how to deal with body image issues”. But more often than not, we don’t really need a how-to guide. Sometimes, we just need a raw voice. Like Ashe’s. Sometimes we just need to know that someone out there is living in this dysfunctional world we call home, and they are doing okay. And we will do okay too.

 

Note: Ashe prefers gender-neutral pronouns  (them/their).

You Can’t Expect People to Like Everything You Create

It takes a good amount of courage to get yourself to share your work in public. And by public, I mean family, friends and the rest of the world. Many of us tend to shy away from this idea because we’re too consumed with “What if they don’t like it?” or “What if I actually suck at painting/writing/etc?”

When I was in the process of convincing myself to share my poems on Instagram, I used to refer to the little voice in my head as “toxic voice.” But now, I don’t think it’s that toxic. I think it’s part of how this process works.

I’m starting to believe there are three stages in the Creating & Public-Appreciation relationship:

First is when you create and hide your work from everyone.

Second is when you create something and you’re actually ready to share it but are anxious about the reaction, and afraid no one would react at all.

Third is when you create, screw up, keep creating, sharing it to the world and don’t care whether or not they appreciate your work.

Time and time again, I find myself on the second stage of said relationship. It’s probably the most difficult to get past. With the kind of world we live in today, it seems innate for us to expect our social media followers to like, comment on, and share our work. And when we don’t get the public appreciation we expect, day after day, it can be borderline frustrating.

But how do we work our way around this and learn how not to expect so much from our followers?

I asked Jon Westenberg about it. Jon is a writer, entrepreneur, and founder of Creatomic. I first encountered his work through Medium and I’m in awe of how he talks about vulnerability, imperfection, and pretty much anything and everything most people today are afraid to discuss.

Jon Westenberg
Jon Westenberg

What have you been creating for the past 5 years? And at what point in life were you when you realized you were on stage three of the Creating & Public-Appreciation relationship? How did it feel, realizing that?

I’ve been working on a lot of things – the most public, obviously, being my blog. I think it’s safe to say that I’m definitely on the third stage of the creative relationship – at this point in my life, I make what I want to make, when I want to make it. I’ve spent years, absolutely years, stressing about how an audience is going to receive my work, and whether or not it’s good enough. I’ve wasted, and thrown away so much creative work out of that crushing fear, and I realized that it was preventing me from growing in any way!

How did you get past the stage where every like and every page view matters a hell of a lot more than it actually should?

Sure, so a big part of it, was just being mean to myself. I know that’s going to sound pretty negative, but it’s true. I have this system where I’ve started blocking my analytics platform throughout my week, and only view it once every seven days. That’s tough to stick to, but it means I can’t keep checking and rechecking and getting too caught up in the clicks and the views!

What’s your take on the idea of “if my product/output didn’t get as much interaction from the public, then it’s probably a sign I’m not good at it”?

I think that if you always give people what they want, you’re going to end up with a lot of shallow fans – because you’ve never given them what they need. You’re going to be the McDonalds of content creation, where everything you make is tasty, and delicious, but if it’s all people consume, it’s going to destroy them. That’s the way I’ve always seen it.

Do you think public appreciation and negative feedback differ from someone monetizing his product and someone who isn’t?

I don’t think that’s entirely possible. I think public appreciation affects everyone the same, whether they’re a small fashion blogger on Instagram or Kanye West – negative feedback still hurts the same and positive feedback still buoys the spirit!

Is there a generic, cookie-cutter way of describing success?

I like to think of success as being relative. For example, one of the most successful bands ever, in my view, is a band called Fugazi, an alt-rock and post hardcore group from Washington DC. They never reached mainstream status, never had a hit song, and they turned down million dollar contracts – as a result, they were never superstars. But they appealed to, and found love in the audience they wanted. It’s the same with any creative work –  your success is only dependent on what you’ve determined to be your metric.

Throwback to when you were on stage two of the Creating & Public-Appreciation relationship, did you have angry moments like “I have 30,000 followers… why is this post getting only 50 likes?!” If so, how did you deal with it?

Oh, constantly. I still have those moments. Essentially, I just think well, it doesn’t really matter. Because 50 people is still a lot of people who liked my work. Here’s an interesting fact – Rihanna has over 120 million fans on social media – but only sold 450 thousand copies of her last album. That’s just the way it goes.

What are your tips for managing public appreciation expectations?

I think you have to expect that not everyone will like everything you do – and understand how positive that can be, because you’ll always be challenged by different points of view on your work. I think the real trick to being able to live with that, is realizing that some people will hate anything. There were reviewers who thought the Great Gatsby was a piece of sh*t when it was first published. As long as you’re making the work that you love, public reaction doesn’t have to dictate or control you. It can be useful, but it’s never the end of the world.

Jon Westenberg
Jon Westenberg

Getting all those fancy hearts and re-shares is definitely a great thing. Having more sales this month than last month is definitely something to celebrate. But at the end of the day, it’s actually just us, the art that we love and we do, and the people appreciating it – be it 10 people or 1,000 people. There are tons of products out there and millions of people post stuff online everyday. To get even five people to like your work – that is something.