Archive note: I originally published this personal reflection in April 2013 after another blogger’s honesty about body image prompted me to look back at my own experiences. I’ve cleaned the old formatting and made it easier to read, but I haven’t rewritten 2013 Clarissa into the person I am today. This post discusses bullying, disordered eating, self-harm and cosmetic surgery. It records my experience and is not medical, diet or cosmetic-surgery advice.
Where My Body Issues Began
I wasn’t a particularly big child — I was tall. Even when I was very young people assumed I was older than I actually was. I became the tall, skinny, long-haired kid with goofy teeth who people found easy to tease.
Puberty started young for me. I remember being around eight or nine when a friend pointed out that I had underarm hair. I went home upset and crying. Things like that stay with you when you’re already conscious of being different.
But while puberty seemed to arrive early in some ways, my body didn’t develop in the way I expected. By 17 or 18 I was still very small-chested and extremely slim.
Disordered Eating and Feeling Guilty About Food
At that point my size wasn’t simply my natural build. I wrote openly in the original post that I had an eating disorder and would starve myself. When I did eat, it was often quick things such as chocolate or fizzy drinks, followed by guilt and exercising.
That’s an important part of this archive because it gives more context to the complicated relationship with food I wrote about elsewhere. It wasn’t simply a case of wanting to lose weight years later — my feelings about food and my body went back much further.
Tall, Skinny and Shapeless
Clothes shopping could make those feelings worse. I remember shopping with Mum and hearing, “Why does nothing look right on you?” At the time I took it personally and assumed there was something wrong with me.
Even years later, on a bad day, I could still hear those words in my head.
I was bullied through much of my childhood and teens. By around 16 or 17 things began to change socially. I loved college, I was working and I had a boyfriend. In many ways life felt much better, but the body issues hadn’t disappeared.
Wanting to Look Like a Woman
One of the things I struggled with most was my chest. I didn’t want to look dramatically different; as I put it at the time, “I wanted to look like a woman.”
I tried various things before eventually deciding to have breast augmentation. I was thrilled with the results at the time. I also had liposuction on several areas of my body.
Looking back when I wrote this in 2013, I already had mixed feelings about some of those decisions. Not long after my breast surgery I became pregnant with KK, and later changes to my body meant I had further concerns with my implants and underwent more surgery.
This is my personal history rather than a recommendation for cosmetic procedures. Bodies, circumstances and medical decisions are individual, and anyone considering surgery should get appropriate professional advice.
When Body Image Wasn’t the Only Thing I Was Fighting
The original post became much more than a piece about clothes or weight. I wrote that I’d been through a lot of hurt and upset and that some periods of my life had included self-harm, drinking and smoking.
I wasn’t proud of everything I’d done, but I was trying to understand how I’d reached those points.
I even wrote that, if I could hitch a ride with Matt Smith, I’d go back through my own timeline and try to pinpoint where things started to go wrong and why. Apparently even my existential crises came with a Doctor Who reference. 😂
Body Image Can Hurt at Any Size
One reason I wanted to publish this in 2013 was to talk about the other end of the spectrum. Being thin didn’t automatically mean feeling confident or happy with my body.
People can be bullied and made to feel they don’t fit in at any age, shape or size. When you spend years feeling as though you’re outside the group, it can leave you believing you’re not good enough for anyone.
How This Connects to My Other 2013 Writing
Not long after this, I was also writing about food, weight, clothes, confidence and trying to change my life. I’ve preserved those overlapping posts together in Decisions to Make – Food, Confidence & Style | 2013 Archive.
Reading the two pieces alongside each other shows something that wasn’t necessarily obvious to me at the time: my relationship with my body had swung between feeling too thin, feeling shapeless, changing my body surgically, gaining weight, wanting to lose weight and repeatedly hoping the next change would finally make me feel better.
Looking Back From the Archive
I don’t want to tidy this history so much that it becomes a neat little story with an inspirational ending. It wasn’t neat.
What matters is that this post captured how I understood myself in 2013. Some of the language I used then isn’t language I’d choose now, but the feelings were real.
Body confidence was never just about a dress size. It was tangled up with growing up early, bullying, food, femininity, relationships, clothes, cosmetic surgery and how I thought other people saw me.
That’s why this one stays. Not because 2013 me had the answers, but because she was finally starting to ask where all of it came from.
If anything in this archive brings up difficult feelings around eating, self-harm or body image for you, please consider talking to someone you trust or seeking appropriate professional support.
