The Body I Tried to Escape: A Story of Coming Home

There was a time I didn’t want to have a body at all.

Not because I thought I was more than my body—but because I believed I would finally be happy if I could just float above it. If I could be a disembodied mind—thinking, dreaming, creating—without the weight of flesh, without the shame, without the scrutiny.

I never felt like my body belonged to me.

Even when I was thin as a young woman, long before I had my children, I didn’t feel thin. I didn’t feel beautiful. I didn’t feel… home. My body was something separate from me, something I carried rather than inhabited. And it never seemed to be the right one.

At twelve or thirteen, my breasts came in fast and full—before I had the language to understand what was happening. Before I had the safety to hold it. They became the center of attention, drawing looks and comments I didn’t ask for. That early, unwanted attention made me want to disappear, to go invisible inside my own skin.

After becoming a mother at a young age, I carried extra weight. I was curvy, and with every curve came a deeper sense of shame. I watched the scale rise and my sense of worth fall. I didn’t recognize the woman in the mirror—and worse, I didn’t want to know her. She was the opposite of everything I had been taught to admire.

As a teenager, I learned to punish myself into silence—through anorexia and bulimia. I chased thinness like salvation. I thought if I could just get small enough, I might finally be free. But no matter what I did, it was never enough.

I fragmented myself.

My eyes? Beautiful.

My hair? Praise-worthy.

My breasts? Desired.

But my stomach? My thighs? My arms?

Unacceptable. Shameful. Never enough.

Men wanted me sexually, but that didn’t mean I felt attractive. It didn’t mean I felt loved. It didn’t make me feel beautiful.

At some point, I made a conscious decision: Trying to fix my body isn’t the path to peace. I had seen too many women around me—women I loved—starve themselves in pursuit of self-love that never came. I knew in my bones that the relationship I had with my body was my work. That it had to be an internal revolution.

But knowing that didn’t stop the war.

Even as I worked to fall in love with myself—a journey that truly began in 2016—my body remained the final frontier. My soul was awakening, my mind was expanding, my heart was healing… but my body? She was still the one I judged most harshly. The temple I still couldn’t fully revere.

It wasn’t until 2023—just recently—that I can say I fell in love with her.

It came slowly, like sunlight creeping over mountains. One moment at a time. One mirror at a time. One sacred yes at a time.

But even now, the layers continue to peel.

Just yesterday, I realized I still hold a belief—buried deep—that bodies like mine, while they can be loved, while they can be beautiful, aren’t attractive. That there’s still some external standard I haven’t entirely released. And in that moment, I saw another doorway into healing. Another invitation to meet myself with grace.

This is what healing really is—it’s not a straight line, and it’s not a final destination. It’s a spiral. A gentle return. A homecoming that happens over and over again.

I’ve done damage to myself in the name of being beautiful on someone else’s terms.

But I’m not doing that anymore.

Now, I define beauty by how free I feel in my own skin.

By how much I laugh.

By the way I dance even when no one’s watching.

By how gently I touch my belly and say, thank you for carrying me.

By how I’ve learned to forgive the girl who wanted to disappear.

Because now, I don’t want to float above my body anymore.

Now, I want to live inside her—with all her curves and scars and stories.

I want to stay.