“Is this what you wanted?” is the number one thing that kept going through my head when I was taking these portraits.

The ‘you’ I was talking about was society as a whole, really, and the pressures they put on women to look a certain way.

I weigh 129 lbs.

I haven’t been this small since I was in high school.

This isn’t a brag post. I am not really proud of myself in any way. I’m not disappointed either.

This is an awareness post.

I weighed almost 200 lbs at the end of my pregnancy with Floyd.

I never paid much attention to what size I was honestly. I knew I was pregnant and I was being as active and eating as healthy as I could stand. I craved ice cream A LOT and tried to keep my eating-of-ice cream in check.

I was also constantly STARVING. I wanted food constantly. So healthy food or not, I was going to gain weight.

Then there’s the fact that I wanted Carl’s Jr, Chick Fil A, Cane’s, Chipotle, Firehouse, and maybe a few other high end fast food chains, regularly.

I also craved fruit. Like, alllllll the fruit and any other ‘light’ foods. Like sandwiches.

I gained 50 some odd pounds.

I only lost 20 or so when Floyd was born, if that. So, for about 10 months, I just was the size I was. I didn’t lose or gain weight. It was hard to dress myself in the summer months because all my clothes were too small.

But I was accepting that.

I did buy a new pair of jeans for winter because I needed pants. Desperately. But I didn’t want to buy new clothes when I had no idea what size I would be in the future.

Then Floyd started eating more food, dropped the amount he nursed, and I started my cycle.

All those changes, aka hormones, caused me to start rapidly losing weight.

Hormones.

And I kept losing weight.

Then Dad died.

I kept losing weight.

And even more.

And then still more.

And now I weigh 129 lbs, completely full. 126 if I am hungry.

That weight loss is PURELY from my hormones regulating and grief.

I didn’t do a damn thing different.

I did nothing.

These last 6 months, allll I have thought about is how my hormone change and my grief/sadness/depression have made me lose weight.

That is how my body responded.

I had no control over it.

But I have become the size society is comfortable seeing a woman be.

I am what people think I should look like.

But numerous people have the opposite response to grief and their hormonal changes do the opposite.

Their trauma, their medicine, their pain, their sadness, their grief, their depression, their bodies natural makeup, their hormones, make them GAIN weight.

And they become an ‘unacceptable’ size.

They become what society is uncomfortable seeing.

People like to say “If you would just eat better” “If you would just exercise” “If you would just eat less” “If you just didn’t take those meds” etc, etc.

None of that is it.

All of those phrases have judgement and shame behind them, and those do NOTHING to empower people to actually change their lives.

If we, as a society, could care a little less about what people look like, and a LOT more about a person’s physical and mental wellness, the world would be a better place.

People don’t grow and change from a place of shame and feeling judged. They grow and changed when they are loved, heard, taken care of, mentally well, nurtured, and never ever shamed or judged.