My PCOS Life pt.2

Now where did I leave off? Oh, right, my change of mindset! It did not happen overnight, but small changes were made. The first thing I wanted to attack was my weight. I have never been satisfied with my body; I was skinny in my teenage years and early 20s. Then around 23ish, I started to gain weight noticeably. I was not fat, but I had more meat on the bones than I was used to, making me self-conscious.

So, let’s run through my symptoms: hormonal acne, facial hair, and weight gain. I knew something had to give, or my symptoms would keep increasing. Shame is a powerful emotion because I knew logically that I needed to change my lifestyle. Still, I was too embarrassed to entirely accept what was happening to my body.

This is where the mindset change comes in; at some point during my 24th year of life, I said enough is enough. Maybe it was the 2020 pandemic and being quarantined, but changes were made. I remember doing an activity of going to the mirror and staring at myself for 5 minutes and writing down everything I saw. I only wrote the flaws I saw and burst into tears when I reread what I wrote. I finally realized or maybe accepted that I did not love myself.

I knew the first step was to at least get to the point of liking myself and feeling worthy enough to take care of myself genuinely. I had to learn to stop punishing myself for everything I was not and who I thought I should be. That’s when I began saying my daily affirmations and once again took myself back to therapy to get back on track with my healing journey.

My goal was to love and celebrate myself. I’m a work in progress, but I promise in part 3 that y’all will be proud of my growth! But on the road to acceptance, I was still trying to hide and do a quick fix of my symptoms instead of doing the necessary lifestyle changes.