taking my body back. (trigger warning, sexual assault.)

when i was 14, my body was taken from me.
i was still inside my body, but it wasn't mine anymore. and i didn't want it to be mine. didn't want anything to do with this body, a body i felt had betrayed me.

as a 12 year old, i loved using my body. i could run faster than anyone else in my grade, so fast i felt i was flying. i could jump high and far. turn cartwheels, do handstands, backbends. i was good at soccer and basketball. we played outside in the street, games like steal the flag and two hand touch football. my body jumped and ran and moved without thinking about it. there wasn't a question of if i loved my body, i was my body.

then i started changing, growing hips and breasts. other girls around me changed too. boys noticed us changing and talked about us and to us about the changes. i started to care about who was looking at me. i wanted boys to look at me, because if boys looked at you, it meant you were pretty, and being pretty meant you were worth something.

you had to be careful though, because you didn't want boys to look at you in the wrong way. like you were that kind of girl. the kind who dressed too immodestly and wanted boys to look at her that way. but you could walk the line a little, because boys liked girls who weren't too modest. so you started looking at yourself the way boys looked at you, so you would understand what they saw. their opinion of you was important.

in 8th and 9th grade boys started to like me. i wasn't the prettiest girl in my class, but i figured i was decently cute. my skin was blotchy and pimply, but i got up early to apply makeup. i learned how to style my curly hair. i was skinny like the boys liked, but i also had a solid B cup. which the boys also liked. how did i know this? because i heard boys talk all the time. and i looked at the girls all the boys liked, and that was how they looked.

i still played steal the flag and two hand touch football, and i still ran my fastest in gym class, but i also took my makeup bag to school so i could fix my face after we ran the mile. and instead of enjoying feeling my body move, i worried about my makeup smearing from sweat. there was one girl in gym class who was faster than me, but she had short hair like a boy and dressed in baggy gym shorts. the gym teacher encouraged my running and tried to motivate me to up my mile time, talked to me about running track. i did want to beat that girl, but i also wanted to be pretty. so i stopped trying to be the fastest. boys didn't look at her anyway.

that spring a neighborhood boy a year older than me started paying attention. he came over every day after school. he was tall, with dark curly hair, and dark eyes. he didn't talk a lot, and he listened even less. once i tried to show him a song on the piano. he started pounding the low keys and laughed. but he said he liked me. he even held my hand and tried to kiss me. i was too nervous; i'd never kissed anyone before. i would probably be bad at it, and then he wouldn't like me anymore.

that was the spring my body was taken from me. by the neighbor boy with the dark eyes.

it was my fault. it had to be.
i must have dressed too immodestly or seemed slutty.
i didn't scream, so i must not have made it clear.
it was because of my solid B cup, boys just can't help themselves. it's your job to help boys stay priesthood worthy. the line i'd heard multiple times at church.

i couldn't look myself in the eyes anymore. couldn't face the mirror.
i stopped running.
i went to soccer tryouts and left early. my body didn't work anymore.
high school started and i looked the same on the outside, but i wasn't me anymore.

i stopped using my body to do the things i loved, backyard football, running, basketball, jumping. and i started to eat. food was numbing and distracting. i slept through every class and went straight to bed after school. i put on weight, and then hated the way my body looked. my breasts grew even more. boys noticed and constantly asked me what cup size i was. boys who i had hardly said a word to. it was my body's fault that boys were always looking at me.

spring came around and i signed up for track with a friend. i tried to run, tried to feel like i was flying again, but something was wrong. my body wouldn't run, wouldn't fly.  there was one race where everything clicked and i sprinted on air and took first place. but other than that, i was average. which meant i was a failure. the next year i quit track.

throughout high school, boys continued to harass me about my body. there was one boy who i really thought liked me, who i really wanted to be my boyfriend. i even opened up to him and told him about the assault the year before. he seemed to care, but then not five minutes later said, "wow you have a really great body." i couldn't understand how this guy could say that to me minutes after i opened up about being sexually assaulted.  the next week he told me that if i didn't let him touch my boobs, we couldn't date anymore. after weeks of hearing this and seeing him drift away from me, i shamefully said he could while we were kissing. i froze up and felt like i was seeing the scene from above my body. i was in no way sexually aroused. it was terrifying. i couldn't understand how i was supposed to get a boyfriend without going to hell in the process. he stopped kissing me and said, "do you want to... you know." and then motioned to his pants. i was clueless and he could tell. he stood up and left. it was only much later i realized he was asking me to give him oral sex.
the next day i took him his favorite pumpkin cookies. "this isn't working for me." he said. and took the box of cookies and shut the door in my face.

the next seven years would be a spiral of depression, weight gain, trying to force myself to exercise with the sole purpose of losing weight, dating guy after guy who only wanted to get in my pants, especially the returned missionary variety. i'm trying to describe how much sexual harassment i've seen, but it would take so long to write it all down.
a man coming up to me at work telling me, "i'm well hung, i'd love to show you."
being told, "you'd be so gorgeous if you lost 15 pounds."
my bishop telling me i needed to change my shirt after a water fight at a church activity because "you look like a wet t-shirt contest winner."
male co workers suggesting i'm only good at my job because the teenage boys we worked with want to have sex with me.
the neighbor telling me her husband liked to watch me when i went running, so could i please put on more clothing.

it had been so long since i'd been that girl who loved to run fast and jump high and do cartwheels, that i couldn't even remember her. i was used to having this body that wasn't small enough, but that attracted all the wrong types of men. i'd attempted suicide because being inside my body just hurt too much to bear. my body was an object that i had to keep looking a certain way.

then i started dating travis and wanted to lose weight because he was so active. i was embarrassed of how out of shape i was. so i joined a gym and started to take classes. i tried a kickboxing class and felt something i hadn't felt since being a little girl. a warm feeling in my chest, almost a catch in my throat. while i was punching and kicking to the beat of loud music, i remembered.

my body is strong and powerful.
i am strong. i am powerful.

the feeling of my body moving, my muscles letting me jump and kick. the most beautiful feeling, like my body was my body again.

i started crying at the end of the kickboxing classes, because that young girl who didn't look at herself through the eyes of boys, who didn't hate her body for betraying her, she was still inside me. she was still me. 

i had many flashes of this feeling on and off for the last six years since i joined that gym.
and then this year i started to climb.

travis left for eight months and i knew i needed something to keep busy so the loneliness wouldn't kill me. my brother convinced me to join a rock climbing gym. rock climbing is intense. it is hard work to haul your body up a wall. but let me tell you, you feel like a rockstar, like the greatest champion who ever lived. we started going almost daily, two hours a day. for those two hours, all i had to do was concentrate on getting my body up the wall. every time we went, i was stronger and able to do harder climbs, overhangs with tiny holds. every time that adrenaline shot through me while i also felt a calming meditating state. the exhilaration of going from a fumbling mess of arms and legs scrambling, to a calm and steady lead climber.

but most of all, i loved my body and felt completely one with my body. my mind and body were on the same page, working to complete a physical goal. not a goal of looking a certain way for men to approve, but the goal of becoming a smoother, stronger, more confident climber.

with every climb, i've felt myself heal a little more. with every climb, i take back another piece of my body and claim it as my own, as whole, and as good.