As a bigger woman, I’ve always had anxiety about clothing swaps. The idea sounds really fun to me, but the reality is that most of my friends are much smaller than I am and I don’t always fit into their cute clothes. Recently, my friends were all getting together for a swap and I really didn’t want to miss out, so I finally just sucked it up and overcame my life-long anxiety by drinking a shrinking potion.
There’s a lot of societal pressure telling women that we need to look a certain way to be happy. And for many years, I definitely felt paralyzed by those unhealthy demands. It feels so good to finally be on the other side of that impossible ideal, so I can stand tall and embrace my new body that is thin and perfect because I bought a potion from a witch.
It took a lot out of me but in the end, the payoff was so, so worth it.
Because the truth is, no one can make you feel good about yourself. You have to derive your self-confidence from within. Specifically from within your veins where the shrinking potion is magically altering every cell in your body until you shrink down a few sizes while howling in excruciating pain. No one ever said the road to body-acceptance would be easy!
In the end, of course, it was all worth it. The clothing swap was so fun! We drank wine and ate hummus and celebrated being independent women! I actually didn’t take any clothes because it turns out everyone uses clothing swaps to bring out their oldest, rattiest, shit from H&M, but I felt powerful knowing that I could have fit in almost anything! Sure I had to agree to someday give my first-born daughter to the witch in exchange for the potion, but it’s a small price to pay to have a fun, stress-free night with your friends! Plus, I might not even have kids – she said there was a chance the potion would make me barren. Fingers crossed, I guess!
It feels good to know that I’ll never have to say no to a clothing swap again. Although once again my friends aren’t the same size as I am. I haven’t stopped shrinking and I’m the size of a teacup now. Oh well! None of our bodies are perfect, and that’s what makes us beautiful! Well, my body is perfect, just really, really tiny.
I’m proud to say that I overcame body dysmorphia by permanently dysmorphing my body through magic. Because when I really looked inside myself, all I had to do was answer a witch’s three riddles to know that I am worth it, and so are you.
