I Am Entitled to Body Hate

Yesterday was not a pretty day. I was not feeling it. I was not feeling it at all.

I was getting ready for an event and none of my clothes were agreeing with me. Mountains of them all over the closet in protest. Big piles of nope. And since I've been riding high on the lady emotion train, I shut the door and just cried. This alerted Andy because the closet door only shuts for two reasons: I'm having sex or I have Kit Kats.

Why is the door shut?

Because I can't let the kids see me upset with my body right now, it's not allowed.

As a mother, a moment of low self-esteem was a luxury I felt like I was no longer entitled to.

A few weeks ago I taped a television piece, and the camera man was shooting up at me, like, from the ground. Upshots, in general, should be illegal and punishable by a nail gun to the throat, but when I politely said something to him, he came back at me with mind-f*ckery.

If it's at all possible, could you maybe shoot me at face level? I feel like my body looks really unflattering at a low level, it's a woman thing.

Hey, where's all that body love you were preaching about?

Because I love my body, I'm not entitled to have a say in how it's portrayed, and I have to like every shot of it, or I fail at self-love. It's like this guy has never been in a tagged Facebook photo eating before.

Last night, I lay in bed and let this all process, and I've come to the conclusion... it's bullsh*t. Here I was getting more and more upset about the feelings I'm not supposed to be entitled to, either because I'm a mom or a confident woman, what have you, I don't get them anymore. Thinking about how these emotions were yanked away from me, I just got angrier.

I do love my body, and I am confident in my skin, but I miss those feelings. They weren't fun feelings or even proud feelings, but they were human feelings that I need to feel to remind myself that I'm flawed and I'm growing and that I can't feel guilty when moments of body hate slip in there every now and then.

I can't pretend as a mother or as a woman that they don't happen; I can only model how to bounce back enough that the love moments outnumber the hate moments.

And that is a beautiful thing.

This post originally appeared on Brittany, Herself.

Also on HuffPost:

After the media focused on her alleged weight gain in September 2012, Gaga hit back at critics by baring her body in photographs, sharing her struggles with an eating disorder, and inviting her fans to join her in a "body revolution."

Adele says she tries not to worry about her body image and doesn't want to be a "skinny minnie." "The first thing to do is be happy with yourself and appreciate your body -- only then should you try to change things about yourself."

The actress took to Twitter to say, "I'm not trying to be hot. I'm just trying to be a good actress and entertain people."

After the March 2012 frenzy around Judd's "puffy face," the actress fought back in The Daily Beast, calling the media out for making women's bodies "a source of speculation, ridicule, and invalidation, as if they belong to others."

Tate's essay about body image and motherhood not only broke the Internet; it has sparked a movement of "moms who stay in the picture."

On her informed, thoughtful blog "The Beheld," Autumn writes about beauty, body image, appearance and her two -- that's right, two -- mirror fasts.

Gruys went on a year-long mirror fast during which she did not study her reflection in mirrors or other reflective surfaces, or look at photographs of herself.

"I am always in support of someone who is willing and comfortable in their own skin enough to embrace it," the singer said in a recent interview.

At the 2012 New Yorker Festival, the magazine's TV critic, Emily Nussbaum, asked Lena Dunham, producer, creator and star of the hit HBO show "Girls," why Dunham is naked in so many scenes. Dunham responded, "I realized that what was missing in movies for me was the presence of bodies I understood." She said she plans to live until she is 105 and show her thighs every day.

Chung responded to critics who suggested that her slight frame made her a bad role model for young women, saying: "Just because I exist in this shape doesn't mean that I'm, like, advocating it."

The NYU student started the amazing Body Love Blog, where she posted this picture of herself and wrote an open letter to those who feel entitled to shame others for the size or look of their bodies.

This 5-foot-tall, 200-pound singer spoke openly about her weight to The Advocate, saying, "I feel sorry ... for people who've had skinny privilege and then have it taken away from them. I have had a lifetime to adjust to seeing how people treat women who aren't their idea of beautiful and therefore aren't their idea of useful, and I had to find ways to become useful to myself."

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