2 months postpartum... I feel distant from my pre pregnancy body/self but I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything else. Even at my lowest weight, I would look in the mirror and point out my flaws. I would zoom in on my skin folds of photos and be ashamed. Why do we do this to ourselves? Now I look back on my old photos and think “I look so beautiful, why did I believe that about myself? Why was I so hard on myself?” It wasnt until I turned 23 that I finally stopped creating unrealistic standards and quit Facetuning my images. Sharing unedited images felt like I removed the weight of societal pressures right from my shoulders. I felt so empowered embracing what I really looked like, which is beautiful!! Then I became pregnant and felt awkward in my body. A feeling I hadn’t experienced since high school. I felt almost guilty that I was visibly pregnant. I felt judged, I could feel the weight of societal pressures slowly inching their way back onto my shoulders. It made me want to hide, to cover up and wait until I looked like “me” again. I tried fighting this pressure but on most days I was so exhausted from creating a human. Just when I thought I had experienced exhaustion, I gave birth. Then I became delusional from the sleepless nights. Nothing could have prepared me for the intense anxiety that I experienced when my baby would cry. I was in constant fight or flight mode. I genuinely could not relax because I was in constant fear of my baby being in pain, suffocating or underfed. On top of this I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize myself. I literally looked like a different person. It was confusing and I felt ashamed. I started picking myself apart again. You don’t understand how many times I wanted to Facetune my images and pretend that I looked smaller than I really was. I felt like I had to bounce back like all of the other moms that were in bikinis 2 weeks postpartum. Continued in comments