Aw Styna! Body image can really take a beating from life experiences, illnesses and stresses over the years, but there's compassionate help out there to address this. Someone to talk to that deals with women and body image, and transitions. I know from another thread that you've had to deal with illness. Any kind of big shift or trauma can really affect how one feels about oneself on deep levels until some sort of resolution happens. Might be worth looking around although I know that can be challenging since you had mentioned living away from town.
In the process of counselling, one will come to appreciate one's body and what it can do in the present, and often an appropriate, enjoyable form of movement or fitness training follows. One can't help one's particular bone structure but one can learn new things and come into deeper, positive awareness of one's body. The thing that really empowers women in their bodies is finding something they can do and feeling their bodies acquiring new capabilities, which is different from "OMG - my hips are so fat!" etc. - it's about coming into what's good for YOUR body, not someone else's. That alone can be a real revelation for women, who are more used to comparing their bodies to impossible media standards, or worse yet, being made fun of for one thing or another when young, or even in the present! Even subtle, or not-so-subtle parental messages affect one this way. I know, those early painful experiences can stay with one a LONG time! As women, we are subjected to a barrage of stuff about this and it can really hold us back from having a happier more whole life.
Trust me Styna, even though I don't know what your body looks like, I know there's a sweet strong person in there who wants to get healthy and have a better relationship with your given body. Hope any of this helps - forgive me if I've crossed a line anywhere.
