Healing Broken Body Images
My boyfriend has a lot of moles and skin discolorations and he hated them. He used to tell me essentially that when he looked in the mirror he felt like a kindergartener took a marker and permanently defaced his body. He used to get called stupid shit and get made fun of for them and even his mother's response was to tell him that they would get them removed. Not assuage his fears or tell him that it wasn't right of people to treat him like that or that they were wrong. And that disgusted me.
Because I love his moles. I used to giggle and play with them or run my fingers over them and it saddened me that he would get upset with me, but I understood. Because, honestly, no one likes it when people remind them of things they see as flaws. But I managed to make him understand that I wasn't laughing at him that I thought they were cute and touching them made me happy. Over time he became more and more comfortable with me touching them and eventually I took to giving the ones I could reach a little peck of a kiss. (I can't reach them all unless we're laying down because I'm super short and he's over 6'0.)
Now after 7 years, he doesn't look at them like something that's wrong with him. When I touch them or kiss them he smiles and smiles wider still with each subsequent little peck and kisses the top of my head... Now despite his mother still offering to get them all removed, he declines. The only ones he still wants to get rid of are the two that make it hard for him to shave his face. (They get caught in the razor and it's really painful.) He's stopped looking at them like stains or blemishes, and started looking at them as part of what makes him unique, part of what makes up the man his girlfriend loves
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Never forget that your words, your actions can heal just as much as others can hurt. You just have to put in the same time and effort it took to do the damage in the first place.
