Don't Take Your Body Seriously, Kids

where i open up about my Scoliosis, body image issues, and more.

recently, i read a personal essay by Nora Ephron on her adolescent obsession with (her) breasts. even before i reached the end (the last line made me laugh out loud), i started thinking about my own adolescent obsession with certain parts of my body.

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one fine morning in 2011, i woke up with pain in my back. a few visits to the doctor and a full-body MRI later, it was revealed that i had Scoliosis. if you’re not familiar with what Scoliosis is, please refer to the Wikipedia page, which ranks surprisingly low on Google (glad to see that people aren’t rushing to Wikipedia to get their regular dose of terrifying medical info).

simply explained, Scoliosis is a medical condition where your spine is curved. the seriousness of the disease depends on the degree of curvature. a curved spine can sometimes push into other organs, causing all sorts of issues. if you’re clueless and curious, you can simply type “Scoliosis” into Google’s image search — i’ve checked this and it’s not as terrifying as you’d imagine.

from the time i started experiencing the backache to the moment we finally discovered the cause of it, my memory has retained only two vivid visuals. first, is that of me dramatically lying on my bed and crying as i endure the pain. the second one features my parents and me in the doctor’s cabin, as he deciphers the huge MRI scans. he then proceeds to tell us that we must immediately consider surgery (a terrifying process where they would slit open my body and use screws to straighten my spine). understandably, this was a lot of information — not just for a teenager but for two forty-something old parents as well. i can recall an unstoppable urge to cry that was suppressed by the panic i witnessed on my parent’s faces. i think my mother might have even shed a tear at the hospital (i’m not too sure about this though). what transpired next is irretrievable. the only relevant bit of information to this little anecdote is that my parents decided not to go ahead with the surgery. instead, they decided to try physiotherapy first.

for the next few weeks, or maybe months, i would visit a physiotherapy institution of sorts — let’s call it the Physiotherapy Place. i was asked to wear a skintight full-sleeves V-neck black T-shirt (that still sits in some corner of my wardrobe. a relic of sorts).

once a week (on Wednesdays, i think), i would catch a rickshaw to a pre-decided location where my mother would pick me up and then drive me to the Physiotherapy Place. i was a sheltered child who wasn’t allowed to wander too far from where she lived. even my school was just a 10-minute drive away. i had never traveled alone in a rickshaw before. i should have been excited by this new development, but all i felt was an anxious tingling in the pit of my stomach.

on my first day at the Physiotherapy Place, i was told that one of my legs is smaller than the other, courtesy of Scoliosis. this invariably put more pressure on one foot. i am not sure how long i attended these sessions but i remember dreading every second of it. from what i can conjure up from my memory, it seems like the physiotherapists were trying to physically straighten my spine. which sounds ridiculous to me, at this point because i remember the doctor telling us that once you start menstruating, it’s not really possible to rectify the curvature without surgery. yet, for some reason, i continued to visit the place for a shortlived period of time.

at the Physiotherapy Place, they would tie ropes around my body and pull on them and try to stretch my spine in strange ways. it was slightly painful and straight-up weird.

at some point, the backache disappeared and i stopped visiting the Physiotherapy Place. till date, i’m not sure if both those facts are related or not.

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a few weeks ago i noticed a strange swelling/bump at the back of my ear. unlike many people who might instinctively resort to Google in a situation like this, my immediate reaction was to seek a trusted adult’s advice (my mother) and leave it at that. for some reason, i lacked the urge to find answers outside of me.

similarly, i’ve never aggressively Google-d Scoliosis. whatever little information i have today (which is also adequate in my opinion) is enough for me to understand how it affects my body. today, i know that the S-shape curve of my spine is not life-threatening, thankfully. today, i know that going for surgery, in my case, would be a cosmetic decision and not a medical one. today, i know that my body is relatively more vulnerable than any other person and i need to take good care of it.

however, i didn’t know this as a teenager. my Scoliosis wasn’t introduced to me like a medical condition. instead, it was spelled out as a list of physical abnormalities that seemed to dent my womanhood. unfortunately, the S-shaped curve of my spine had messed up the beautiful symmetry of my body and i didn’t take that well.

this is what Scoliosis had done to my body: one of my shoulder blades was protruded and stuck out like a solitary wing on a fairy’s back. the left side of my abdomen was also pushed outward in an abnormal way. both my breasts were (visibly) of different sizes. the left side of my waist appeared bulkier than the right. i was also told that there was a difference in the heights of both my legs.

of course, today i am aware of how invisible everything i just described is. however, back then, i was aghast. i felt like my body had betrayed me. as someone who was often shamed for having an unusual amount of body hair (i have A LOT of it), i had little confidence to fall back on anyway. in seventh grade, my mother finally allowed me to start visiting the salon so that i could get (only) my legs waxed. i would find myself dreading the last two weeks of every month for that’s when the wild forest growing on my legs would become visible from a distance. i used to look forward to Wednesdays when we’d wear our sports uniform: a t-shirt and track pants for both boys and girls (!!!). on top of this, i also had (still have) acne to worry about.

but here’s the thing - acne and body hair were visible to the outside world. there wasn’t much i could do about it. on the other hand, my Scoliosis abnormalities felt like a secret i could hide from the world if i tried hard enough.

each time i would strip in front of the mirror, i felt a paralyzing amount of shame and fear. i was mortified by what i was looking at (even though, in all honesty, it was barely noticeable), and the thought of people finding out was incredibly terrifying. i felt like i needed to harbour this secret for as long as possible. i felt like i wouldn’t survive being exposed and so i had to do everything in my power to hide this from the world because i could.

so that’s what i did. i grew my hair so it would cover my shoulder blades. i wore clothes that were slightly loose so that no one would notice the bulky left side of my waist. i ate less because i was scared of gaining stomach fat which would further accentuate the physical abnormality. i even wore brassieres that were padded only on one side to make my breasts appear even (this didn’t last very long because, honestly, it was just so uncomfortable and mildly traumatizing). unfortunately, i couldn’t do anything about my disproportionately sized legs. i hated every bit of my body and i couldn't imagine being seen.

if you speak to my school and college friends, they’ll tell you that i always wore a lot of jackets because i did. i continue to store many jackets and cardigans in my wardrobe. sometimes, people pointed it out. my excuse? i’m just cold. which is true. i am often cold. but that’s not why i wore jackets. i wore jackets to hide the bulkier left side of my waist and the disproportionately sized breasts and the unevenness of my abdomen. i felt protected, safe, unnoticeable with a jacket on and that’s all i wanted.

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i remember one particular incident: i was 16-17 years old, standing outside an ice cream shop with a friend who, at some point in the conversation, jokingly pointed at my chest and laughed out loud. she found it hilarious that the top i was wearing made it look like my breasts were of different sizes. my ultimate fear had finally come true, and it wasn’t as bad as i had expected. only because i had never imagined anyone really finding out, you know? i was definitely consumed by my body dysmorphia but i also believed that i could be successful in hiding it forever. naturally, i laughed it off. what else could i do? behind that awkward laugh, i felt exposed, frightened.

until then, i had told no one about my Scoliosis. but that one incident turned things around. not immediately, of course. i still carried the secret with me to college where i continued to wear jackets and feel envious of women who could wear crop tops and bodycon dresses with so much ease and confidence.

i’m not really sure of what happens next in this story so forgive me for being so vague.

at some point, i just happened to casually mention that i have Scoliosis to a close friend. if you’re wondering what led to it — well, join the club. i don’t remember the exact details of the conversation. however, i do remember calling my mother up immediately after and telling her that i felt immensely relieved and didn’t feel the need to ‘hide’ it anymore.

thankfully, i’ve reached a point where i can tell a total stranger about it. which, i feel, is a big deal. writing this essay is an even bigger deal and i can’t believe i’m actually doing it.

however, this does not mean that all my uncomfortable, complicated feelings and insecurities have vanished. now i have a NEW set of uncomfortable, complicated feelings to deal with. when i talk about my Scoliosis now, i always feel like i am compensating. i am also fearful that if i stop talking about it, i might go back to the hell i experienced in my teenage years. once in a while, i’ll stand in front of the full-length mirror in my room and feel the uneven terrains of my body — a reminder that it’s real. a reminder that it doesn’t have to matter even though it’s real.

if you’ve ever heard me bring up my Scoliosis in a conversation and felt like the interruption was out-of-context and unnecessary — you’re right. i do that sometimes, and i don’t think i have any intention of stopping it.

when i opened up about my Scoliosis to my childhood friend, she was quite surprised that i had never mentioned it before. when i began to describe how my Scoliosis manifested, she was amused. she laughed when i told her about my disproportionate breasts and said that it’s completely normal for breasts to not be the exact same size. i was dumbfounded and slightly offended. i have never had the courage to Google and check if that’s actually true though. because if it is - did i go through all that for nothing?

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for those of you still invested, this story has a happy ending: on 31 December 2020, i achieved a personal milestone. i let go of all my Scoliosis-related insecurities and wore a bodycon dress! i had ambitiously picked up the dress on a work trip to goa in 2018, but never had the courage to actually wear it in a public space.

there are so many more little details in this story that i can’t fit into one newsletter. maybe i’ll get around to writing about that later in life. for now, i’m just going to leave you with a celebratory photo of me in a dress i was positive i would never actually wear in public:

thank you for reading! conversations are welcome.