 Is my leg gross? Oh, beautiful internet friends. That is the question we are actually gonna tackle today. Welcome to Taboo Tuesdays on Wednesday, because I missed a day there. I wanted to really start tackling some more kind of taboo subjects, things people wouldn't normally feel comfortable asking or talking about on this channel. So today we're gonna talk about if I'm grossed out by my leg or other people's residual limbs, like their amputated body parts that are still attached, like stumps or nubbins. And what's appropriate to call them is a video for another time that we will get into. I feel like there's a way that I should answer this question and there's a way that I'm actually gonna answer this question. But before we dive in, I would like to thank Skillshare for sponsoring this video. Skillshare is actually a site that I have used for a while because I really like learning new things. And I don't know if you guys remember me talking at the beginning of the year about wanting to actually start writing. I've always wanted to write a book and I don't have a lot of practice writing lately. And so I logged on to Skillshare and I actually took a writing course and it was really, really helpful for me. And so I eventually reached out to them and partnered with them to do this video on a couple upcoming ones. So if you're like me and you like taking video classes from people who know what they're talking about, like Gary Vaynerchuk and Roxane Gay and all different kinds of people, definitely check out Skillshare. All you have to do to get a totally free trial is just click the link down below. Also, I've included links to my two favorite courses that I really enjoy taking. So without further ado, let's jump in. Does my leg gross me out? Another question that I got in conjunction with that is do other amputees gross me out? Do I feel weird about other amputees or did I ever? And let's start with that question because it kind of leads into this. The first time that I saw an amputated leg, like someone's residual limb in conjunction with the idea that I was about to look like that, it freaked me out. I never thought that before ever about an amputee. Like I had seen amputees legs before and thought like, oh, okay, like that's what they look like. I didn't get grossed out. I didn't get weird. I didn't anything. But the second I was like, I am about to become that. Like that is what my body is about to look like in a month. It was weird and uncomfortable. And I don't super love saying that because I don't feel like that's a really socially appropriate answer to have necessarily, but I did feel weird. I felt really weird about seeing that. I felt really weird about what I might look like, but I kind of wrote it off in my head. I was like, you know what, it's gonna be fine. I have tools to like work through my like self image issues because we've all had many of those, you know? Like I'll be fine. I won't care. I'll work through it, no big deal. And I vastly underestimated the impact that it would have on me. The impact in a lot of different ways, but especially when it came to body image, I've touched on this before, but I really naively thought that I would be fine. That it like wouldn't affect me, that I would just like rock it immediately, be A-okay. And that has not been the case. Like it's honestly weird to me still sometimes. There have been times when I look at my leg and I'm like, that's gross. And I don't want to look like that. And I don't know why anyone else would want to look at me, like my husband. A fear that I have, I love swimming, but I don't want to go swimming because I would have to like show people my leg, you know? Which is funny because I show the internet the world, my leg, and way more people are gonna see it online than would ever see it if I went to like a public pool to go swimming. But it still scares me because, I don't know, because it scares me because I know that I look different and because I'm insecure about it. Like I said, I never judged anyone or thought anything weird about any amputee before until it became my reality and then I got weird about it for me. So to answer that question, yeah. I absolutely have been grossed out by my own leg and as it's kind of changed over the last six months because if you don't know, like when I had surgery it was like super swollen and super nasty post-surgery looking as one could expect but I knew that it was gonna change and so this swelling has gone down and it's like change size and change shape and shrunk and continue to kind of shrivel up and all of that. Most of the time I'm totally fine with it and other times I am super uncomfortable and I don't want to look at it. I don't want to think about it. Part of my brain I think is in denial and thinks that like, oh I'm still recovering from surgeries it'll come back? Like one day it'll go back to normal? Obviously I'm fully aware of the fact that legs don't ever grow back. I think it's kind of like that brain denial thing to deal with a situation where I haven't totally made peace with the fact that this is forever and I don't walk around like feeling disgusting don't get me wrong. I don't at all. But there are definitely moments where I get intensely insecure and when I look at myself and I think I don't even want to look at this, you know? But on the flip side of that I also know that it's gotten better over the past few months. It used to be way more intense like a way more intense reaction of like oh this is gross I don't want to be this I don't want to look at like this but then as time has gone on I've gotten more adjusted to and I've gotten more like, this is alright, this is cool I've had more days where I'm perfectly okay with it than I'm not and the more that I've been around other people the more that I've like this is gonna sound terrible exposed myself to other people as in like been around people with my leg the easier that it's gotten I'm still super insecure about my leg being uncovered in front of anybody I don't think anyone except like my husband and my best friend and my mom have ever seen that again, aside from like the entire freaking internet world logic is funny, isn't it? The way our brains work is funny like it's always covered up I always have a shrinker on or like my liner on or something like that but I think that that insecurity and that like feeling if like this is gross will continue to fade and I also want to make really clear that I don't think that for anybody else that is literally just a personal judgment I have on myself that I will continue to work through because I don't want to feel that way about it like I want to accept myself I want to accept the way that I look it's just hard it's just weird when something changes so dramatically and permanently so to answer your question yeah, yeah for sure I've had times where I felt gross and like no one should look at me and like I don't want to look at me but those moments have gotten a lot easier those moments have gotten better as time has gone on and I expect them to continue to fade on a side note I also think it's actually been super helpful to have like an internet platform and to have you guys to share with and talk with because I have shared my leg I have like shown you my leg and the more that I get comfortable with that and the more people that are exposed to it this just sounds weird being able to show it to people being able to talk about it being able to get more comfortable or even like pretend that I'm comfortable even if I'm not comfortable with it in some situations helps me to actually get comfortable helps me to actually be okay like there was a video right after surgery where I was showing you my stitches I think it was and you can see like the swelling and you can see where there's like a distinctive scar down the middle which just makes it look weird and I am super uncomfortable with and I really didn't want to show that footage but also I wanted to make that video and I wanted to share my life with you a lot more than I wanted to hide and so it's been really useful to use social media and to use video as a way to help me get more comfortable with myself yeah so that is this week's Tuesday Tebu topic on Wednesday I'll work on having it on time next week we'll see if that happens thank you guys so much for listening I would like to give a huge shout out to my patrons you guys seriously make this possible I know I haven't end credit like I've said before thanking you guys but seriously thank you you brighten my day and you really support me and make all of this possible today's patron of the day is Andrew Cole thank you so much Andrew for being a part of my patronage of my patron team also thank you to Skillshare if this video was your cup of tea and you like cheesy jokes I'd love it if you hit subscribe for similar content and release videos pretty much every other day I don't really have a set schedule but I try to keep that and hit like on the video if you liked it I love you guys I'm thinking about you I'm excited to see you in the next video I really appreciate your support especially over the last couple days when things have been pretty rough and yeah I look forward to seeing you in the next video bye