 Welcome lovely internet friends to my office on the floor where today we are gonna be eating chocolate and talking about a very frustrating issue But one that is very much worth talking about. So in my escapades on the internet in my content creation over on TikTok I follow a lot of really cool people. One of whom is this gal. Her name is Tia B Stokes You may well recognize her face from her TikToks and YouTube videos and Instagram talking about dancing her way through cancer on April 24th 2020 Tia was diagnosed with cancer had to go into the hospital during the height of COVID when no one could be with her Had to leave her family lost her mom during that period and spent over a year Fighting for her life pretty recently She went into remission and was able to ring that bell and in the last couple months as she has been celebrating being alive And going through this fight and continuing with some treatments Her comment section has begun to shift just a little bit and that my dear friends is what we are talking about today Is there chocolate in my teeth? Hopefully not So it's not gonna be a shock to anyone listening to learn that our society places a lot of value on your body on how you Physically look on the shape and the texture and the makeup of your skin and what lies beneath it I don't think many people disagree that we focus on this to a very unhealthy extent the rise of eating disorders Disordered ways of viewing our bodies diet culture. It's all very troubling But it is a fact in our society that if you fit the definition of conventionally attractive that you are gonna be seen and treated differently So a couple months ago I started to see Tia's comment section shift a little bit and then she started making videos about it People were commenting that she looked like she gained weight. They were commenting. She's fat now I don't know who thinks that's okay to comment But let's move past that and with utter grace and respect to others absolute class Tia responded to these comments with a few different videos and Instagram posts talking about you know This physical change talking about being on a very high dose of prednisone that was helping her stay alive And that one of the side effects for that is often weight gain. Yes prednisone is not a fun Medicine, but it is keeping me alive But these comments have continued on and looking at it from an outside party It seems like a very accurate meter barometer if you will on our society of what we value and what we Don't value. So let's recap this for just a second Here's a woman who has spent a year probably the hardest year of her life fighting through something Terrifying something that takes millions of people's lives having to be isolated away from her family poked in prod Go through significant loss and amazingly she has made it through that her body has gotten her through that But as soon as it does that and as soon as it starts to change and look a little bit different than how I did before suddenly the tone of the support starts to shift a little bit because We deem weight gain as a society as this awful bad very bad. No good I've said that way too many times, but you get what I'm meaning as a bad thing People see fit to comment on this body that has allowed her to live that has allowed her to survive Suggesting that it is wrong and it is a bad thing and the hole in my opinion bullshit argument of I'm commenting on your weight Because I care about your health that doesn't even you can't eat like you don't even have a foot to stand on Get it a foot to stand on in this argument because this is all very monitored by her doctors, right? Let me just repeat the fact that when people say that in comment sections I think it's an absolute cop out But if someone was gonna make that argument you can't because doctors are very involved in her body and have this working right now Which brings us to the very real fact There is a faction of people out there that see her body as now wrong now that it has survived hell and back But it doesn't look the way that some people think it should look anymore And she sucked about her own struggle with this her own struggle with body image because I honestly Don't know anyone who is immune to struggling with the way that they physically view themselves and having shame and difficulty in that I am one of those people I dealt with an itty disorder from age 15 to about 20 I was able to get past a lot of the unhealthy behaviors associated with that But a lot of the unhealthy thoughts still weasel their way into my mind Sometimes on a daily basis this past year has been weirdly difficult for how I see my body I really struggle not to hate it. I really struggle not to critique it I really struggle not to like try to punish myself with exercise if I feel like I've eaten too much Which I'm legitimately embarrassed to say out loud worry about how I'm perceived and seen because in my mind My physical form is still linked to my worth as a human being to my worth and my value in society Now do I actually believe those two things are tied? Do I actually think if I gained 50 or 100 pounds I would be worth any less as a person? No, absolutely not but society's subconscious programming sure tells us that doesn't it beauty standards of what is considered ideal have shifted over time Right now we're in a phase where being athletic and or skinny you get the stamp of approval from society as a whole Okay, and if your body which allows you to survive which in Tia's case has gotten her through hell Has helped her fight through something that very easily could have taken her life that does take the lives of so many people When that body responds to treatments that she is being given and starts to change a little bit What it looks like suddenly some of the support and compassion and kind words start to melt away And honestly, I don't know how useful it would be to make a video saying this is Absolutely stupid and makes me sick and very angry But I am gonna say those things being in the social media landscape as I am far too often I see comment sections of men women non-binary people however you identify just being flooded and filled with shameful awful comments about how they look or don't look and as someone who has felt the effect of Society's pressure to be a certain way every day of my adult life. I'm really deeply over it so many times in my life that I have not done something or I've made myself as a Person in some way smaller or not attended an event or not wore something I wanted to or not gone after a dream that I had because of something that I thought about my body I've thought about the literal countless hours that I have wasted being concerned about numbers That are sewn on two pieces of clothing garments sizes being legitimately stressed About that devoting so much of my mental energy to it And I'm so mad going back to a video from a week or two ago where I was talking about being angry about everything I'm so mad that we live in a society that has allowed people to grow up this way and think this way that has Bred a culture that thinks it is okay to comment being things on the videos of someone who has just survived cancer Whose body has gotten them through it It is heartbreaking to me that our young people and our older people are subject and have to waste their lives thinking about these standards because as someone who is very aware of my body from a Surgery and chronic pain and chronic illness perspective There are so many more important things to worry about and think about then what your body looks like And I say that as someone who worries and thinks about it way too much. This is a fight I am actively engaged in but seeing what was happening with Tia online and the comments that she was getting and the like I said very classy very lovely response videos She was making to these people saying comments that frankly had no place to ever be said just really drove home The point for me that we are very lost when it comes to this subject Like I realize it's been this way for a while But how have we gotten to the point we're commenting at all on the shape the size the makeup of someone's body Especially someone who has just gone through something so catastrophic and life altering with their body Where we think that's okay where we think that's like a an okay thing to do this seeps into everything Like I have had so many conversations with friends who have gone through major life events gained a few pounds and are now Absolutely crushed. They do not fit into the same size of jeans that they did a year or two before That comment is in no way shaming them for thinking that because I know how we get there, right? I know this is I do that we live in but the fact that we are programmed to think that way that we are programmed to focus Not on our mental health after we've gone through something so drastic But on the fact that you're no longer a size six you're now a size eight and oh my god What are people gonna think the fact that anyone would think anything about that ever is astonishing to me And speaking on a personal level as I was going through major surgeries Losing my leg and then going through it again because I had a fall and it messed things up the first time Those were very present thoughts in my head as I was like laying in the hospital Recovering of being like well I still shouldn't eat too much even when I'm in the hospital recovering from surgery because of the visual impact It could have on my body like I didn't give into those thoughts But still they were there and that just pisses me off But I just wanted to bring up this story in particular because it's really heartbreaking to see and I hope that by Identifying these things by looking at them and by saying as a culture Wow This is really messed up that maybe things can begin to change We are all infinitely so much more valuable and sacred and Incredible than the skin we inhabit but even that is beautiful and worthy. So Tia if you happen to be watching this I think you're delightful I think you're an absolute warrior your rockstar keep doing what you're doing your amazing girl and to you watching this video If you are someone like me who also struggles with thoughts of of your physical appearance of your physical body of the skin That you're in know that you're not alone and that I am also working towards a mindset and a world in which we do not Have such a focus on this because gosh darn it It is not what really matters and we just play so much focus on it and that makes me sad So I'm gonna continue to work towards changing it and I hope that you will join me Thank you so much my delightful audience for listening today. I truly appreciate it. This resonates with you I would love it if you'd share this video if you have a thought a comment any feedback Please leave it down below I would love to hear your responses hit the like button if you feel so inclined to my amazing patrons over on patreon Thank you for supporting these videos for allowing me to do what I do here I couldn't do it without your generosity and I'm truly grateful to you watching this video right now Thank you so much for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today You could be anywhere else in the world doing anything else and you chose to hang out with me for a few minutes And I truly appreciate that. I love you guys. I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video. Bye guys