I Hate My Body

So I’m going to change it

In 2023, a 26-year-old woman travelled out of her country for a Brazilian Butt Lift. She wanted a smaller waist, fuller hips, and a more “balanced” body, the kind she had been seeing online for years, the kind that now passes as the standard of beauty.

The surgery was supposed to be “routine,” something people do every day without thinking too much about it. But during the procedure, fat that was meant to enhance her body entered her bloodstream and travelled to her lungs, blocking blood flow in a matter of minutes.

It resulted in a pulmonary embolism, a complication that can be almost impossible to reverse in that moment.

She did not wake up.

In 2015, another woman, 29-year-old Joy Williams, died after traveling abroad for a Brazilian Butt Lift. Fat also entered her bloodstream during the procedure and caused a pulmonary embolism, blocking blood flow to her lungs.

In 2017, Shatarka Nuby, a mother of four, died after undergoing multiple cosmetic procedures in a single session. Her body could not handle the stress of the surgeries.

In 2018, Laura Avila went in for a nose job and ended up in a coma due to anesthesia complications. She never fully recovered.

In 2021, Joselyn Cano reportedly died following complications from cosmetic surgery, sparking conversations about how far people are willing to go to maintain a certain image.

In 2022, reports surfaced online, of multiple deaths linked to a single clinic in Miami, where doctors were accused of performing high-risk procedures back-to-back with little regard for patient safety, prioritizing work volume over actual patient care.

There have been cases of botched liposuction leading to internal organ perforation, where surgical instruments puncture vital organs, causing infections that spread rapidly through the body.

There are also countless cases of dermal fillers migrating from their original location, distorting facial features permanently and requiring repeated corrective procedures that never fully restore the original structure of the face.

These are not just random incidents, they are part of a pattern, and stories like this sound distant until you realize they are not rare.

The Brazilian Butt Lift is widely regarded as one of the most dangerous cosmetic procedures in the world, with mortality rates estimated to be as high as 1 in 3,000. That means people are not just risking a bad result, they are risking their lives.

And yet, the demand continues to rise. Over the years, the number of these procedures has increased drastically, with clinics fully booked, travel packages organized, and payment plans available, making it easier than ever for people to access something that could quite literally kill them.

At the same time, there is a growing number of people silently reversing these procedures. People are dissolving fillers, removing implants, and reducing the exaggerated results they once proudly showed off.

The same bodies that were once celebrated are now being undone.

Why?

You think it’s because they suddenly became “wrong?”

Nah.

It’s simply because the standard has shifted yet again.

And that, is precisely the problem.

Trends change, but the body will forever carry the consequences of the surgical knife.

This is not just about BBLs. Breast implants can rupture or harden over time, liposuction can lead to internal complications if not properly handled, and fillers can migrate or distort facial features in ways that require repeated correction.

None of these procedures exist without risk, and some of those risks are permanent. Yet people continue to sign up, not necessarily because they are unaware, but because they are exhausted from constantly feeling like their natural bodies are not enough.

Hi, it’s been a minute, but I’m back again. Did you miss me? Because I missed you.

The original title of this post was “The BBL Pandemic,” but I changed it because if we are being honest, this is not just about surgery. This is about body dysmorphia, body image, and the nagging, persistent dissatisfaction that follows a lot of us around whether we admit it or not.

I remember when I got my first pimple right in the middle of my forehead. I was about 10, around the same time I got my first period. My brother laughed when he saw it and said, “your first pimple.”

I immediately rejected it, insisting it was just a small dot. I popped it, thinking that was the end of it.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Back then, my brother had pimples all over his back and shoulders, and I knew I never wanted to look like that.

Unfortunately, not only did I look like that, I looked even worse.

I would later resort to buying all sorts of over-the-counter creams to deal with the spread of pimples across my face, arms, back, and even my shoulders.

Growing up, I hated my face so much that I convinced myself I was ugly. I hated my big, round, stupid nose, my huge forehead and my thin lips. I hated that I had pimples scattered all over my face.

I envied the girls with smooth skin, pointed noses, and faces free of pimples or dark spots.

I envied the light-skinned girls. To me, being dark-skinned automatically meant I was ugly and undesirable.

I remember one time in secondary school when I entered a cab with my light-skinned friend. There was a man sitting at the back seat of the car, in between two women. He looked at both of us and decided to pay for her. He said he would pay for the fair, fine girl.

It was a very awkward moment for both of us, and we never spoke about it.

But I remember how I felt in that moment.
Black, ugly, and worthless.
That one haunted me for a while.

Another time, I cut my hair very low. It was almost a skin cut, tbh.

A teacher brought me out of the class and said I looked so horrible and ugly with my shaved head. He said, and I quote, “who would ever marry someone like you.”

I remember being happy my crush was not in class when he did that cause it was during lunch break.

Truth is, if I had been given the option at that time, to surgically replace my skin with something flawless, I would have taken it without hesitation. That was how bad I hated how I looked.

I was genuinely shocked when I discovered that my crush liked me back, and even more shocked when he asked me out. I didn’t think I could ever be someone a guy would actually like.

After that, I started liking my face a little more, paying more attention to it. You know how it is when you have a thing with a guy in your class.

But just as I started to develop love for my face, the hate switched to my body.

Now, this one came in two phases.

Before the face hate became serious, I had already started hating my body.

When I hit puberty, I noticed the way my body was changing, the way my boobs were growing, and the way I started having armpit hair and pubic hair.

I hated it so much that I genuinely wished I could remain a child forever. The idea of puberty had always been a nightmare for me. I hated the periods, the pimples all over my face, and my new body.

I refused to wear a bra even when it was obvious I needed one, and I stayed in that phase for a while.

Now, the second phase of the body hate started after I began to like my face.

I was in senior secondary school then, SS2, to be precise, and everything flipped in the blink of an eye. I suddenly wanted curves, I wanted boobs, I wanted to be what people would call “thick.”

I remember wearing a double-padded foam bra every Wednesday with our sportswear uniform just so my chest would bounce when I ran, and thinking back now, I honestly wonder if people noticed. I was jealous of girls with fuller bodies, and I wanted to look like them so badly.

Later in life, my body did change. I got thicker, my hips filled out, my thighs became more pronounced, and my body started to look closer to what I had once wanted.

Infact in the first quarter of 2021, people even started calling me “Lara with the ass,” asking what I did and how it happened, but the truth is, it was just genetics. My mum and my aunts are built that way, and my body simply caught up.

Fast forward to a few months into the last quarter of 2021, I started hating the comments, I hated the way men looked at me when I wore fitted gowns, the way they stuck out their tongues like depraved monsters when I passed, the way they tried to touch me.

And then I started hating my body all over again.

I began to starve myself. Some days, I would go the entire day without eating, drinking only water. Other days, I would eat just one meal, even when I was dying of hunger.

I wanted to become thin again, but all it did was give me ulcer and never-ending migraines.

However, I happened to be in a relationship then, and my boyfriend liked thick girls. He would encourage me to eat so I could look thicker, just like the girls he followed on Instagram. Even though I was already quite thick and still got all sorts of comments about my body, he wanted more.

So foolish me started wanting to get thicker. I began to think about getting supplements to look bigger and fuller, imagining how I would look as a thicker girl.

Unfortunately, no matter how much I ate or the supplements I bought, nothing changed. So I started hating my body yet again.

It became a never-ending cycle of hating and loving my body.

And it still is.

It may sound ridiculous, but it’s the truth. Some days, I like my body. My stomach is flat, my waist is defined, my hips are full, and everything looks “right.” Other days, I don’t. I notice my collarbones, how much they protrude, and I remember how my mom would complain about how thin I look, how my neck is too long, how I need to add flesh.

But the moment I gain even a little weight, the comments switch to “you’re getting fat,” or “don’t get fat in my house,” or “wait till you get to your husband’s house.” Meanwhile, I weigh about 60kg, maybe 63kg at most, and somehow, depending on the day, that is either too much or not enough.

I believe in being healthy. Obesity is a disease that can kill, and being severely underweight can also damage your body in serious ways.

But most of us are somewhere in between, and even there, we are still not satisfied.

It’s easy to say “love yourself,” “accept your body,” “you’re perfect the way you are.”

But it is not that simple.

I’ve always believed that if you don’t like something about your body and you have the means to change it, you can. It is your body, after all.

But that belief has limits, especially when it involves risking your life or permanently altering your body because of feelings that can change.

Because if I had changed my body every time I felt uncomfortable in it, I would not recognize myself today.

There have been too many moments, too many opinions, too many versions of myself I thought needed fixing.

If I had followed all of them, if I had started altering things one after the other, I know I would have reached a point where I would have to stop and ask myself who I was even trying to become.

And that’s the problem.

Cosmetic procedures are becoming more common, more accessible, and more normalized, but you still have to live in that body. You don’t get to separate yourself from the decision later.

Sometimes, instead of cutting it open and rearranging it, the harder thing is to sit with it, to understand it, to take care of your body the proper way, to ask why it looks the way it does, to check your hormones, to eat properly, to move your body, and to speak to professionals who actually understand how bodies work.

The Brazilian Butt Lift remains one of the most dangerous cosmetic procedures in the world, and people are still dying from it, from fat embolisms, infections, and complications that could have been avoided.

And I understand the temptation.

I understand what it feels like to look at your body and feel like something is off, like something needs to be fixed, adjusted, or corrected.

I understand wanting to match what you see everywhere, what people praise, and what gets more attention.

But I also know that the feeling does not end.

It just shifts.

Today it is your face that needs to look more defined, so you start injecting it with fillers, researching the best Botox doctor you can find, all in pursuit of that perfect chiseled look we see on the screens every day.

Tomorrow your waist needs to be more snatched, so you consider liposuction or even rib removal. Next week your hips and butt need to be fuller, so you go for a “little” BBL.

There is always something that needs to look better. And if you keep chasing that feeling, there is no version of your body that will ever be enough.

At some point, you have to pause.

You have to realize that there is no such thing as a perfect body, that beauty standards are an illusion, and constantly trying to change your body is costing you more than it is ever going to give you.

I would rather go to therapy and figure out why I hate my body than risk my life trying to change it every time I feel like.

Because the truth is, my body is not the problem.

And maybe… it never really was.

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Happy New Week.❤️

Be nice to yourself this week.

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