Guest Post: I Can Pinpoint the Exact Date I Stopped Liking My Body

by Shahnana

I can pinpoint the exact date 35 years ago when I stopped liking my body. Before I tell you about that moment in time, I want to mention that my patriarchal blessing tells me that I rejoiced at the opportunity to get a body. That has always resonated with me. My spirit loved having a body — not just for how it looked but because of what I could do because I had a body. Read! Jump! Dance! Sing! Run! Taste! Cartwheel! Kiss! Until this specific date I am referring to I was a happy, healthy, active girl and I loved having a body.

That changed on June 29, 1989 when I went through the temple for the first time. It was the day before my temple wedding. I was a convert to the church and so was my mother. She had only recently gone through the temple herself and was terrified to talk about any part of it with me. The temple ceremony was different then and there was intense emphasis not to talk about the temple outside the temple, so she was nervous to share anything. I had never even seen garments until the day I stood in the temple wearing them. I didn’t get to attend temple prep either. That wasn’t a thing then. I didn’t understand that by saying I wanted to be married in the temple to my husband I was committing to wear garments for the rest of my life. Sure, I had gone to the distribution center earlier that day and the worker sized me up and I left with a bag of plastic packaged garments, but I had no idea what they were until that moment in the temple when I put them on for the first time.

And honestly, I wanted to cry. My first thought was, “This is what my husband is going to see me in for the very first time we are together?” I felt so unattractive in them. They were ill-fitting and uncomfortable. The weirdest part was that everyone kept telling me how wonderful they were and I didn’t feel that way. I was so confused.

For the next several months I struggled with them. I remember they had an elastic band that went around the leg, and so when I wore them with jeans they would constantly ride up and bunch. I was always picking at them and feeling self-conscious. They had awkwardly placed seams that rubbed me in places I hadn’t experienced before in my pre-garment underwear. The tops had a cups for breasts to sit but they were much too large for my minimal chest and so they looked like under-inflated balloons. I might as well have been wearing a sign around my neck that said “small breasted woman,” and that was especially awful as a newlywed. When I looked at myself in them in the mirror all I could see was how unflattering and unfeminine they were. My underwear looked like my husband’s and that felt . . . wrong.

Over the next 33 years I experimented with new styles and materials and I pushed through. I was as devout a garment wearer as a gal could be. And then hormones changed and a long especially hot Texas summer set in and I found myself in a perfect storm. I kept finding myself in my OBGYN’s office with feminine issues. After several cycles of meeting with him, a course of meds, having things clear up, and then finding myself in the same situation again he said to me, “You know this is your Mormon underwear doing this to you, right?” My OBGYN wasn’t LDS, but he had a long line of LDS patients and an even longer history with me. We had been through 4 miscarriages, 5 births, and 30 years of appointments together, and in that moment I was so grateful for his candor. It had never occurred to me. He explained that my Mormon underwear wasn’t really made for a woman’s body which needed a little more room to breathe. He suggested that I change into something that would allow my lady parts to air out at night while I was sleeping. I could wear them during the day all day but I just needed to allow for a little more circulation. He promised that if I would try that it would clear everything up and I would break the awful cycle I was in without medicine.

And by golly, he was right.
I never had an issue ever again.
It was my Mormon underwear.

I noticed two other things that came from that change as well. I liked my body better when I had the chance to wear something more feminine to sleep in. And because I felt more confident about my body in my new sleep-wear, well . . . let’s just say things got better in the bedroom too. Turns out maybe husbands like to see their wives in underwear that doesn’t look like it was made for men. THAT my friends is what we call a win-win!

I’m still a garment-wearing gal. Most of the time. I rarely wear them when I am working out. I wear them sometimes when I am sleeping, but I have noticed a pattern that I tend to sleep sounder when I am not. But if the purpose of garments is to remind us of our covenants, if I am being honest, I can’t really remember my covenants while I am in deep REM anyway. So it works for me.

Here is what I know: There were a couple of garment smack down talks at the most recent General Conference. Afterward it was a hot topic of discussion among my family and friends. Some felt guilty. Some were resentful to be instructed about such a personal thing. My conscience was clear. I had taken my questions about my garment-wearing tendencies to prayer and gotten an answer that it was all good years before. I am convinced that my Heavenly Parents know my heart and they couldn’t care one iota about my garment-wearing exactness.

The other day I pulled out my patriarchal blessing and re-read that line that I love so much. I am happy to be a mostly garment-wearing, body-loving girl again.

Shahnana and her husband are the proud parents of five children.  Not because they can check certain LDS boxes but because they are just all around good people. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in private practice in Frisco, TX.   She specializes in working with females 12 and older.  Shahna just completed her 8th year as an adult institute instructor and also serves as her stake’s mission prep teacher. She has sent 387 kids on missions all over the world and looks forward to her full inbox every P-day. She spends her free time watching a lot of NBA basketball games (Go Mavs!), reading, and spending waaay too much time shopping at Target.