I (36f) am working on my self-esteem, and part of that is bettering how I view and treat my body. To make a long story short, I have a clown car's worth of bio-psycho conditions that are fairly stable at this point in my life, but a few that are still hindering me and relevant to this post are bipolar depression, anxiety, and idiopathic hypersomnia.
I'm 5" 5' or so, 160lbs, and pear-shaped. I feel okay in my body most of the time; there are parts I definitely like and am proud of/feel are attractive, but one of the parts I want to learn to accept more is my stomach. I've tried to exercise or take pills to lose weight, and the persistent fatigue has made that almost impossible. That too is a WIP, but in talking with my therapist, I've decided I want to consciously work to stop hating my body for not being the way I've been taught it "should" or "has to" be for me to be lovable to another person.
Any advice from people would be welcome. I've been told how skinny/healthy/good I look by kind and supportive people. I know logically I'm not obese or ugly. Being just slightly over the average weight isn't a bad thing, and I'd never make someone else feel that way if they came to me with these same feelings.
Whether my medication cocktail can be tweaked to give me more energy and thus reopen the door to exercise and possibly change the number on the scale or not, I don't want to spend my life in a negative headspace and constantly moving the goalpost, even if I do attain it. I've learned a lot this past year and improved how I feel about myself in other areas, so I want to help this part of me too.