MADELEINE WEST: 'For decades, I punished, denied and paraded my body. No more.'

This story includes descriptions of disordered eating that may be distressing to some readers.

I was always fascinated by my body. Confused by it, betrayed by it, mostly disgusted by it. But then we humans, more than any other creature, are captivated by bodies. What they can make and what they are made of, what we can put in them, what they can endure, and how easily they break. 

But it is how they look that has always attracted the most attention and experimentation. 

Todd Sampson hacking his body to bits beguiles us. Survivor contestants undertaking unbearable tests of endurance captivates us. The Kardashians doing…well, just about everything money can buy, keeps us keeping up.

Watch: Body shapes are not trends. Story continues after video.

Who hasn’t been hypnotised by an improbable mass of muscle pumping iron? Or puzzled over a passerby whose hips/waist/chest ratio seems to defy physics? Who hasn’t squeamishly thumbed through an Encyclopaedia Brittanica bewildered by what so many have volunteered to inflict upon their bodies in the pursuit of beauty or religious observance? 

I’m not talking painting yourself in team colours or forgoing red meat for Lent. I’m talking teeth filing, elongating necks as a symbol of hierarchy, plates in lips to assert fertility and desirability. Confronting, right? Gigantic rings through ears and noses, tattooing, piercing, female circumcision, neutering, ironing the skin of the breasts to melt them flat, binding the feet to make them small. 

We might recoil in horror but perhaps the greater irony is that as you read this, thousands of us in the civilized West are electing to undergo procedures which, though we consider them mundane, are frequently worse and far riskier than those our tribal counterparts endure. 

Fake tans, hair colouring, lash extensions, hair extensions and anal bleaching are just warm up acts for the increasingly suburban Botox, fillers, boob jobs, face lifts, butt implants, vaginal reconstruction and liposuction. Happily we shell out thousands for the dubious privilege, not of extreme beauty or notoriety, but to simply be considered normal..to be deemed by our own measure as acceptable. 

Who sets this ideal? Whose standards are we striving to achieve and why? Is purchasing perfection now a cultural norm? Is worshipping at the alter of unattainable beauty our new religion? 

Barbie’s impossible proportions are within reach for a cost, including most of your ribs, your major organs and ability to conceive… As for Ken’s curious plastic mound…well that’s a whole other article. 

At the end of the day it comes down to personal choice. Do what makes you feel good but take the time to safeguard your mental and physical well-being in the process. If it helps you be the best version of yourself you can be… then that’s good enough for me. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Madeleine West Actor (@msmadswest)

It gets slightly more complicated, however, when your agency to choose has been stripped from you at a young age. When your body and sense of self has been violated, and you believe you don’t deserve anything that is good for you. 

Are you capable of making healthy choices when that desire to change, to better, to fix, to transform yourself into someone far removed from who you were is born of trauma?

It’s taken multiple episodes of nearly dying from anorexia and a lifetime of weaponising nutrition against myself to realise my need to be someone else was all about control. I’d spent my childhood having all autonomy stripped from me, my little body violated, so as a teen and a young woman it made sense to demonstrate my power by controlling my body. 

There is no greater demonstration of self-regard and wellness than feeding your body what it needs. What demonstrates ‘self control’ more potently than starving it?

I don’t enjoy talking about the self hate I nurtured in favour of wellness. The brutal hospital admissions that didn’t fix my disorder, instead helped it flourish. The constant cold, the exposed bones, sitting for an hour in front of a banana, my mother begging me to eat just a little bit, as I cried ‘I CAN’T!’ 

I don’t enjoy stumbling down memory lane like this but I feel compelled to because there is an awful lot of polished perfection swanning about on social media which we all feel compelled to compare ourselves to. Even the ‘IRL, unfiltered’ content looks increasingly staged and tongue-in-cheek. 

There just isn’t much evidence of where most of us find ourselves more often than not, trawling through the muck of the day-to-day, sometimes brought to our knees. 

THAT is the stuff we need to see, because it reminds us we are all beautifully, terrifyingly, humbly, vulnerably, perfectly imperfectly HUMAN. 

The key to being our well selves is to be ourselves and do it well! Skip the self hatred, screw that noise! I wasted a lot of time waiting for some better version of myself to show up and blow everyone’s mind.

The version of me that would be perfect, happy, loved. But my perfect imperfection is what makes me ME. So if you wanna lose a little weight, dye your hair, get a little nip and tuck, do it. Just make sure you are healthy and skip all the rest. 

Now when I gaze in that mirror I’m pretty determined to like what I see: The lines that bracket my mouth show, despite my resting bitch face, that smiling is my default setting. The stretch marks on my hips made me a mother.

Listen to No Filter, On this episode of No Filter, Kate Reid shares with Mia Freedman how the lowest moments in her life led her directly to where she is now... Story continues below.

They’re just left over wrapping paper from giving the gift of life, again and again. (Thank goodness I don’t accept returns!) And I cannot help but be amazed at what my body does for me, despite me punishing it, denying it, parading it around in low-rise jeans and push-up bras, nearly starving it to death, and hitting it with a bus… It’s still standing. No matter what the day holds I am strong, I am safe, I am well. 

Whatever glass ceiling is holding you back is truly yours for the breaking, and at the end of the day, the most attractive quality you can possess is belief in yourself. 

Madeleine is now running ‘Selfie Esteem’ A transformative journey for girls to navigate and embrace their true selves in the social media and online world.  

For help and support for eating disorders, contact the Butterfly Foundation’s National Support line and online service on 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673).

Feature Image: Instagram