Shrinking

by @alyxanderjames

Shrinking
alyxanderjames
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Liner Notes

TW: discussion of weight loss, disordered eating, non-graphic medical stuff, body image

I'm fat. I've always been fat, and I probably always will be. It's been a point of contention with family and medical professionals for my whole life. I dealt with disordered eating in high school, and for my entire adolescence into my early 20s, my weight fluctuated wildly year to year. Then I made the decision to transition, and suddenly I hit some stability. I was basically the same weight for about a decade. When doctors tried to get me to lose weight to deal with unrelated issues, I would argue that it was better for my body (particularly my joints, which are already pretty messed up in large part thanks to the instability of my weight when I was younger) to be at the stable point I was at than to try and kick of more fluctuations.

A few years ago I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. It's well-managed now, but part of that management is that I'm on Ozempic. I hate that it's been the most effective thing we've tried for managing my blood sugar, because it's also meant that suddenly, for the first time in over a decade, I'm losing weight. I have a lot of complicated feelings about this. I had just gotten to a point of really liking how I looked and felt in my body, and now I feel like I have no concept of my size, and it's disorienting. So this is me wrestling with that.

This mostly fits the #F_Am challenge, although it's C and Em with the occasional Am thrown in for flavor.

#folk #acoustic #PersonWithGuitar #AcousticOneTake #BodyImage

Lyrics

I've never been a small person
Much to the doctors' chagrin
I'm used to useless advice
About shaping the body I'm in

I tried to make myself smaller
To make up for my physical size
Now I'm trying to reclaim my space
But I've recently realized

That there was a time I'd have killed
To make this be true

But I'm shrinking
And I hate it
I'm shrinking
And I hate it

Now my clothes don't fit me right
And my wedding ring is loose
I was comfortable before
But I don't get to choose

See, there was a time I'd have killed
To make this be true

Now I'm shrinking
And I hate it
Yeah, I'm shrinking
And I hate it
I'm shrinking
And I hate it
Yeah, I'm shrinking
And I hate it

Comments

[avatar]
@cloudboy
Vulnerable, beautiful, and honest. This song is propelled forward by the driving rhythm, melody, and your straightforward but piercing lyric. I admire that you're able to do this.
[avatar]
@fearlessflight2014
Oh man I feel this keenly even though I’m not shrinking. This is beautifully written and tenderly performed. I love this.
[avatar]
@wurzelfrau
Ouff.... a lot of this is me. The fluctuations, the disordered eating, the stability at a higher weight. Shrinking too for the last year and it is so weird. Mainly due to my eating getting better and less stress. I'm not dealing well with this and i hate a lot of what it brings. Mainly the weird attention. i relate to this a lot. You put it in very beautiful and fitting words and as always i adore your voice!
[avatar]
@coolparadiso Mod
Yup a tricky issue! My medication has had effects as well! A song worth singing for sure!
[avatar]
@nwhosings
Body size and shape is such a fraught conversation, even when we are just having it with ourselves.
I really appreciate the way you talk about the disorientation of the experience. It's a very real issue, but people don't understand it.
On a more FAWM note, I think the very limited chord palette intensifies the feeling of getting smaller.
There's a lot of tension, and we mostly just get used to it rather than it being resolved, which is......quite the musical metaphor for so many things.
[avatar]
@rogerhammond
You've been on quite a journey. I hope that it works out for you. Always good to express yourself in your songs. That way at least it's out and not in. I like the stripped back guitar/voice production. Suits the song.
[FAWM]
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