I’ve had these stretchies over my hips, sides, and thighs since middle school and have always been extremely self conscious of them. Today they’re out and proud to normalize them to all you lovely humans!

Image from preview.redd.it and submitted by runs_with_unicorns
image showing I’ve had these stretchies over my hips, sides, and thighs since middle school and have always been extremely self conscious of them. Today they’re out and proud to normalize them to all you lovely humans!

runs_with_unicorns on September 11st, 2020 at 19:56 UTC »

Just to tack on- growing up a lot of the stretch mark positivity movement had to do motherhood (phrases like “earned my tiger stripes” etc) which honestly just made me feel like I was even more of an outcast because I was a 120 lb teenager who had never been pregnant.

While I am much less self conscious about them now, the fact I’ll more than likely get a ton more if I were to get pregnant is not something I’m super happy about but that’s okay.

EDIT:

wowowowow! Thanks everyone! I’m so grateful for all the positive responses and glad to hear from so many users in different parts of their stretch mark journey! Thanks for the awards (I feel like a star!) and telling me my stretch marks are cute 🥺- I never thought of them that way!

I’m heading into the forest right now but maybe I’ll edit again when I get home with another picture where they’re more visible. They just caught my eye in the mirror when I was in a rest stop & I decided to share!

dudex4ever on September 11st, 2020 at 20:23 UTC »

I've some of those on my butt cheeks, I call them tiger stripes... I'm a skinny guy.

Stay-Annual on September 11st, 2020 at 20:37 UTC »

I have the same!

I used to do competitive swimming in middle school, practice every evening and some mornings before school. Suddenly I started getting purple stretchmarks from my hips and down the sides down to my thighs. There were no low-enough-cut bath-suits to be found, and people were staring, commenting and whispering.

I ended up quitting.

I wish I hadn't.

I still wonder what life would be like if this was just another acceptable thing at the time.