A Quote by Petra Collins

I didn't really have an identity crisis because I really, really knew who I always wanted to be But I definitely had a lot of problems with my body. I was very skinny, and I guess my body was sort of pre-pubescent, but when I grew hips and thighs, I just didn't know where I was in the world. It was weird.
I've always had a little pooch. I just always have - that's just my body type. No matter how skinny I've been, it's always there. And now that I've had kids, I sort of don't mind as much because, you know what? What my stomach and my body went through is truly a miracle.
Like virtually all of the women I know, I spent my teenage years battling with my body and feeling I wasn't good enough. A lot of that negativity is because I was pursuing a career in modeling and was told countless times that my body was too big. My hips and thighs were too wide.
I knew I was shot. Didn't know how bad it was. You know, in a weird way, your body kind of goes numb. You know, as bad as the wounds were - and obviously, I know now how severe it was - at the time, I guess my body had been shutting down a lot of the real pain.
Most of the time, it just sat there in my body, until the weekend. After five or six takes of crying, your body does not want to cry anybody. Your body is like, "I'm over this, can we start laughing, or something?," but you have to keep the emotion. It's a really weird process and it definitely just stays with you.
I've always wanted to have tattoos. I grew up around people who were very tattooed. It's a self-expression thing; it's also helped me claim my body as my own. So I think it's really positive. It's really joyful.
I think everybody had this weird mix of pubescent rage and sadness, and just pure mania and joy. It's a really weird time.
You didn't have to tell a girl with no legs that she, you know, I knew I was different. I was missing half of my body. But I really had incredible parents who really taught me that, you know, God has always had a special a plan for me.
One afternoon a girl walked by in a bikini and my cousin Janet scoffed, “Look at the hips on her.” I panicked. What about the hips? Were they too big? Too small? What were my hips? I didn’t know hips could be a problem. I thought there was just fat or skinny. This was how I found out that there are an infinite number of things that can be “incorrect” on a woman’s body.
Growing up, I had an internal struggle with my body because I was really chubby. My sisters were younger, and they were all skinny and all cute. As a teen, I definitely had, like, an extra 30 pounds of weight.
I knew that my hair was falling out and I had really weird skin. My face looked really weird and I was getting this fuzz on my face and I was always cold - always to the point of uncontrollably shaking. I was more scared that 85 lbs. wasn't good enough. I wanted to be lower.
I always had really long swimmer's arms. The last to totally go is always my thighs and butt, but my old body is there somewhere.
I was a fan of Belle and Sebastian. I didn't really know a lot of their music - I only knew the kind of bigger songs because I had a friend, when I was younger, who was really into them. But I have always really respected Belle and Sebastian for what they are, what they do. Yeah, they're just great.
I grew up as a very sarcastic person. I was always the class clown, and to date girls I had to be really funny. I was really skinny growing up.
I feel the sexiest when I'm by myself, walking around nude. I have this new obsession with nudity, it's really weird. It may sound weird, but I just really love embracing the body.
I was lucky. I always had really great friends in my personal life, people always just knew who I was. It wasn't until I was in show business where that sort of changed or shifted at first. I have always had a great support network. I have had a lot of really wonderful, close friends.
I got to college in '99, and I went to study literature and writing, and so within a couple years we had Bush elected, 9/11, we were at war, so I was sort of having my political and spiritual awakening at the same time I was becoming an adult, and that's a lot of stuff at once. I became very focused on the state of the world, and I started studying that stuff more, and I just had a real identity crisis. I couldn't even really just study literature.
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