A Romanian Bathhouse Challenged Me To Face My Body Issues Head On

I believe the most complicated relationship we can ever have is with ourselves. For me, specifically, it’s with my body. This complicated relationship began in my formative years. I’d anxiously change in the bathroom stall for gym class while the rest of the girls openly changed in front of each other. To me, they had “perfect bodies.” Figures that were up to the standard of beauty that I never felt good enough for. 

Ironically, though, my body type has been celebrated for many years. I have a slender figure with long legs that always poked the question, “Are you a model?” However, growing up in an Afro-Latino family where curves are celebrated and preferred, I never saw myself as model-worthy. I felt awkward in my body. I was also “far too skinny,” according to my family and peers. They called me names like “flaka,” which means ‘skinny’ in Spanish, and I was also referred to as “Skinny McMinnie” by my high school peers. It was as if my body spoke before I could. 

As I grew into my adolescence, the objectifying nicknames began to subside. Still, I would constantly put myself in situations that would take me back to that little girl again. I was once hooking up with a now ex-boyfriend when he referred to my body as “cute.” The nearly innocent comment sent me into a spiral at a moment when I should have felt powerful. Having my body referred to as cute made me feel like my body was child-like and instantly brought me back to the younger version of me who felt ashamed of her slender figure. It’s safe to say I didn’t finish that day. 

After our relationship, I did a pretty good job building up a wall to not face my body as much as possible. I limited sexual intercourse, went to the gym during times I knew it would just be me, and did my best to swipe past any bikini pics on social media. Creating these boundaries was my way of covering up a wound that was deeper than the eye could see. They were a way to avoid the problem and not have to face the hard truth that lived beneath my skin: I allowed the way others described my body to become my truth. 

When I was faced with the opportunity to go on a press trip to the Therme Bathhouse in Bucharest, Romania, my initial response was a resounding no. The idea of spending hours in a bathhouse shook my body to the core. There was no way I was going to subject myself to a stage of silent judgment. It was then that I realized my body image issues were becoming a sounding board for how I live my life. I confidently responded to the email with, “Yes, I’d love to!” Meanwhile, my fingertips shook with anxiety.  

I slipped on my one-piece bathing suit in the stall of the locker room. It immediately took me back to my childhood, when I would get ready before my high school gym class. I walked out in a robe that covered everything my one-piece couldn’t. My eyes wandered as I watched all of the “perfect bodies” around me. Some slim, some curvy, and all better than mine.  

The bathhouse has multiple thermal water pools enriched with minerals and saunas with Himalayan salt walls, all of which helped me relax when my nerves were overwhelmed by my anxiety. I watched everyone swim around me. Everyone looked so happy and confident, two things I desperately wanted to feel inside. A part of me wondered if they were faking it. If they, too, were ever facing any anxieties about their body, or was it just me? Were we all silently comparing the bodies around us to our own? 

It was then that I realized the critiques aren’t around us, but rather within us. We are all secretly battling something we wish we could change. It makes me wonder how we would show up if the voice in our heads were silenced? I tried to quiet these thoughts in the sauna rooms. With each inhale and exhale, I began to slowly undo the undoing that controlled how I viewed my value in the world, and I felt my mood shift. Deep within the comfort of the Himalayan salt walls, I realized I was just one body of many, and that was relieving. 

As a woman, it is crucial to find places in the world where our bodies can feel safe. I finally felt safe in an Eastern European bathhouse far from everything I knew. Therme Bathhouse was extremely inclusive, and the culture was diverse, which I always appreciate when traveling as a woman of color. There was a diverse group of women from all over the world, representing a range of different shapes and sizes. This was refreshing as someone who doesn’t always feel confident in a bathing suit. 

I believe what made my experience of healing at Therme Bathhouse so effective was the absence of an elitist culture. This is different from the American spa culture, where you can feel the eyes gazing with judgment as you walk by. The only judgments I had to overcome at Therme Bathhouse were my own. I like to believe the lack of “body elitist culture” is due to how celebrated body image is in European cultures versus American culture, where we tend to idolize body types to the point women are willing to get life-threatening surgeries to fit the mold of the moment. It speaks to how much value American culture places on women based on their body types. 

It took leaving the country to realize that what I knew about my body was a lie. My body is everything but the labels that I allowed to control me. It is complicated, worthy, and a vessel for my journey. Most importantly, my body is one of many bodies that are also learning how to move in the world.        

TOPICS:  bathhouse body image health and wellness

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