Portrait Julie: rules and self-acceptance

Julie is 35 years old and works as a secretary in a secondary school. Passionate about photography, Julie was a model for many years before turning to photography. She was one of the clients selected to take part in our Elia shoot. In this article, Julie talks about her relationship with her cycle, how she deals with her period and self-acceptance.

Why did you decide to take part in an Elia shoot?

"I'm taking part in the Elia shoot today, because it's already a challenge for me. After gaining quite a bit of weight following back surgery, I wasn't very comfortable in my body, and this is an opportunity to accept myself a little more. It's another step towards accepting myself. And the atmosphere is really nice, it's a family team. It's great fun, and it's also a chance to have a little fun.

How did you experience motherhood and how do you live it today?

"I had my first child when I was 22, so I was young and not psychologically ready. I had a child for the wrong reasons, it was more selfish, I wanted to feel less alone. It was a bit complicated, it was a long road. I wasn't ready, I grew up at the same time as my son. It's true that things were very different with my 3rd, whom I had at 28. I was much more ready, I experienced motherhood much more serenely, I made my own choices, I listened less to others, I listened more to myself. It was much easier. It only takes 5-6 years for motherhood to be experienced differently. It's true that it wasn't easy at first."

Do you think there are any taboos around motherhood?

"I think there are taboos around motherhood, which are varied. For me, there's one thing that's stuck with me: we're not necessarily ready to be mothers, and there are some really difficult moments, and I don't feel I had the right to say it. Because there are indeed people who find it hard to have children, and it's true that it's dramatic. But you have the right to say that at times it's not easy, not that you regret it but that you're really in difficulty, sometimes you'd like to leave everything, even if you always want to come back. It's not easy to be able to say "I'm cracking up, I can't do it, I wasn't ready to be a mom".

Do you have any books, podcasts or people to follow that you'd recommend for information on this subject?

"Personally, I'm not into podcasts, books and so on. I learned to be a mom thanks to a great forum network, it was the generation where forums were very active. We created a network of moms, there must have been a hundred of us at the time, and some of us are still following each other 14 years later. It's been a great support through all the different stages of motherhood: pregnancy, childbirth and bringing up children. It really helped me grow, taught me a lot about myself, was very, very rich, and we're still talking to each other now. The great thing about taking part in moms' forums was that we followed each other month by month. We followed each other step by step, at the same moment in our lives, experiencing the same things, at the same time. It was really rich, we could answer questions right then and there, it was a goldmine of information because we were all facing the same things at the same time."

Your body has undergone some major changes following back surgery, can you tell us about them?

"2 years ago, I started having lower back pain, I've always had back problems since I was a teenager but then I had a pain stronger than the others, I told my husband "don't worry in 3 days it'll pass" as usual and then in fact it's been over 2 years now, I've had a herniated disc operation when I had three, and one was removed, which gave me partial relief. But I've got the back of a 75-year-old grandmother, and my back has aged twice as fast as mine. So I'm still in a bit of difficulty, I still have pain every day, it's become a handicap. This prevents me from moving around a lot, which means my body is changing."

Has your body undergone any changes as a result of your pregnancies?

"During my pregnancies, I lost more weight than I gained. After my pregnancies, I had a rather harmonious body in my opinion. A body that I liked quite a bit. I put on about ten kilos in three months because I couldn't move because of my back problems, I was bedridden, I couldn't do much. To my great despair. It made me change physically very quickly. I took it very, very badly. For months on end, I was very self-conscious. But as time goes by, I'm trying to tame this body and learn to live with it, telling myself that I can't really change it radically anyway. I've got the body I've got, and that doesn't stop me from being pretty and sexy and feeling good about myself. In fact, it's all in my head, because in the end, other people tell me that I'm fine the way I am. It's really a matter of reeducating the brain more than the body."

Do you have any books, podcasts or people to follow that you recommend for learning to accept yourself?

"So always the same I'm not very book, podcast etc, however I am very Instagram. And instead of following people who push us to go for perfect bodies, that's the current criteria, I tend to follow people like Céleste Barber who uses irony and makes really cool videos, which show that we're fine just the way we are and that we can take responsibility, that we can laugh about it all. It's people like that that I like to follow."

Getting back to the subject of menstruation, how do you live with your cycle?

"My history with my cycle has been a little complicated in recent years, because after my pregnancies I was on the hormonal IUD, I had the great joy of no longer having my period. I preferred to stop taking hormones, especially when I gained weight, and I thought that might be a factor too. I switched to a copper coil. I was delighted when my periods returned. The first question was contraceptionmenstrual panties at work, so it's still difficult on that front. And in terms of my cycle, I'm not comfortable either because I have a very short cycle, so I feel like I'm menstruating all the time. It's a real pain in the ass."

What do you think of Elia's menstrual panties?

"For me, Elia menstrual panties are the best I've tested, I've tested a few on the market. They're the ones I feel best in anyway, in terms of the materials

Do you have a piece of advice or a mantra you'd like to share?

"Well, my mantra since I was a teenager started from a joke with my father, it was "soi toi-même", which I wrote all over the walls, I was tagging when I was 11, I was a bit of a rebel. I wrote that everywhere for years, it was also part of my pseudonyms on forums, I had little letters to say "soi toi-même". And in fact I realize that I never applied it until two or three years ago. I've finally managed to really become myself. It's a liberation. In fact, I realize that no matter who you are, what you do, people will always have something to say about it, so you might as well do the things you really like. You might as well really be yourself, and then you'll feel better and other people won't change no matter what."