Lena Dunham Says Being Happy Is “Not a Crime”

About a week after her Christopher Kane-clothed nuptials to musician Luis Felber, Lena Dunham took to Instagram to...reveal that she is doing quite well. “I've shared many challenges with you and these moments of joy had me thinking that we should admit when we’re happy too- it's not a crime,” Dunham wrote in a caption accompanying a selfie on Wednesday morning. In the lengthy post, the always outspoken Dunham opened up more about her wedding, her work, and her body, addressing the critics head on.

But before she got to the nastiness, Dunham took a moment to discuss her “lovely” past week. “My husband and I traveled to the country and looked at bee hives & fields of wildflowers,” she said. “I got to feel the intense love of my friends/family surrounding us.” The producer admitted, though, that among the “glow of support” she has felt of late, she’s still aware of the “the cesspool lurking behind it.” So, Dunham “took a peek” at the “gnarly shit” people have been saying about her.

“One narrative I take issue with, largely because it's a story I don't want other women, other people, to get lodged in their heads is that I should somehow be ashamed because my body has changed since I was last on television,” she wrote, referencing one particular old joke about her weight she believes is unoriginal. Dunham also called out the “echo chamber of body shaming”—the fact that many compare her body to the way it looked on Girls, though she was shamed immensely back then as well.

“When will we learn to stop equating thinness with health/happiness?” Dunham asked. “Of course weight loss can be the result of positive change in habits, but guess what? So can weight gain.” This seems to be the case for Dunham, who points out that her body is compared to a time when she “was in active addiction with undiagnosed illness,” so while she may have looked “healthier” back then, she wasn’t. Now, she is sober, and looking back at old photos, Dunham says her husband doesn’t recognize her: “he sees how dimmed my light was.”

Dunham ended her statement with some parting words for her followers. “I say this for any other person whose appearance has been changed with time, illness or circumstance-it's okay to live in your present body without treating it as transitional. I am, and I'm really enjoying it.”