so i'm 24, and i have a problem i've been dealing with. warning: this includes discussions of weight loss/body image, and might be triggering. i will mention sizes.
i used to be fat. not in a "oh nooooes" sort of way, in an actual descriptor sort of way. i was very large and very uncomfortable with it. i couldn't do the things i wanted to do, and my binge-eating was dangerous. i was fat from the age of 10 (when it went from "chubby" to "distinctively not chubby") until i was 18 or 19, when i went from a size 20 to a size 12 in the course of a year.
when people talk about weight loss, they talk about the "journey," but they never really discuss the destination. i have old diary entries on LiveJournal about how great it would be when i wasn't fat anymore, how happy and popular i'd be, how great things could be, because that's how weight loss is posited in our culture: lose weight, and then you get to do all the things you've always wanted to do.
that's not what happened. see, all the time i'd been fat, i'd never really learned how to be a real human being. i'd been so consumed with self-loathing and self-hatred that i spent most of my time eating and watching Law and Order. i didn't go on dates (because what person would want to date me?), i didn't go do standard teenage things. i spent dances hiding in the bathroom.
cut to now: i'm 24, and now i'm worried i'm hopelessly behind. i've never been on a date, never had a boy/girlfriend, never been in love. the only time i've ever had sex was last year, and that's because he ( a friend) really wanted to and i figured that that was the only way i'd get him to shut up and let me go to sleep (as you can imagine, it was not good.) the fact that people might find me attractive is terrifying to me, and i want to run away and hide in my room. i don't know how to react.
how do i explain to someone, "uh, yeah, so when you were 15 and going on dates in your dad's car, i was alone in my living room watching 'To Catch a Predator' and eating my family's entire dinner by myself"? the only thing i do know how to do is hate my body and try to lose more weight. hating my body feels like a safe zone, like that's how things are supposed to be. water is wet, grass is green, and i'm a disgusting human being.
i've talked to a few friends about this, and they say that part of my issue is that my dislike of my body/appearance is palpable. i'm not sure what to do. i feel stuck in this self-hatred loop - staring at myself in mirrors, writing down everything i eat and berating myself for eating too many carbs or something. i want to move on with my life - have a life, do things. but i don't know how. i never learned what to do in those situations, and now i'm worried it's too late. i have some sexual abuse in my past, and that leads to a lot of fear and discomfort as well.
help!
Posts: 6 | From: Ann Arbor, MI | Registered: Aug 2008
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Have you seen our article Seven Ways to Love Your Body? If not, you might find it a helpful place to start.
Also, have you had any counseling in the past for body image or the sexual abuse you mention?
quote:i want to move on with my life - have a life, do things. but i don't know how. i never learned what to do in those situations, and now i'm worried it's too late.
It's never too late. I spent my high school years at a religious high school. My graduating class was under 30. Most of the people I knew had been told by their parents that they were not "allowed to date" until they were juniors or seniors in college!
When I moved to college, I'd never been to a party that didn't involve chaperones. I'd never interacted with groups of other young people in an unstructured setting. I was terrified. I remember the first week being so afraid that when they came around the dorm to roust us out for "mixers", I turned off the lights, tucked a towel under the door and hid in my room until everyone else left. I felt like I was unattractive and awkward...and here were all of these socially confident people who had experiences to draw on. Heck, I nearly barfed the first time somebody flirted with me in a completely social situation. I hated myself and my body and my social failings. I just sucked.
But here's the thing, I didn't suck. I just had some unrealistic expectations of myself and of everybody around me. Looking back, I'm sure I wasn't the only one who felt they were lacking experience socially. I can't have been the only nervous, insecure person. But beyond that, it was unrealistic of me to expect myself to jump right into a "normal" college social scene and be the life of the party. All of my dreams were not immediately fulfilled by just arriving there. I needed to negotiate a place where I was comfortable in this new world.
Of course, doing that is not easy. For me, one of the first things I needed to do was to stop beating myself up over my fears. It's not stupid to be nervous. It's not even abnormal. It didn't make me a horrible person. So I had to learn to sit with that anxiety and not punish myself. By that, I don't mean dwelling on it, but rather accepting that the feeling is there and that it is a valid response and okay to experience.
Next, I had to figure out for myself what steps I could take to work on the situation. For example, the idea of going to a party scared me to the point of tears. So I took that situation off the table and decided what I felt like I could successfully tackle. For me, that started with a structured social setting. I joined a couple of campus organizations. This meant that I still had to interact with new people, but I could start with a structured place where I was at least partially comfortable. Sometimes being involved meant attending other parties or fairs and meeting people/handing things out/etc. This let me lead into less structured social interactions. I still don't love huge parties, they make me nervous to this day. But I can manage situations now that I wouldn't have dreamed of then.
You're not disgusting and you're not hopeless. You just have to start by cutting yourself some slack and finding your own path from there.
-------------------- Sarah Liz Posts: 7313 | From: USA | Registered: Oct 2000
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no counseling, my parents agreed with my neighbors to keep the boy who did it (a 12 year old who lived around the corner, i was 4) away from me. it was never really discussed again, and very few people know. i'm not really sure what happened - i don't really remember, i was little - but i know that people being into me seems very, very wrong because of that, in part. like i'm still a little kid, and people being into me are just as messed up as that boy was.
Posts: 6 | From: Ann Arbor, MI | Registered: Aug 2008
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In terms of never having any counseling, I'd lobby for that. While no one but you can ever really say how much your abuse is influencing these issues, I think it's safe to say it likely has had some impact, as abuse always tends to have some impact on pretty much every part of our lives in some way. Is counseling something you'd be open to? If so, is that accessible to you? If it's not, how do you feel about perhaps starting with a couple books?
Stepping away from the possible impact of your abuse on this, one thing I'd be curious about is how much you feel the change in your body is -- and feels -- solely about looks and how other people react to how you look, what you think about is vs. how you FEEL in your body, and the ways body changes are about other parts of your life besides romance and other kinds of socialization. Do you get what I'm asking with that?
Maybe we can also talk a little bit about how those expectations you had before when your body was different about what it'd be like now were....well, not really sound?
-------------------- Heather Corinna, Executive Director & Founder, Scarleteen About Me Get our book! Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead Posts: 63423 | From: An island near Seattle | Registered: May 2000
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i mean, in terms of things i can do, i like my new body: i can cross my legs, and i can hug my legs in an office chair (i know that sounds dumb but i couldn't do that before.) but admittedly, my weight loss was very much about other people's perceptions of how i look. yes, i didn't like that i looked... round. and...old. i flopped at an age when people should not flop.
Posts: 6 | From: Ann Arbor, MI | Registered: Aug 2008
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What do you mean by "flopped?" And, for that matter, can you fill me in on what you mean in terms of the idea that whatever that is is related to being a given age?
(I may be being daft here: if so, my apologies!)
-------------------- Heather Corinna, Executive Director & Founder, Scarleteen About Me Get our book! Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead Posts: 63423 | From: An island near Seattle | Registered: May 2000
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i had my mom's 50-year-old body (i've seen her naked many times, we had a pretty open family) when i was 13. i felt old. inside too. i got tired walking around the block - it felt like my legs got heavy. i couldn't run. it wasn't where i was supposed to be, physically.
oh, and books would be good. most therapists don't have hours i can access (i work 8-6 or so, and leaving for an appointment might be a little much in terms of time away during the day.)
Posts: 6 | From: Ann Arbor, MI | Registered: Aug 2008
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Just wanted to say that I have been in a very similar situation to you. I spent about 4 years after high school just watching TV and eating. I was big, I never went on dates, besides work I barely left the house.
I lost a little bit of weight, I'm still not slim though, went back to study and developed my social circle. Even though I am 24, same as you, emotionally I feel much younger because I feel I missed out on so much. Also, one of my therapists explained that with eating disorders/disordered eating often the sufferer feels stuck at the age when eating became a problem, so for me I still feel 17.
I can definately relate to finding it uncomfortable that people would find me attractive. When my current (and first!) boyfriend tells me I'm "beautiful" etc I often chastise him for lying, but sometimes I can just smile and say "thank-you".
Anyway, the point of my response is to let you now that things can get better. I use to never go out at night (had no friends etc or reason to ) now I'm barely home in the evenings, because there's so much going on.
So, all the best and I hope you soon start living the life you want.
Posts: 77 | From: Australia | Registered: Dec 2010
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I think it might be helpful to go back to your title, about how you were supposed to be pretty now. I think really, some of what this comes down to, is that you thought you were supposed to FEEL pretty now. In other words, weight loss was supposed to make you feel better about yourself, give you a more positive body and self-image. That's a promise made about weight loss a lot.
One of the many flaws in that promise is that it dismisses the fact that what someone weighs, or looks like as a whole, doesn't always mean a given kind of body image: it doesn't always mean a person feels "pretty" or attractive or like they look good, etc. In fact, it often doesn't. There are many, many people at or below "average" weight who have poor or negative body or self-image. There are many thin people who don't feel pretty, just like there are plenty of people of size who do, some even when beauty standards, ideals and people who push them say they aren't. (Personally, I've had a couple people in my life who had better body image and felt better about how they looked before they lost weight.)
That's obviously not a simple thing, it's a big thing to contend with and sort through. But I think on top of just thinking about that, it might also be helpful to make sure that you're doing what you can to make and keep your body as something that is about you, and focus your sense of self on you, too.
I'm also hearing some fears coming up around the social pieces. Obviously, since you're just starting to learn how to socialize in some ways, you're going to have those regardless. I totally get that it will feel daunting to start dating, maybe pursuing sexual partnership, etc. when you feel late to the game.
I do think some counseling around all of this would probably help you out a lot, and I think BustaEve bringing up EDs is important: it's sounding like, at least right now, you might be flirting with a disordered relationship to food, maybe have always had one, and that's obviously one more thing here that can have an impact. So, I would see what you might be able to access even with your schedule limitations.
But books can absolutely be a good place to start. Off the top of my head, to touch on as many of the things that might be going on here as possible, I'd suggest:
The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse (Revised Edition) by Wendy Maltz Hush: Moving From Silence to Healing After Childhood Sexual Abuse by Nicole Braddock Bromley Health at Every Size, Linda Bacon The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf (I know, she did us so wrong around the Assange assaults, but this really is such a helpful, important piece of work. Plus, people mess up sometimes.) Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image (Live Girls) by Ophira Edut and Rebecca Walker
Also, do you have my book? If not, I think some of the chaps in it might help with all of these issues.
-------------------- Heather Corinna, Executive Director & Founder, Scarleteen About Me Get our book! Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead Posts: 63423 | From: An island near Seattle | Registered: May 2000
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