Getting personal - my own story

Yesterday I blogged about Body Dysmorphic Disorder.  Today I'll get personal and tell a bit about my own journey...

A few years ago, for several months I followed the "ideal" meal plan, balancing all the food groups and only eating certain amounts.  I was also exercising 4-5 times/week.  I loved how strong I felt and enjoyed the more toned look of my body.  I also appreciated the endorphins flowing through my body helping me have plenty of energy.  I had wanted to lose 10 pounds to get back to my pre-marriage weight, but only lost 4 and felt discouraged.  I realize I gained muscle which weighs more than fat.  Etc., etc., etc.  Blah, blah, blah.  Yes, I got into that cycle.

But the reason I got into it was because I was waking up virtually every morning disgusted with myself for how my body looked.  I would have negative thoughts frequently throughout the day.  I finally decided that I was wasting a lot more time feeling bad about myself than it would take to exercise and get the above-mentioned perks.


I have lost the muscles and tone over the couple of years since I gradually stopped exercising. I'd like to get back into it just because it feels good.  I haven't made time to do it again yet.  I don't want to obsess about it or about food.  I want to eat healthily.  I want to eat well.  I want to eat delicious food, and I don't want to deny myself, because that makes me crazy and petulant and pissy and reactive.

I have not yet found a balance and I do not yet love my body unconditionally.  I can act like I do - I will fake it til I make it - but I have days when I get frustrated and put myself down about my body.
Around Christmas I took a series of photographs of myself, my belly, breasts, and face primarily.  I drew a couple of images from it then, then two days ago I drew another.  It is very difficult for me to look at.  I chose colors that are harsh and ugly together because I was working with my feelings.  I got caught up in the process of creating and forgot what I was painting (as is usually the case), but when I was done and stood back to look at it, and as I look at it now, it's painful.  I don't like what I see.  I've always had the lower pooch - always.  But the top one is new.  That's the last 8 pounds.  Eight pounds of fat.


I don't know what to do about it.  I hear echoes of my father's voice, "Hold your stomach in or you'll look terrible."  I hear his voice another time, "Women always get fat after they have children.  You will too."  Am I fulfilling his prophecy?  It's very uncomfortable to me.


I weigh 140 lbs and am 5'6".  I am in the normal range for weight.  Yet I weigh more than I ever have.  I think I've always been in the very low normal range, if not a bit underweight, so having this bulge above my belly is new and uncomfortable.  I have probably never had an accurate vision of my body.  I probably had a very mild form of BDD vis-a-vis my stomach.  I certainly have not perceived it accurately.  My siblings taunted me with "Fatty, fatty, two by four, can't get through the bathroom door" when I was eight and I've, at least since then, believed that was an accurate moniker for me.  When I was newly divorced, I couldn't figure out how to take care of my three young children, make enough money to support us, maintain the house AND feed myself.  From strain and worry, I got down to 108 pounds.  I'll always be grateful to my friend who looked at me, put her fingers around my skeletal wrist, and said, "Honey, you need to gain some weight.  This has gone far enough."  I'd had no idea I'd even lost weight.


It's such an odd, odd thing, this body image stuff.

Yesterday I did some online research on a disorder I had heard about called Body Dysmorphic Disorder.  The Mayo Clinic website defines it as follows:

Body dysmorphic disorder is a type of chronic mental illness in which you can't stop thinking about a flaw with your appearance — a flaw that is either minor or imagined. But to you, your appearance seems so shameful that you don't want to be seen by anyone. Body dysmorphic disorder has sometimes been called "imagined ugliness."

When you have body dysmorphic disorder, you intensely obsess over your appearance and body image, often for many hours a day. You may seek out numerous cosmetic procedures to try to "fix" your perceived flaws, but never will be satisfied. Body dysmorphic disorder is also known as dysmorphophobia, the fear of having a deformity.

Treatment of body dysmorphic disorder may include medication and cognitive behavioral therapy.

Wikipedia states that...

the disorder is linked to significantly diminished quality of life and can be co-morbid with major depressive disorder and social phobia, also known as chronic social anxiety. With a completed-suicide rate more than double that of major depression (three to four times that of manic depression) and a suicidal ideation rate of around 80%, extreme cases of BDD (Body Dysmorphic Disorder) linked with dissociation can be considered a risk factor for suicide; however, many cases of BDD are treated with medication and counseling.^[7]

They state further that a person's issue can be mis-diagnosed as depression when it's actually BDD which is causing the problem.  The sufferer tends to spend excessive time thinking about a perceived flaw, looking in a mirror to examine it thoroughly, and otherwise obsessing about a flaw which usually doesn't even exist.

I feel badly for such a person because their quality of life is so impaired. 

In a similar vein, I've just started reading a book called Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body (Hardcover)by Courtney E. Martin.  She is a young woman writing about her generation's horrific tendency to focus on their bodies and their imperfections.  She states that so many of these young women appear to have it all - excellent grades, amazing achievements, great jobs, perfect boyfriends - they are perfect on paper - yet they spend hours daily thinking about what they have eaten/want to eat/shouldn't eat, etc., etc.  Martin figures conservatively that such people spend over 100 minutes each day with thoughts such as "I wonder if I should get a frozen yogurt.  Oh, no, I haven't earned it.  No, that would be so bad.  No, I won't do it.  Yes, I'm going to.  I didn't have breakfast so I deserve it, and besides it doesn't have all that many calories.  What the hell!"  Then of course there's the price they pay in guilt and self-disgust and vomiting it up.  She paints a picture of imbalance and horrible self-denial.

It seems to me that our society is significantly out of balance with food and eating and body image and very little idea of how to think about it normally.  I haven't read a book about that yet - what normal eating would look like.  Of course I've read nutrition books about the ideal meal plan (where one is supposed to weigh and/or measure ones portions precisely as well as record them so one can't fool oneself about what one has really eaten) but I'm not sure that counts as "healthy".  Does anybody out there have an answer to that one?