Body Dysmorphia

I'm really struggling with body dysmorphia.  Between hearing an exbf say the difference was not that big, to starting to think maybe clothing companies are lying to me and my 14/16s and 18 jeans are just a lie and I'm really still big...  I'm not fishing for compliments, I just am frustrated dealing with the personal confusion.  Wearing an outfit yesterday that was brand new and I realized I could go smaller, I thought, "No, you couldn't.  Maybe they're just making these sizes too big.  You're really not these sizes."

I'm not a crazy person, but I'm definitely dealing with dysmorophia.

I hear you.  My body image can go both ways. I will see a picture and think, hmmm not bad for an old lady.  Then see another and think, ooops, you DO have more work to do here.

I have been working so diligently te past ten years at least to really really accept what I have here. I do those silly exercises like looking at my naked body and saying thank you. Or when I rub lotion in on my belly especially, I give thanks.

And as an side, the manufacturers ARE making clothes sizes larger than years ago. I consider Junior sizes to be more like the old days. I am not sure whether this info is good/bad/indifferent - as long as we buy smaller than we did before, is that not the point?

Oh, I know I'm buying smaller, heck, Lane Bryant is now too big for me, even in their smallest sizes...but it's the moment when I have a small size on, like yesterday, my 14/16 top was too big (just bought) and I thought, I can't possibly be wearing a 14/16 anything, whether or not the manufacturer's version of it is larger than 20 years ago....

I'm just working on accepting my body and looks right where I am now.  I weigh 276 pounds (at last weighing), and wear around 26/28.  When I was 13, my father mistakenly told me I was "gross, fat & ugly", and I wasn't any of those things then, but since he was my father, I believed him!  From then on, my body image was distorted, so that I felt that being fat made me ugly, too.  This has messed me up unbelievably not only with my own self image, but has made me very judgmental of others who are overweight, too, although I don't usually tell them how I feel.

I was judging those people in OA who had been there a long time and were still quite overweight.  I was judging myself the same way.  It's none of my business why they are still overweight, but I feel ashamed that I've been in OA seriously working their 12-step program since February 2006, and still haven't lost all my weight. 

I'm beginning to realize that recovery is a long, drawn out process, and involves not dieting to lose weight fast (or WLS for that matter), but back to back day by day abstinence, using a healthy food plan and refraining from compulsive overeating and bingeing to handle my emotional ups and downs.  This can be incredibly difficult for me at times, easier at others.  It's painful sometimes just feel all my feelings, but that's part of being human.  I'm supposed to feel my feelings, not cover them up with excess food.

Denise Phares/kitties4

Body dysmorphia can be sooooo confusing!  You set these goals to be a certain weight and size and your WHOLE focus in life becomes this mystical goal.  You know when you get there you are supposed to be happy with your body and the world will be sweetness and light.  At least that was my daydream when I weighed over three hundred pounds!

What 'they' forgot to tell me was that when I started working out, and my muscles were toned and had some weight to them, that I would get to the SIZE before I got to the WEIGHT.  And then the biggest betrayal of all for me was that my body looked the same to me at two hundred pounds as it did at three hundred pounds!  But my big ol belly could fit into a size sixteen?  What?  Last time I fit into a size sixteen I weighed 170 pounds.  Matter of fact, I have my old sixteen jeans and they fit at 200 pounds.  Although that was a great day in my life, it was way too much for my brain to comprehend.

Now that I wear 12/14's I still don't believe that this body can fit into that.  Kim sent me a t-shirt that's a skinny people's size x-large.  Never in my LIFE!  That was only in the fat people's clothes.  I looked at it and thought...no way.  It fits perfectly and is not tight at all.

So now I am trying to talk the fat chick inside of my brain into accepting the new normal.  She needs to shut the hell up and let me start enjoying the fruits of my LABOR. 

Girl, as hard as you work out, by the time you get to 200 pounds, you'll be in a size zero!  So even though we don't get the math, we need to learn to stop questioning it and just enjoy the ride.  As hard as you are working it, you had to know that if you kept walking, you would get there eventually.   Now your mind's eye just has to catch up with the rest of your journey.

Mary 

Thanks, Mary.

I had another moment today.  I had come from the gym (training, abs, and 5k training, plus regular cardio) to pick up my mom and take her out on errands and dinner.

Walking the hallway in front of the mirror, I saw this very long looking lean torso.  How could I change yet again in just days????

How could you change yet again in just days?  Woman, have you ever actually read what you write???  Good Lawd...you workout like a whole team of Olympic athletes.  You know and practice the Atkins Diet better than Dr. Atkins did!  And the closer you get to goal, the smaller you get faster.

Think of it this way.  When you wear a size 28, you have to lose thirty pounds or more before you move to a size 26.  But if you wear a size six, you only have to lose ten pounds or less to get to a size four.  Suffice it to say this, you are going to have to get used to any new "shrinkage" being waaaaay more dramatic than it has been in the past. 

See what I'm sayin'?

Mary

i have BDS (body dysmorphic symdrome). its hell and its not as easy as just thinking u are fat when ur not...what you are suffering from is normal because we spent so long looking one way and now we look totally different...takes a while to adjust.

me, people tell me i am so pretty and this and that, but i think i am the ugliest thing a live...constatnyl picking at myself when people tell me that i am lucky.

now that is hell.