I am obsessed with my appearance.
Not in an overly narcissistic, ‘damn girl you look good’
kinda way, which would be infinitely preferable, but in an ‘I just can’t accept
this is what I look like’ way. How I look and how I think I look and how that makes me feel has taken over my life.
It’s what I spend the majority of my time thinking about and it sets the tone
for my entire mood, as more often than not I am repulsed by what I see.
I obsessively check my reflection in every mirror, shadow
and reflective surface. I have studied the way I walk, talk and exist from
all angles with greater fervour than I have applied to anything in life. I am
hyper aware of my existence and the space I occupy, and it is exhausting. The
hatred and paranoia run so deep, I am terrified to even consider the
possibility of accepting myself as I am, because I can’t think of anything
worse than settling for this. Just the thought of settling for this makes me panic.
Body Dysmorphic Disorder often focuses on one perceived flaw
but when I look at myself, I am unable to see anything but flaws, it’s
exhausting and time consuming and only seems to be getting worse as so much
of my time is spent looking at myself and others on social media. I dislike eye
contact because I don’t like having people looking at me, I don’t like being
hugged as I fear the repulsion from people having to touch me, I will repeatedly
go over pictures other people have taken of me to pick apart how I look from
all angles, I alternate between avoiding mirrors entirely to spending hours
looking at myself and overanalysing every pore. I am frequently late because sometimes how
I look is so distressing, I get too anxious to leave the house. From the size
of my forehead to the shape of my feet, there is literally nothing I haven’t
found an issue with. I haven’t been to a hairdresser in ten years for fear of offending
someone with how awful my hair is.
For as long as I can remember, I have been told that how I
am, who I am, is wrong and I am reluctant to believe anything else. Emotional
abuse is so insidious it seeps in and distorts everything you thought you knew
and replaces it with what you now know. See, when you’re told something
enough it starts to stick and I don’t know how to throw it out and start
over. Worse, do I even want to - because what am I without this hanging over me? I
have convinced myself, I can only enjoy life once I look a certain way – a way
that constantly changes, depending what offends me most that day. I have a
plastic surgery wish list longer than my arm and once contemplated having to
learn to walk again, because I read it was possible to have bone removed from
your thighs to make you shorter. I would literally do anything to look like somebody
else, I just don’t have the funds to do so.
I don’t have any memories from what it was like before, what
I was like before. Surely, I didn’t feel this way at 5? But I can’t remember. I
can’t remember. I can remember being called a half-breed at 7, I can remember
being called a p*ki at 11, a n****er at 16. I can remember being groped and
pushed and spat on. I can remember being told I was worthless and disgusting,
that no one would ever love me, that my own father didn’t want me, that I was
repulsive and unwanted and and... I can remember being laughed at. I can
remember being humiliated over and over and over again, until I had to be the
one telling the ‘jokes’, making the quips, just to get it out of the way.
I can remember you mocking my hair and my teeth and my laugh
and my singing and my friends and my clothes and my interests and my scars and
my stretch marks and I can remember getting so angry that I wanted to hurt you,
but I couldn’t, so I hurt myself instead. I’m still hurting myself, I still
hurt, it still hurts, and I don’t know why I care so much when you never did. I
wish I didn’t, I wish your words were as worthless to me as I find myself but
that’s not how this works. You made it easy for me to see all the ways in which
I’m not enough. How I will never be enough.
Recently, I took part in a photoshoot for Lovedrobe with Jess
and Violet, an incredible opportunity with some fabulous people, but a
terrifying concept when you don’t like what you look like. You’re probably
thinking this sounds ridiculous, considering I have spent years posting thousands
of pictures of myself all over the internet, but posing for yourself or with friends
is very different to having to model, to be aware of your physical presence in
a way I so frequently try to avoid. Overall, I had a great experience, due to the wonderful team, and it was
a fabulous day but it was a struggle; I knew I needed to look at the images to
see how to improve but I also knew looking at myself would only cause me to
focus on how much I don’t like my appearance and how terrible I looked in HD.
They say you can’t love anyone until you love yourself and
I refuse to believe it. Sometimes I love so much, I fear my chest may collapse
with the weight of it. Sometimes I worry it’s the only thing I have. I hope
that by filling everyone else up, no one will notice how empty I am. How
there’s a gaping hollow where a life should be, a grim, miserable shadow of an
existence, too concerned with visuals to pay attention to details. Too caught
up in what’s going wrong to focus on anything going right, too obsessed with an
impossible idea of perfection to enjoy the experience of living.
My previous therapist liked to reiterate that the opinions
of others aren’t important and would question why I allowed the ignorance of
complete strangers to have an affect on how I choose to view myself – a
seemingly rational idea but one that seems impossible to maintain because
everyone has an opinion on my appearance and my whispers of confidence flicker and
fade under the roaring discontent my existence seems to inspire. It would seem,
the combination of being tall, fat, black, and female is just too much for
people to take and I am subjected to idiocy on the daily. On a good day my
anger acts as shield, and the rage I feel towards people who feel they have a
right to comment on others’ appearance deflects the potential hurt. On a bad
day, I disassociate and lose hours of my life to a daydream world.
BDD is isolating and exhausting
and I fear there is an overlap with how all fat girls are believed to feel, or
have felt, because it’s expected we feel this negatively towards ourselves. Worse,
fat people who don’t feel this way are subjected to endless abuse regarding how
and why they should. If you feel like this, even a fraction, sometimes or all
the time, I’m so sorry. You must be so tired.
As with all mental illness, there are good days and there are worse days, but this is something I am always dealing with. I wanted to share my experience because whilst extreme, I know many of us struggle with our appearance and the comparative nature of social media can have adverse effects on our overall self-worth. Sometimes it’s just a bad day, but if you fear you may be struggling, please speak to your GP.
Resources:
Mind
IAPT
BDD Foundation
Previously, I have written about my struggles with depression.
Always remember, no matter how you feel about yourself, you are always worthy of love & respect.
xxx
Hi Stephanie!
ReplyDeleteI stumbled upon your blog because someone retweeted this link.
I find your resilience and honesty to be incredibly inspiring. I don’t know much about BDD, but you’ve definitely opened my eyes to it. I suffer from my own mental health struggles, so I can relate to that in my own way. I know it’s difficult, but I believe in your strength.
Sending you all the love in the world. You’re so strong and so beautiful. Your journey is an inspiration.
-Nicia
Hi Stephanie!
ReplyDeleteI stumbled upon your blog because someone retweeted this link.
I find your resilience and honesty to be incredibly inspiring. I don’t know much about BDD, but you’ve definitely opened my eyes to it. I suffer from my own mental health struggles, so I can relate to that in my own way. I know it’s difficult, but I believe in your strength.
Sending you all the love in the world. You’re so strong and so beautiful. Your journey is an inspiration.
-Nicia
Love this post !! xx
ReplyDeleteRegards.
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