DEAR LISTENER,
My difficulty is probably my body image, self-perception. I feel sadness, anger, sometimes disgust. The effect is that it is difficult to love others, to let others love you when you don’t love yourself. It limits me from being bold with guys and wearing the things I want but am afraid I look ugly and fat.
My part is I enable it by calling myself fat and perceiving myself that way. I am learning that I have body dysmorphia. A shift I can make is being kinder to my body and taking risks (good ones).
I try to push out those negative thoughts about myself and try and think of my positive attributes. I’m only human and not being a certain way is okay.
Sincerely,
Student 43
16 years old, female
DEAR STUDENT 43,
You are not alone.
When I was your age, I spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about my body. I most certainly had body dysmorphia, like you suspect that you do. When I think about all of the hours that I spent obsessing about my body, I wonder what else I could have been doing with that time. Certainly, I could have been doing a lot more with my life than I was. Like you, it limited my potential.
I know that we are told we are supposed to live without regrets. But, I think that is a ridiculous expectation. I have heaps of regrets. Sure, I can recognize that those regretful incidents and decisions have made me who I am today, but if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t make those same choices. And one of those choices I wouldn’t make again if I could do it over was being so hateful towards my body. If I could talk to the 16-year-old me, I would tell her that the most powerful thing for a 16-year-old (or someone of any age) is radical self-confidence and self-acceptance. If you can master that self-love, you will be way ahead of everyone else. I challenge you to love yourself just as you are. That confidence and care will be magnetic to people. You will be a phenomenal woman, just like Maya Angelou wrote about in her poem "Phenomenal Woman"—it is something I think to myself when I am feeling powerful and strong or am not feeling powerful and strong but want to.
One other thing I would like you to think about is just how much self-harm you engage in on a daily basis. You don’t need to cut yourself or do drugs to do self-harm. Words and thoughts can cut too. The level of my self-abuse and body dissatisfaction were so high when I was your age, I remember my sister once asked me, “Why are you so mean to yourself?” It shook me, that question. I developed a mantra after that that revolved around this, “Would you do or say that (insert negative thoughts or actions) to a small child or an animal?” If the answer is, “No, I would never do or say this to a small child or an animal,” then you aren’t allowed to say/do/think that to yourself. Plain and simple.
It took me a long time to be nice to myself. I became really sick because of it. I hope you never become that sick. You are aware that you’re being hard on yourself and that awareness is a good thing and you can change it. I did. It took a long time but I changed it.
Maybe it would help to develop an asset-based approach to thinking about your body. Instead of thinking about what it isn’t, can you think about what it is and can do? What is your body capable of? Can you move? Can you sing? Can you type and write your name in cursive? Can you dance? Can you spread butter on toast? Can you pick up a small child? Can you bend over to paint your toenails? These are all pretty miraculous things, in and of themselves. Some people can’t do these things so if you can (or if you can’t), why not celebrate what your body can do rather than what it isn’t?
Before I go and leave you with Maya's poem, I just wanted to say, you look beautiful today.
Hugs,
A Phenomenal Woman (just like you)
