Im having a really rough night, and I dont have anyone I trust to talk to, so I figure I can just yell to the world and see what echoes back.
I have an awful body image. Not like when a girl sort of ask her boyfriend "does this make me look fat" in a fishing for compliments kind of way, but a truly terrible awful body image. I have something called Body Dysmorphic Disorder, and that means I really dont see the truth when I look in the mirror. But knowing that, cognitavely, I am still attractive, and looking in the mirror and seeing it and believing it are entirely different things.
I've never actually been diagnosed with a full on ED before, and for that I am extremely grateful, but ive spent my entire adult life, since adolecence, hovering on the edge, afraid of falling in to that vicious cycle.
I wish there was a way to explain it to people so they understood what goes through my mind, but when i tell people they inevitably think im fishing for compliments, or they think im selfish or rude because theyre bigger than i am and obviously my feelings dont matter since theyre struggling with being 300 lb and I just have these few measly vanity lb to lose.
But thats not how it feels, it feels like when I walk I am weighted by a blimp around my waist, ive gained weight in the past couple years and no one is ignoring it. Especially my family, at my sisters bat mitzvah my dad told me i was getting fat, at yom kippur this last weekend my mom very frankly told me "youve gained weight, you know that, right?"
I no longer go to the shops to buy new, cute, trendy clothes, because I dread trying them on. I nearly cry just thinking about getting undressed in one of those changing rooms, surrounded by mirrors and unforgiving florescent lights. I dont go out to the club as often, getting dressed up for it sends me into an anxiety attack. I hate showering, seeing my body and washing my fat (i do it anyways, obviously...). I swing between being terrified of eating and just saying "fuck it, nothing else has worked, I may as well have pizza." And then, when I get too full, i have to sit on my hands and force myself not to run to the bathroom to throw up whatever I just ate.
I keep trying to lose weight healthily, but it feels like a losing battle. I no longer want to have sex with my boyfriend of two years, because i feel like some sort of sow climbing on him.
I really have no idea what to do. And i have no one to talk to about it. My stepmom just tells me to work out, my dad just shrugs, my mom tells me to try some new agey piece of bs, and my boyfriend, while he tries to be helpful, just isnt. He just doesnt understand that when I feel like this, telling me that he wants me to be healthy and work out and eat right doesnt help, it doesnt help me get to a healthy mindset. And I know if i can just get to a healthier mindset I can be at peace with myself.
So why wont working out help? That is a simple answer, because I already know that no matter how much I lose weight, I will stand in front of the mirror and hate myself. I did it at 99 lb in high school and i do it now when I over around 135. I dont get on the scale, because it just makes me hopeless, and i try not to think about it, because hopeless doesnt help. Hopeless makes me give up and not care, not even try to work out or eat healthy, just gorge on whatever the hell it is i want to eat and not move from my comfy bed, because I am terrified that if i start working out regularly I will have to fight my entire life to be thin and I still wont manage it.
My idols arent supermodels, but rather athletes, i envy them for what they can do, their muscular figures and nearly superhuman abilities. I know, that in better shape, I am a good dancer, a reasonably decent gymnast, a promising aerialist, a foil fencer, capoeirista, and all around energetic person, but once again, knowing it in my head, on a logical level, isnt the same as feeling that its true.
But i just feel like i cant, like when i get home from class and work that i just need to collapse on my bed and do nothing, because if i start fighting then its just a fight forever. I feel like theres an impossible standard that i can never measure up to, it feels hopeless, and why try? Why shouldnt I go get cheese from the fridge at 2 am and eat it all?
My boyfriend tries to be supportive, but he just doesnt know now, and i dont know how to help him learn how to help me. Hell, i don't even know how to help myself at this point. I do wish he was more helpful and supportive of helping me get motivated to work out, helping me feel like eating better and being more active is making a difference, instead of me feeling alone and helpless. He is in the army, and aside from being away most of the time, hes in fantastic shape. He also eats anything he wants, tons of ice cream, chocolate, greasy foods. It makes it so difficult because i keep trying to eat healthier and he takes me to a burger place, or gets a big bowl of ice cream while we watch a movie and proceeds to share it with me in the sickeningly adorable way that he does. And the crazy thing is is that i dont even have much of a sweet tooth, without him around I hardly eat candy or ice cream. So why is it, that the one time a month that I eat ice cream, do i feel so guilty I want to cry? Or the one soda I have a week (usually a strawberry fanta to help me through my sunday workday) makes me feel like i dont have a right to it, and I feel so damn guilty for drinking it?
Sorry, I'm rambling, I just dont know what to do. I should probably see a therapist, but I dont even know what to tell them.
I mean, ive spent most of my life with people telling me I am small. And people still tell me that, even though, as weve established, I dont feel it. And by saying how i feel, truthfully, I feel like people think im lying, or fishing for compliments. I am afraid to express these feelings, even to a shrink, and I just have no idea what to do.
-Fin-
