Body Dysmorphia

Body dysmorphic disorder is a mean, nasty, debilitating mental disorder that can really destroy you. You constantly obsess over the smallest of “flaws”, a bit too chunky around the thighs, your skin is too spotty, or your hair isn’t luscious enough. This obsession slowly breaks you down, and then starts breaking down your relationships. It’s a persistent niggle in the back of your mind, and its damn near impossible to ignore.

Body dysmorphia can stem from a number of emotionally traumatic factors: sexual abuse, neglect, bullying to name a few. I was around nine years old when it started for me, with a small comment being made to me in class at primary school by a boy, which is so deeply engrained in my memory that some days it feels like it happened only yesterday. I wore a skirt on this particular day of school, stood by the bookshelf in my classroom, this boy approached me and said, “Why are you wearing a skirt, you’re too fat to wear skirts.” Nine years old and this set off a serious problem within my mental well being for the next 15 years.

From that point on, all I could think was maybe I am too fat, maybe I should stop eating crisps and sweets and then I can wear skirts and look nice in them. Immediately after that incident at school, I vowed never to wear a skirt again, nor a dress, or shorts. And I didn’t. For eight years in fact. As I grew older and hit puberty, my own self-image only got worse. I come from a bloodline where all the women are notoriously curvy. With big child bearing hips hitting me at around age 13, I hit another snag in terms of my own body dysmorphia. At 13, you start to become interested in the opposite sex, you develop crushes, you watch as all your skinny friends get boyfriends and you’re left behind, like the fat little dumpling that you are. Or at least think you are. It was in art class in secondary school, I was chatting with some friends, talking about the proportions of the human body, when two boys, very bluntly told me, “You’re top AND bottom heavy” ...they basically told me I wasn't their ideal body type, or anyone's body type. Again, someone had told me that I was fat, after being acutely aware of this fact since the age of nine, swearing off skirts and dresses, I had now been humiliated all over again, in more ways than one this time. My body was changing enough as it was because of puberty, and it wasn’t changing into what I wanted; what I thought I should be looking like. I soon developed bulimia. But that’s something I want to focus on another time. Looking back, this really set in stone the true dysmorphic image I had cultivated about my body, for years to come still.

Fast forward a couple of years, I’m 16 years old in my first year of college, I fell into a crowd I never have imagined I would ever be associated with. We all developed a nasty relationship with drugs. At first, recreationally, then it was quite literally an addiction, mostly to synthetic amphetamines. Two minutes of research will tell you that prolonged and extensive use of these types of drugs can cause extreme weight loss. And it did just that. As I was approaching my 17th birthday, I weighed only 6.5 stone, and at 5' 5", this was a dangerous weight to be at. However, thanks to my body dysmorphia, I couldn’t see just how small I had gotten. I could still "see" fat rolls on my stomach, my love handles, my thick wobbly thighs. It didn’t matter how many people told me how skinny I looked, I couldn’t believe them. My brain quite literally tricked me into seeing things about my body that just weren’t there. Looking back now at photographs, I can see just how dangerously small and sick I looked, but at the time, I still saw myself as that "top and bottom heavy" girl.

For a good few years after that, only really up until a couple of months ago, just before turning 24, with the occasional blip of normality, where I was comfortable in my own skin and didn’t mind looking in a mirror, I only ever saw a fat dumpy girl, full of flaws that the whole world could see and would focus on. The harsh reality of the extent of my body dysmorphia was that between the ages of 18 and 23, I simply could not stomach the sight of my naked body whatsoever. I would avoid mirrors after I got out the shower, I was practically never naked, always covering up in a long baggy t-shirt/jumper/cardigan as soon as I was dry enough to put something on, purely because I was that repulsed by my own reflection, or rather, what I perceived my own reflection to be.

I don’t need to remind anyone of the ramifications that having body dysmorphia can do to sexual relationships, because it destroys them. And it’s heart breaking, to know that you have subconsciously allowed yourself to become so reclusive and shy enough around somebody who genuinely makes you feel like you could walk on water, that it pushes them away. And during the truly dysmorphic times, you honestly cannot muster up a good enough reason as to why you don’t want to take that giant XXL t-shirt off. You cannot explain to your significant other, who is a perfect god/goddess among us mere mortals, that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them, that it’s just that nasty voice in the back of your mind that tells you that you aren’t sexy enough, you aren’t skinny enough, you’re too heavy, you aren’t worthy. No matter how much you truly believe and know that that other person finds you attractive, your stupid fucking dysmorphia takes over. Whether you like it or not.

Body dysmorphia is cruel. For men and women, from the moment we become self-aware as human beings, we are constantly bombarded by publications, magazines, catwalk models, fitness models, "telling" us how we should look, alongside headlines like "get the perfect beach body", "how to shed a stone in six weeks" and "flab to abs in three months." Those things in the media alone are enough to trigger the dysmorphic tendencies myself and so many others around me battle or have battled with every day. Body dysmorphia almost always leads, or directly correlates with other mental disorders such as eating disorders, depression and anxiety. It’s a real problem and I feel that far too many people suffer from it, a lot of the times in silence. After the truly traumatic year that has been 2017, and with the help of some weight loss and antidepressants, I can finally, confidently say that I am comfortable in my own skin. I never thought I would ever utter those words and believe them. But I do. It’s the truth. All I want is for anyone going through this horrible controlling disorder, to one day experience just how freeing it is, to stand stark naked in front of a mirror and smile, feel comfortable, confident, sexy. To take those questionable photos of yourself in nothing but underwear, or nothing at all, just to show off for yourself. To go out and buy the sexiest underwear you can find, and just wear it around the house, and feel good.

Because I can tell you now, nothing beats lazing around the house in your finest bra and panties/slip/baby doll/birthday suit, being completely, 100%, truly at peace with yourself.