My attempts to reconcile me and my body have taken an interesting turn over the past few weeks. I have begun to realise that my response to my body does not derive from a vision; it begins, instead, at the pit of my gut. I am feeling my appearance, rather than seeing it – which might explain why I have been finding it so hard.
It is not the size of my leg or the shape of my arm that make the relationship difficult; it’s the emotional response that’s messy. The lack of differentiation between what I feel and what I see.
Instead of being objective and basing my body-perception on facts and realities, I have been building it on far more precarious grounds; and, by reinforcing these through my emotional responses, all sense of perspective has been covered up.
This means that when I am told to look in the mirror and focus on my ‘good points’, I zoom straight past “I have nice eyes” or “I like the colour of my hair” and nose-dive into the feeling instead. It has been interesting to observe what these are:
Hostility
I appear to have a bit of a ‘hard-done-by’ take on my body. I am disappointed by it and feel that it has let me down. This comes out in the criticism and the sharpness that I treat it with: the pinches and smothered anger and unkind names. I am quite shocked by how intolerant and angry I can be.
Distrust
Hostility starts the division: it’s reinforced by distrust. I don’t get my body, nor believe that it can function as it should. I treat it, therefore, with a certain suspicion, as you would a piece of machinery that you don’t quite understand.
Fear
The fear comes with the distrust. It’s linked to expecting something to go wrong and not knowing what – or when – that will be. It goes back, as well, to the realisation that I am not invincible and the fear that accompanied how close I came to the edge. It means that I am super cautious with myself, and I’m still adjusting to taking up any space.
Shame
The shame is prickly like pin points. It is almost too difficult to acknowledge because it is buried so deep. It is a mishmash of fear and hostility and perfectionism and uncertainty, framed by the worry of what other people think. It is, I think, less prominent than it was at the beginning, but some of the previous red-cheeked awkwardness has left a permanent stain.
Disgust
The disgust is where I move towards the more physical and where it starts to blur into identity and size. The repulse caused by one triggers a repulse towards the other and leaves me bouncing backwards and forwards in between.
When my body-image is so charged with negative emotion, it’s not surprising that the reconciliation has been so hard.
But not impossible.
Compassion
Compassion is a new body-related feeling. I noticed it last week when I was bouncing around in disgust. I suddenly felt terribly sorry for this body that I was berating and, in the moment of sympathy, the negative emotions were instantly shown up.
The compassion allowed me to question whether the criticism was really fair, and whether the hostility might be mis-directed. This feels different – in a good way. It is a new route towards body acceptance, and one which I’m going to explore -
Because I think, if I start at the centre, the effects will radiate out -
Related Posts: Optical Illusions; Hello body, meet Melissa; All Joined Up….and an article from GoodTherapy.Org that seemed to help: The Body as Battleground
Tags: Body Image, self-acceptance
Compassion is one of my favourite words at the moment, and one of the qualities most missing from my life when I had an ED. I am very glad that you are finding your way to being compassionate towards yourself. It is common sense, but still astounds me that since learning to show myself a little more kindness, how much I have softened to other people, and how much more at peace I am. I would never change that.
But in the same breath I still find myself concerned from time to time of what others might think of my body now it is not fatless. I default to automatically assuming people think I have “Let myself go”, and forget totally that they might be thinking “Hey, we’re so happy that Lola is relaxed now, she laughs now, she has dinner with us now, she listens now”. I’m sure there are still people who do think that gaining weight and being a little random and chaotic is an act of stupidity, and to have a body of a woman instead of a prepubescent boy is something to be ashamed of. I work with a guy who was always fond of commenting on my model-like figure and have noticed the odd mildly disdainful glance when he sees me in the corridor. My gut reaction is “OMG I have ruined everything, my body my beauty, my success. Starve again! Starve!”
Then I think, really? Why the hell would I want the approval of someone who would see me miserable and tired and worn down, just to fit into a pair of jeans you can’t buy in most high street stores? Why the hell would I want to please someone like that? No thanks. I’d rather win by being who I am, and being happy.
In the words of Regina Spektor: I have a perfect body, sometimes I forget, I have a perfect body, ’cause my eyelashes catch my sweat, yes they do, they do oo oo oo.
Lola x
Hostility, distrust, fear, shame and disgust with compassion taking a back seat a lot of the time. This makes a lot of sense and breaks it do so effectively, Melissa, so thanks!
Ah, body politics. I think my conclusion is I don’t like my body and that means I don’t like me which of course is an erroneous conclusion and is misdirected anger. Yeah, I need a new perspective…
This is a remarkably insightful and articulate post. Thank you for it.