Posts Tagged ‘Body Image’

From a Female Perspective-

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Let me set the scene. I am a thirty-something female. Educated, employed, relatively attractive, slightly neurotic – and recovering from a chronic eating disorder.

To help me along this bumpy journey, I started to try and understand myself and my relationship to the world; to gain some insight into what had happened and why it had happened. The pen was my probe and my head, the subject. Or so I thought. Somewhere along the way, my psychological exercise stumbled into a sociological debate and took on a life of its own – particularly in relation to being a woman.
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A Strange Kind of Silence….

Friday, February 12th, 2010

You know when you walk past a shop window and don’t recognise yourself because you’d forgotten that you were wearing your new pink coat or had just lost 4 inches of hair?

I’ve just had one of those moments.

Post pilates leg stretches, and I was so surprised by the leg that I was stretching that I ended up twisting it back to front and forgetting to follow the crucial

“breathe”….

My legs do not look like my legs anymore, and I couldn’t guarantee that this body belongs to me.
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All Joined Up

Monday, January 11th, 2010

In July, I had a nasty incident with a treadmill and some osteoperotic bones, and I learnt a thing or two about this piece of machinery that I have been walking around in –

The human body is pretty amazing; and it deserves a bit of respect.

As I have been struggling with befriending my body recently, I thought that re-visiting what I learnt on the physiotherapist’s bed might be a good idea – or at least plug in a few of the holes that the therapist’s couch has evidently left – so, here’s a run down of a few key bits of learning that might make me hesitate when I’m next tempted to give myself a good kicking.

The first thing that my physio did when I sat down for my consultation was to tap me, sharply, on the knee to see whether my foot shot up. It did. Lesson 1: we’re all joined up.
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Survival

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

Last night, when I was busy flooding my flat, my ears woke me up to warn me of the impending danger. In the light of the abuse that I have thrown at this very body over the years, this was quite considerate. My body has been far more forgiving then I am. It’s not the first time it’s stepped in to divert a disaster.

This morning, as I surveyed the wreckage, and realised just how timely my ear’s intervention was, I have been struck by how successful my mind and body are as a double act. The eating disorder may have succeeded in driving a great big wedge between us; but, really, we should be fighting on the same side.

We are not meant to self destruct; we are meant to survive –
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Hello body, meet Melissa..

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Since putting on weight, I seem to have separated me, from my body. It sits, over there; whilst I stay, over here; and, never the twain shall meet.

We weren’t this disconnected when I was hideously underweight. We may not have been friends but we were, at least, on speaking terms. Now we don’t acknowledge each other.
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Posted in Getting Better | 2 Comments »

The X Factor? Comparisons and Competitions

Monday, September 14th, 2009

The X Factor and, more specifically, Danni and/or Cheryl, got me thinking.

Place two women side by side and the rivalry’s instinctive. Before the competition’s even started, the odds are against the female contestants, and the battle lines have been drawn between the female judges –

We are, by far, the less supportive more suspicious gender. We can’t help but think in terms of comparisons and competitions –
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The Great Size Debate

Friday, June 5th, 2009

Being thin is the telltale sign of anorexia.

Thinness and anorexia. The words have almost become almost synonymous now. Interchangeable descriptors.

I can see where they’re coming from. Starvation is a pretty visual effect. It demands the most attention. It’s a bit of a giveaway.

Being thin was at the heart of my eating disorder and completely irrelevant to it. It was, simultaneously, a desired consequence and an unintended outcome.

Confused?

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Size Zero

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

I’m anti size Zero. Not because it’s unhealthy (which it is). Or because it feeds into the whole messed up body image culture debate (which it does). Or even because it encourages anorexia (keep reading)…

But because it’s an easy answer and it stops people looking at the real problem.

Because it’s a dangerous mirage that makes anorexia all about vanity and fashion and superficial surface level things – when really it goes far deeper than that.

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Optical Illusions?

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Body image is the logical next step in my theoretical musings. It’s the link between emotional perception and the physical illness.

I’ve been resisting the whole ‘distorted body image’ debate. Trying to steer clear of clichés or over-simplifications. Trying not to replicate the patronising overtones that I used to hear in the references to my own distorted image.

They missed a crucial point: it wasn’t my body image that was distorted; it was my interpretation of my body image.

And there’s a subtle difference.

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