When I look at myself in the mirror, I see the same thing I've been seeing since I was in elementary school and beginning to mature in puberty. I see a giant jutting stomach and rolls of fat. Is this image accurate? I don't know. It wasn't, back then. I've posted a picture here before of myself at age 9, when I thought I was enormous. I can look back now and see that I wasn't.

I have no idea what I look like now. I cannot get an accurate image in the mirror. I can see another woman who wears my size--in fact, she can even be wearing my clothes, and they can be snug on her where they are loose on me--and that woman doesn't look nearly as big to me as I look to myself. I cannot gauge myself with any kind of precision.

There is a website that shows a photographic height/weight chart. People submit their photographs and tell what height and weight they are. Therefore it shows a visual image of what someone else looks like at that height and weight.

I looked at the woman who claimed to be exactly my height and weight, and I thought, "No way!" Surely she is much smaller than I am. I kept looking until I found a woman who I thought was close to my body size. She is my height but weighs substantially more than I ever have, even at my heaviest. But there is no way I am going to be visually convinced she's bigger than I am. I have lost enough weight that soon I will have to go out shopping; even my bras don't fit me anymore. Still, I can't look in the mirror and see a smaller woman.

It's been this way since childhood. Will it ever change? If not, how can I find a more reliable way to get a visual for what I look like, since I don't trust that others who say they are the same height and weight I am are necessarily telling the truth?

[Kathleen83]

Gee....does this sound familiar.....! I also have no "real" concept of how I look. As a kid, I always saw myself as huge. Yet if I find a rare photo of myself then (that I haven't found previously and destroyed)....I don't recognize myself. Nah....that can't be me....she's not fat! Then as an adult, I became obese. Self-conforming to my mental image of myself? Now there's a scary thought!

Yet...even at my heaviest, I don't think I really "saw" myself as huge as I was. Which is why I hate mirrors....and hate having my picture taken. I would look at the images....and think HOLY.......! But....even if I didn't see myself as "that" huge....I knew I was much heavier than I wanted to be. So....years and years of yo-yo'ing, up and down, up and down....I found something that seems to work for me. Haven't gotten to where I want to be, but I've gotten closer. And yet.....my image of myself is the same. I can't see the changes! Given the amount of weight I've lost - I should be able to see *something*, damn it! Right? Others can! So yeah, I soooo totally get not being able to see an accurate image in the mirror.

I'm wanting to check out that website you mentioned, just to see how far off I am, in my own thoughts. But....getting back to YOU - here's something I haven't tried yet....I think I heard about it on Dr. Oz's show....LOL I'm tempted to do it...but it requires a second person....and I can't get over the "feeling silly" stage to ask someone to help me. But it's a thought - maybe something for you to try.

Get a BIG sheet of paper.....or several papers taped together. Butchers paper, wrapping paper,....heck even several "poster boards" taped together. Lay it all out on the floor - then - draw an outline of yourself. I'm not talking about drawing an actual line around yourself - not yet. Just draw an outline of how you THINK you are.

And then.....get a friend, and give him/her a different color to draw with. Lay down over YOUR outline, and have him/her draw around you as you lie there.....draw your REAL shape. I seem to remember that "Doc" said...the very act of your laying down, feeling the marker outlining against you, helps you to accept that THAT is real.

Just a thought. Meanwhile, if you find some other way to really "see" yourself as you are....let me know.

[Kathleen83]

Update - checked out that website. I still don't feel like I look like OTHERS who are my height and weight do....so no surprise....I still don't seem to have an accurate self-image of myself. But that website did help me in one way - I looked at photos of my height / weight before the weight loss....found some to compare to what *I* thought I looked like then....and then I did the same for what I weigh now. What I've decided - my self-image was whacked then, & is whacked now....but it's getting closer to being the same.

[birdnesthair]

Have you ever looked into researching body dysmorphic disorder? It sounds a lot like what you're experiencing, especially if you do suffer from an eating disorder. If you have T, maybe you should bring this up with them?

All the best. (:

I'm quite certain BDD is more than a possibility, but I don't know what to do with it if/when it comes to light that I do have it.

I have been losing weight, which is medically necessary. I am under doctor's guidance. But the image in the mirror has not changed, basically since I was 8 years old and starting to enter puberty, when I first started to see myself as roly-poly fat (whether I was or not.)

It always surprises me when I:
1. Rest my chin in my hands and don't feel a lot of goosh.
2. Lie on my side in bed, place an arm on my hip, and feel bone rather than soft flab.
3. Touch the back of my leg and feel solid muscle.

The difference between what I see and what I feel is substantial, and confusing.

I am (constantly) reminded that I still have weight to lose. Last time I was at the doctor's office, having my heart checked out, I heard the nurse say those dreaded words when assessing my risk factors: "You're overweight." I don't know if she's aware of the weight I've already lost, but she didn't give me any credit for it. And I'm afraid that, with my natural body type, I can weigh exactly what I should, and I'll still hear those words.

[Brokenwings73]

I've struggled with BDD for years. I've done the body tracings and tell them they "had" to have made a mistake I done picture things. I hate being in pictures. If I have to I always hide in the back! When people ask me can't you see yourself like we see you ? I ask them have you been thru a fun house and come across the mirror that make you squat and wide! I ask what they think they say it hideous! That's what it's like any time I have to get infront of a mirror. So I dont. I tell them to go live by one of one of those mirrors for just one month and try to out themselves together and how they feel after. I have yet to get 1 person to accept the challenge. My T keeps working on mindfulness with me to help me get thru these beliefs but they're as real as the sky is blue to me. Best of luck with your journey thru this confusing situation.

I am resurrecting this thread with some updates.

I recently went shopping for new clothes. The sizes I had been wearing and had bought before, were way too big for me, and the size on the jeans I recently bought, I cannot believe. I would be glad to share the specific numbers, but I am mindful that specific numbers are against the rules here, so I will try to be as clear as I can while complying.

Just to be sure, I measured my new jeans against my old ones. Surely they must have changed the sizing system or something! I mean, I remember once before when I lost some weight, and I was excited to fit into a certain size, but my mother cautioned me, "Don't get excited about sizes. The higher quality clothes are marked with smaller numbers, to make those rich, fat old women happy." So... sigh... apparently I hadn't lost weight after all. It was the clothing manufacturer being kind and telling me I was a smaller size. Was that happening again?

No. Even if the new jeans are stretchy fabric (but not elastic waist) and the old jeans are not, there is a significant visual difference in the waistband. The old jeans are bigger by several inches. And, the dress slacks I bought at the same time, from another manufacturer, are marked as the same size as my new jeans.

Also, as far as I know, this was not a high-end store that caters to "rich, fat old women."

Furthermore, I could have even gone down another size, for as generously as the new jeans and the new dress slacks fit me! (I didn't, because I wasn't sure how much they'd shrink in the wash.) Still, both of my new garments are labelled "stretch." Maybe that has something to do with it? Maybe they just fit me funny, and I haven't really lost weight?

I gave my old jeans to my younger daughter, who fits into them nicely, but does not look fat to me. She never *did* look fat to me. Yet I still don't look any less fat to myself, even though logic tells me I must be smaller now than she is. Meanwhile, my older daughter has traded me another pair of slacks in exchange for a dress of mine that she liked. The slacks she gave me are the same at the waistband as the ones I bought. And they are NOT "stretch." But they fit. Generously.

I look down at my lap, and I see legs. Not a big stomach covering the upper thighs. I can stand, look down, and see my feet. But in the mirror, I still see rolls of fat and a protruding stomach.

Logic tells me the story, but my eyes do not believe it.

[eskielover]

The first time my weight loss was excessive & I ended up shopping in the kids department at the age of 45 to find cloths that fit was definitely a wake up call.......not the jr's department either. Have always been short all my life but the pictures of me when I was in grade school I was never thin & it wasn't that I wasn't seeing my body image correctly. My mom was always a bit overweight & my whole life, I never wanted to be like my mother (funny how some people crave to be like their mother's....my craving was to be NOTHING LIKE her.

Whether we have an accurate vision or not....it can definitely be a problem when we have a desire to be thin

Off topic of me, but I relate to not wanting to be anything like a parent. For a long time I resisted going to a doctor and taking meds, because my father had a mental illness, and I didn't want to be anything like him. Finally I realized that going to a doctor and taking meds made me unlike him, because he didn't acknowledge or treat his illness.

My mother projected her own weight insecurity on to me. She thinks she's fat, but she isn't. Most of our family members are quite hefty, with big bones and muscular builds. Only one member of my family is quite thin, and that's because she is allergic to so many foods, and has heart problems. Even she has big bones. You can tell that by her wrists. If it weren't for her health issues, she'd be a wildebeest like the rest of us. It's so ironic. My entire life, I have heard endless comments about D--- and how thin and beautiful she is, and don't we wish we were thin like her?

Well, no, not if it's because she's ill!