Do you discuss your appearance with T?

Speaking as a man, I feel sad and helpless that women beat themselves up about their looks.

I felt I just had to respond to this thread because I discussed this exact topic with my T this week! I'm out of town right now so I had a phone session with my T, including an exchange of pictures via text. Generally, I feel more or less "positive" about my appearance. I know that, by society's standards, I'm considered attractive and the people in my life frequently tell me they think I'm pretty. However, my experience with my family is entirely different. I come from a family of attractive women, including professional models and NFL cheerleaders. (I actually did a little modeling myself as a teenager but absolutely hated it. I much prefer an academic career to one based on looks-- modeling simply doesn't align with my personal values). Anyway, long story short, my family has always considered me the "heavy one" or the "less attractive one." I am in fact heavier than my sister and my cousins, but I'm not overweight. I wear a size 4 or 6. Intellectually, I know this-- but, being around my family, they make me FEEL like I'm overweight. They point at my stomach (which is not perfectly flat), tell me I could be smaller, and suggest things like plastic surgery (many of them have had plastic surgery). They make me FEEL ugly. Because of that, I have a hard time eating around my family, taking pictures with my family, and holding onto any shred of self-esteem when I'm with them. Even though I'm an adult now, being around my family over the holidays (and staying in my childhood bedroom) sent me right back to being the insecure teenage girl I used to be. So, anyway, my family and I took a Christmas picture together and, when I looked at it, I was almost shocked. My perception in my head did not match what I saw in the picture. Despite what my whole family says about me, I honestly don't think I look like "the ugly fat one" in the picture. Because of my insecurities, I felt I needed an honest, outside opinion. I know those on PC might think my T wouldn't be honest with me, but I disagree. T specializes in eating disorders and body image issues, and she says she will honestly tell a client if they need to lose/gain weight and stuff like that (in a nice, helpful way, of course!). So, I sent my T the picture and this was her response, ver batim, via text.

T: Everyone is very attractive, and you are one of the most. Honestly, Scorpio.
Me: Thanks. I'm curious though what you say to clients when they're insecure and you honestly think they're unfortunate looking and can't simply be silent on the issue.
T: Haha; glad I don't have to deal with that issue with you! I tell them what specific feature I find attractive and emphasize that looks aren't everything!

That exchange with T REALLY helped! I trust her and value her opinion-- as well as her sense of humor! It also gives me insight into her approach as a T. When T and I talked about it more via phone, I asked her if she had ever felt compared to her sister when they were growing up. Her response was "oh my god, yes!" and she explained that, like me, she was considered the "smart one" while her sister was "the pretty, skinny one." Hearing this from T actually surprised me. I know my T's intelligent and has an impressive pedigree so it doesn't surprise me that she was "the smart one" but it does surprise me that her sister was considered the "skinny one." (Since I've never seen a picture of T's sister, I have no idea who is prettier, but my T is undeniably skinny. I'd peg her at about a size 0). Honestly, I think T would be more attractive if she GAINED weight. When we hug, I can feel just how thin and bony she is. Yet, she said when she saw her mom recently, her mom noticed she'd lost weight, but commented that her sister was still smaller! Yuck. Hearing that, I really felt for my T. I know from my own experience just how damaging that can be when you hear it from your family (from the people who are supposed to love you the most). I think my T is beautiful, and it hurts to know her family of origin isn't giving her that feedback and building up her self-esteem. I know she's the T, so she doesn't need my feedback on the issue, but I do wish her family saw her the way I see her. I am, however, glad that she chose to self-disclose on the issue because it really helped me to know that she's gone through the same thing with her family that I've gone through with mine. And it helped to see how warped the messages we get from our families can be! If her family can be so wrong about her, then maybe I can accept that my family is wrong about me.

Thanks T

Fins you are right, and I hate that.

Just a side note, I saw a magazine interview last month with the reigning Miss South Carolina - I started it, prepared to sneer a bit, and read that in the 3 years before she competed, she lost 110 lbs. I have a feeling that winning that competition was a double victory for her.

answer to your thread question - yes, unwillingly.

Oh goodness, my therapist and I got into a huge mess over the way I looked. Huge big honking mess. I completely put him in a no win situation.

I had decided that I was ugly. I had also decided that all men cared about was the way a woman looked. To make matters worse, I had come to the conclusion that it was disrespectful when a man even looked at a woman in order to appraise her physical beauty - because, of course, that's all men cared about.

So I would say that I was ugly and just don't measure up to the standards that men set for looks.

My therapist would disagree, rightly, because it wasn't true. I would then accuse him of being a leacher and was checking me out. I would then accuse him of saying only what I wanted to hear, BUT he didn't care about me at all, just my value as an attractive woman. THEN, I would say I was ugly.

Then the whole mess would start all over again. It was crazy making, totally, utterly insane on my part.

We finally made it out and looking back, it was really really important that I sort that whole mess out with a man. It was a man who had planted that seed in my head, and it took a man to get it out.

Regarding Yalom, if you can get past his stated dislike of obese women and men, then it becomes clear that what he really hates is the suffering underneath all that fat. He speaks with such happiness at the emergence of a beautiful being that occurred simultaneously with the weight loss. I think the physical changes were secondary; the inner beauty and joy rose to the surface.

Look, losing weight certainly can help people to be happy, but it's tapping into the natural inner beauty that brings joy and peace.

Speaking as a woman, I do too.

I wasted a lot of time beating myself up over the way I looked. I mean really, what a waste. I could have been spending that time beating myself up over ridiculous things!

Yes, I had an eating disorder for many years and was in treatment for it. Every so often she will ask me about it because I wasn't completely honest when I first started seeing her and told her I was over it. Then I admitted that I still struggle.

I think I'm very ugly. When I was pregnant with my son I developed acne. Never had a problem when pregnant with my daughter and always had nice skin. I also have bad stretch marks from my first pregnancy (daughter) and can't see how/why my husband finds me attractive at all, which does hurt our marriage.

We haven't spent a lot of time on it because we're really trying to do trauma work, but discussing it hasn't helped. She doesn't have much experience with EDs so she has said a couple things that really triggered me without knowing.

The hugely ridiculous thing for me is that my T SPECIALIZES in weight loss issues, and yet I would not / will not talk to him about my issues with my weight or my body. The man works with people who are morbidly obese. I weigh about 30 pounds more than I want to, and am almost within "normal" range. What are the chances he's going to be grossed out by me?

And I do exercise a ton in an effort to kill my emotions and deal with my anxiety without medication. For a while I was riding my exercise bike on a a really difficult interval program for an hour and a half. I lost 20 pounds in the last year, but most of it was in the first 5 months and then I didn't lose a single pound for the next 8 months despite working out at a crazy rate. STILL wouldn't talk to my T about it.

No. One time she commented on the fact I was wearing a suit (I usually wear jeans and sweatshirt) and it seemed very odd that she had even noticed and then felt compelled to comment.

It really does help. I've always been one to exercise and even when I gained 22lbs after weaning my son and was in tears while seeing my GP he told me not to worry about my weight because I was one of his healthiest patients.

I ran two 5ks this last fall and was so proud of myself because it was something I've been wanting to do for many years but I'm so self conscience I was afraid people would laugh at me for being huge. I'm about 25lbs overweight right now. I typically look my best at the high end of my healthy weight, any smaller and I look sick. And this is me judging myself on past pictures of myself when I was really thin. I'm trying my hardest to break this cycle of with my daughter. I encourage her to run with me, she is too little for 5ks but she does the kids fun runs and loves anything physical.

We have never discussed my appearance. My hair is curly, but I flat iron it every day. Well, over the summer I stopped flat ironing it to wear it curly because I didn't want to fight the humidity. When he saw it, I noticed the expression on his face (nevermind I'm hyper aware of body language anyway), and I'm sure he would have said something if I weren't a therapy client....if he knew me better (at the time, I had only been going a few months)?

Scorpiosis, thanks for sharing your story. Your family sounds so mean in their comments about your weight and getting plastic surgery! Have you ever tried to establish some boundaries with them in what they may and may not comment on to you about your personal appearance? As I read your story, I kept thinking if it were me, my T would probably be helping me learn to set boundaries so my family would come to understand they couldn't say those things to me anymore. (I am terrible at setting boundaries so need a lot of help with this.) I did set some very firm boundaries at about age 30 with my mom. She was consistently mean and awful to me, just like she had been when I lived at home as a child. I told her I was done with that, I was no longer a child, and if she couldn't be civil and polite to me, she would no longer be able to see me or her granddaughter. That cured her! It was an overnight change, like night and day. Perhaps she still felt mean towards me underneath, but as long as she treated me differently, it was possible for me to be with her. (Maybe she couldn't change her feelings, but she could change her behavior.) At some point I learned that my family thought I was one of the dumb ones in the family. (They thought 2 of their children were smart and 2 not so smart.) That surprised me since I know I'm smart. But they never harped on it, thank goodness.

One thing that made me feel yucky was that he stated he felt that way about overweight women. No mention of men, as I recall, at least in the story I read. It made me feel that he sexualized his female clients--only the thin ones need apply. I would have felt better about his aversion if it were for both men and women. I think Yalom was very honest in his revelation about fat women in his book. And he spoke of how he realized this was countertransference and worked hard to not let it affect therapy when he had such a client. I am sure he never told the overweight women he felt that way. If I was a former client of Yalom's and then read his book, I would have felt pretty dang awful, though, to know that all the time I was having therapy with him, he felt repulsion towards me. So glad he was not my therapist! (And I hope my T never writes a tell-all book. There are just some things I don't want to know!)

One of the new issues I would like to talk to my T about is weight loss. We've never discussed this before. I am thinking I may be able to have this discussion if we keep it about weight loss and not my appearance. I really would not want to talk to my T about my appearance. I hope he doesn't think I want to talk about that if I introduce weight loss. I guess I could set boundaries on that if he tries--probably I would just gently try to turn the conversation, though.

Just remember, when you look at photos of yourself that is not a true version of what other people see. That also goes for how we can appear in mirrors because when we look at ourselves in the mirror we see an opposite reflection. If you write some words on a paper or draw a picture and hold it up to a mirror, what ever you see in the mirror will look different than what you see just looking at the writing or picture you draw.

Some people are simply more photogenic than others, but that doesn't mean they are very attractive IRL. So your T telling you that you look nice can be an honest oppinion of you, something you don't see yourself. Try not to be overly sensitive when viewing yourself in photos and the mirror. Just concentrate and watching what you eat, exercise and do your best to let yourself enjoy your days and work on trying to not continuously compare yourself with others.

(((((Hugs))))
Open Eyes

[trigger for SI mention]

Rainbow, I haven't read through these responses, but I do want to respond to what you said about, how can your T understand you when she's so thin?

My best friend is overweight. And once or twice, she and another overweight friend of hers made comments to me about how I "can't understand" and how "it's easy for you, because you're small."

Here are some objective truths about me: I wouldn't call myself skinny, as I'm not underweight, but I have a below average (but healthy) BMI. I used to be skinny as a kid. My entire life people have been telling me I am beautiful. Strangers actually stop me in the street just to tell me this. I have never lacked male attention.

But guess what? I look in the mirror, and see fat and ugly. None of the above truths have stopped me from feeling this way. It makes no sense. It would have to be a worldwide conspiracy of vast proportions for it to be true that I'm fat and ugly. Yet this is the way I feel about myself. In fact, I might still be what I call "skinny" if it weren't for the fact that I went ahead and starved myself for a year when I was 17-18, and my metabolism has never been the same since. I can still get away with eating almost nothing (but I don't... I like food, so sue me ).

So no, I don't what it's like to actually be overweight. But I do know what it's like to want to tear up all of my wedding photos because none of them look right and I look bad and not-perfect and awful. I do know what it's like to feel powerless against the self-loathing I feel surrounding my body. You wouldn't know that just by looking at me. But you would know it if you were there when I scratched the words "I HATE YOU" into my belly with a pushpin on one particularly bad night.

And that's why it hurts every time my friend dismisses my attempts at empathy when she's upset about her appearance. I would never tell her I know EXACTLY how she feels... but I know more about it than she thinks. And for the record, when I look at her, I don't see "fat", I see my best friend.

SO. Don't assume anything about your therapist. Of course she doesn't know exactly what it's like to be you... but if she's a good therapist she can probably find a way to empathize better than it appears she could.

And to ACTUALLY answer your question, as you can see, this is a serious issue for me so I do talk to my T about it. I don't like it, though, because I worry that if I point out something I don't like about myself, he will notice it more than he did before and think I'm ugly. Plus, he's a guy so it's easy for me to dismiss him for the same reason you might dismiss your T as skinny. Yet he's always been very kind and gentle about it, even if there are some things that, as a man, he doesn't experience.

Lots of luck to you!

Is it possible that Yalom is a jerk?

my t & i discuss how i look...she notices when i lose weight, or when she sees my van at the gym...or if i get my hair cut or my tattoo. me i don't pay attention to how i look...it is not an issue for me...i pay more attention to how i feel.

we will discuss things upon occasion & if i bring it up but usually she does...which is fine..she notices if i get a new coat or anything. i do the same with her...

if i had an issue i could bring it up with her...she has said she would help me with things if i needed it as for clothing etc because i just don't know...

but mostly i don't look at pictures of me...i tend not to have any taken & there aren't any from my childhood so it's not an issue...

SallyBrown,

I just wanted to thank you for sharing what you did, both about your own experience and about the reminder that T's don't need to have our life experience in order to find a way to empathize with what we've gone through.

I thought your words were really wise and thought-provoking.

Anne

I was happy you said when someone interpreted you wrong Rainbow.
I've been wondering if it's possible to avoid having some degree of first impression type judgement based on appearance, even if it only lasts for a few moments. But I think being aware of it and trying not to let it affect you too much, like you are doing is good.

Me too. I hope knowing it happens to so many of us helps people doubt the social standards that lead us to feel this way. It helps me some.

Someone had a post on PC about how their t said a good t questions themselves and learns from it when they realize they have an unjustified negative judgement of a client.

That is one aspect of him I pick up on . I like reading his books anyway when the constant !!! he uses aren't too grating on me

A couple of you have said that you think worse of Yalom because of this.

On the contrary, I think better of him:
1. He identified this feeling as irrational.
2. By hard work, he was able to overcome it.
3. He is brave enough to admit he wasn't always the man he became.

Isn't this a big part of therapy? To identify irrational and harmful habits of thought, and to correct them? Isn't this the journey we all are on?

If we can't forgive Yalom because he was once "repulsed by overweight women", how we forgive ourselves?

The 1st appt my T randomly asked did I think I was pretty & I told her no. We didn't have an actual discussion on it, but I'm sure we will at some point.

Oh, no. I should. And maybe someday it will come up. But I do not want to. I don't even want to think about what my T really thinks of me, not that he could or would ever say, but ick. Surely my chart says plenty. There's enough to work on inside before we can even start on the outside insecurities.

I FEEL ugly. My T has told me that I'm pretty, my H tells me that all the time, my friends tell me. I buy clothes that are way too big for me without trying them on, because I think I'm bigger than I am. H says that my view of myself and how I actually look aren't even related. But I know how I *feel*.

And kind of like with Ellie, it's this crazy Catch 22. The LAST thing I want are men looking at me, and when they do, I just want to die inside. I don't want to be ugly, I don't want to be pretty. Argh!

I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror a year or so ago. I was somewhere waiting in line for a bathroom and didn't know there was a mirror next to me. I was laughing about something and turned my head and there I was. I literally didn't recognize me. And then a second later, I realized it was a mirror and that. was. ME.

I really have no idea what I really look like in many ways.

T and I have talked about it a little, but it feels pointless, and I'm afraid that by talking about it, he'll realize "omg she IS ugly". I'd rather have him think I'm pretty, because he's safe.

I don't know. This topic makes me sad.

As I wrote, he was honest in his book and tried hard to not let it affect his therapy with clients. I don't think he was once repulsed and then overcame it for good, though, at least according to that book. I think he described it as an ever present challenge, and it did not end with the client he described. For me, forgiveness is not related to how I feel about the described incident. There are therapists of all kinds with all sorts of personal characteristics. I just wouldn't want my own therapist to have a repulsion towards me. There are a lot of fish in the sea, and I would rather have one for a therapist who is not repulsed. This is just like some clients saying they would prefer a therapist who is male, female, Christian, CBT, a native speaker of their language, in recovery, etc. I prefer a non-repulsed therapist. I have read other books by Yalom and liked them (e.g. Staring at the Sun).

At around the same time I was reading that Yalom book, I read on another therapist's web site that described his practice and services that he provided "holding" in therapy to clients who requested it, however, not to women who were overweight. (Overweight men, not a problem.) Again, here was a T being honest. The "holding" service would not be something I would personally want, but his exclusion made me feel like whoa, what is it with therapists and overweight women? Maybe it is just those two Ts, but maybe it is also reflecting a more general antipathy in the general population towards that sort of person. I don't know. Most people are probably not so bluntly honest that they would reveal that if it were true for them.

It makes me feel hopeless.

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. It's crazy making!

I love these boards because I really thought I was the only person that felt that way.

Thanks tree.

Everyone has an ugly photo (or several!) of themselves, even thin people. No one can look amazing all the time and that doesn't mean they are ugly it just means they are human. Try talking to your T about different copying mechanisms so that you don't comfort eat so often and ask her if she has some suggestions regarding building your self esteem. Good luck!

This is a real sore spot for me. Almost all of my life I have been criticized for some part of my physical appearance. My hair was too thick, my teeth were really crooked, I was too skinny (or too fat), etc. I carried a lot of that criticism with me, so even when I was really pretty I was still very self-conscious and felt ugly. I know why I instantly judge people on their appearance--it makes me feel less inferior. Now that I'm at the heaviest weight that I've ever been it is even worse. My husband likes to take pictures of me because he thinks I'm beautiful. I see them and I want to throw up.

I brought up my appearance at the beginning of T but I think we both realize that my self-hate is a deeper issue, and simply going on a diet, getting more exercise, and wearing braces just isn't going to cut it. I need to lose weight for health reasons but I have no desire to exercise or diet. The last time I did I was doing really good and my ex-fiance said, "You're not doing it for me, so why should I care?" That pretty much shut me down right there. Even though he's gone from my life (good riddance), I still remember that remark. It was just another part of the abuse.

Thanks to all of you who honestly answered. Even though I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, I'm kind of relieved to see other people who struggle with the same things.