Question for trauma survivors, about body image.....

I had my T session today....and I shared with him a conversation I had with a friend of mine yesterday. My friend and I made a commitment to go to the gym this year, and I am proud to say that I have gone 25 out of the last 28 days. We are both overweight, and she said that she sometimes stands butt naked and checks out her body....and makes affirmations, critiques herself and decides on what needs work, etc.

I immediately cringed and told her that I avoid looking in the mirror at all costs. I also told her that I wonder, sometimes, how people can even want to be friends with me....(because I find myself so repulsive).

T said that I have a distorted view of myself and that it's inaccurate...and that those who have experienced trauma have a tendency to take it out on their bodies...and that sometimes we take feelings from the inside and somehow apply it to our physical selves.

I asked T how to figure out where this stems from...and he said to try to pay attention to those feelings when they come up...and be open to allowing myself to sit with those feelings and allow my mind to create images....which will lead me closer to understanding where they came from.

I can't imagine that I am alone in feeling this way....so I'm wondering if anyone else can relate to this....and if they've ever overcome it...and how...

I can really relate to this. I'm always surprised when I see myself, because I don't look how I *think* I look. My husband constantly teases me about my distorted view of myself...but the thing is, I actually DON'T know how to fix it.

Like, for example, my whole life I thought I had big lips, and I always tried to cover up my mouth. I said something to a friend in college about it and he was like "what? your lips are actually weirdly thin". And I asked my H about it, and he said the same thing.

And it makes me wonder...how can I fit the distorted view I have of myself if I don't' even know what I'm distorting?

It's confusing.

But wow - what awesome work you are doing going to the gym! I do find that when I can get in touch with my physical self - by running hard, or climbing a mountain or lifting weights - it does help me get grounded and feel better about myself, at least a little.
to you

Mue- I definetly relate to whwat you're saying, and for the past almost 3 years have been in a weight loss program that I just quit last week. Why? Was it because I successful and lost all the weight I needed to??? HECK NO! This was an excellent program too- we had a dietician, nurse, Dr. and therapist we met with either weekly or every other week. The program was good. I succedded in the beginning, got to my lowest weight in almost 25 years, but since that low, I have actually gained 55 lbs! That is why I stopped. I've been diagnosed with PTSD, Major Depression and Anxiety and have been working to straighten those things out for the last 2 years. I have major medical problems to have to muddle through and I think all of this has been in the way of successfully losing any weight at all. It's very discouraging.

I understand what you mean when you say you cringe when you look in a mirror and that you can't understand how anyone would want to be friends with you based on how you look.

As a kid, even at a very early age, I remember my mother always telling me to pull in my stomach. My mom had me wearing a girdle at the age of 12 or 13 to make myself look thinner, and at the age of 14 my mother took me to a weightloss doctor to get me appetite supressents so I could lose some weight. I remember 'sneaking' food because I was "hungry". I think the food thing was a result of high stress in our family- lots of arguing, fighting, yelling, screaming and throwing things. I don't know what else to attribute it to. Some of what happened (like diet pills) were at my request. Bot I wonder what does a 14 year old know and why the ehck did she take me to this doctor anyway?? I wasn't overweight at all. I was 5'4" and 125 lbs. That is pretty normal and healthy! UGH!

So anyway................. (sorry for the rant)

It'll be interesting to see what comes up for you. Please know you really are not in this alone.

I've never been overweight, but I struggle with eating issues and I absolutely HATE my body. HATE IT. I'm repulsed by it.

And I hate my face. I've self injured it because I hate it so much. It's hard and it's something i hope we all can overcome.

Yes, I can relate.

The pain runs very deep. T asked me a question once about my body and I felt so sad and far away. She said I looked sad but I was not able to respond.

Good job going to the gym! I also joined a gym and go almost every day. I've lost 20 pounds from last summer, but I still feel repulsive. My friends tell me I am thin, but I see fat.

This subject makes me feel very very sad.

I relate. My body image is very distorted.

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I'm sad - yet relieved - to see that I am not alone in this. It's such a painful topic, and I'm trying to be curious about what will come of it, but I'm scared....And I'm not entirely convinced that by getting to the root of where it stems will make any impact on how I see myself.

I have lost about 20 lbs. in the last month by changing my eating habits and going to the gym....but I still have a loooong way to go. And for some reason, I'm even kinda scared to lose weight. I don't want people looking at me..... *sigh*

NO WAY! I thought I was the only person ever whose mom gave her presents of girdles and those weight loss chocolate things! I was 12, 5'2" and 114 pounds. She was forever telling me to "suck it in" and that I looked fat and pregnant.

I think I am just at the begining of tying the pieces of my history with my horrendous body issues (better late than never I suppose). I have struggled off and on with severe anorexia/bulimia and coe for over 20 years.

I can definitley relate... with my trauma, right after it I starved myself.... i've also done SI.

i know recently i had an experience where I was getting revelations about my relationship with my body- and how I connect some of my trauma to the fact that my body is bad and I do not like it. I'm thin though... but, that doesn't change how trauma makes people feel about their bodies...regardless the size of our bodies, it effects us all...

how have i overcomed it?

well, i dont starve myself anymore.

i try to eat right

and mainly, Yoga is teaching me what it means to have a positive/ healthy relationship with my body...

even when people are saying certain stuff in Yoga I frequently affirm the positive qualities about who I am in my head. and i talk about my body- in the opposite way of someone who might have experienced trauma would.

i say it's good. it's healthy and strong. i say whatever i want and often times I stretch however I want (simply becus of my back pain) I don't make Yoga what everyone else is doing and try to be like anyone else. I don't repeat everything the instructor says. I do whats best for me. I say (in my head)- what's best for me. Yoga, is part meditation so it's helping me establish a healthier image of my body.

i still hate looking in mirrors though. don't know why. really haven't explored it. cus I don't think I'm ugly at all. I think I'm average looking... and on those 'special' days out with the friends I'd say I'm pretti darn cute....

still, don't like mirrors tho!

i can relate,

your not alone

Jazzy

I spent most of my life hating what I saw. Now I can live with myself. I know I'm overweight and that no longer bothers me, I allow my hair to remain grey also. I know what chaged, it was that unspoken total acceptence I feel when I'm with T, that is the feeling I carry about myself. I don't think one has to have suffered sexual abuse to have felt critical about their image, I think society plays a big roll in it, I mean if I picked up the healthy non verbal messages from T, imagine what a child picks up through sch, commercials etc and if parents have the same negative messages in their minds this gets passed on. I can see myself just how much I was once a victim of our commercial society, now I am outside it and able to be critical of that rather than myself.

This last part I totally get. Actually losing weight brings on a whole host of uncomfortable issues....

I'll tell you the strangest thing in the world that helped me to love my body.

I had an abdominal ultrasound. It was quite remarkable actually. I got to see my organs, see them working, blood flowing in and out. The technician said they were textbook, she actually said they were "beautiful".

It never even occurred to me that there were things inside me that were beautiful, and no matter what I thought of the outside, were still working to keep me alive and moving.

It was an amazing experience, albeit a lot of people likely would not react in the same way. I get that. For me, however, it brought about a sea change in my thinking.

Maybe I actually had to look inside to prove to myself that there was nothing rotten in there. I don't know.

I learned my body was an amazing thing. Totally, utterly amazing.

Relate to this? I am living it.
My body is never OK. I have been overweight/underweight/normal/muscular. Have tried every haircut and color known to mankind. Undergone plastic surgery. Even seriously damaged to myself...

Now I don't care about my body anymore. The thing I hate the most is the person inside.

(((mue)))

Yeah, I've been repeatedly told that I'm "hot" and that I have body dysmorphic disorder. For as long as I can recall, I couldn't stand to see my face. I HATE it!! Now, I can't even stand to see any part of me.

I go to the gym, 5 days a week. It's just never enough for me. My face, my body...hate isn't even close to the feeling I have inside.

Thanks for the hugs guys, but I haven't meant it that way.

What I was trying to say was that I now AM concentrating what really bothers me.
The only thing that is wrong with the way I look is that it doesn't correspond with the way I feel. Since I was a child I have been told I look like an innocent angel. Curly blond hair, green eyes, perfectly shaped face... as my mum always put it: too beautiful for my own good (and never did she know how right she was) Only I have known the secret and I have felt like a monster, ugly indescribably awful old thing, with the mask that enabled me to prey on others (like an agressive mimicry of a predator).

So it is a good thing that, with the help of my T, I have realized why I was doing what I was doing and stop doing it (bad thing I cannot undone the damage, never mind the scars, but to have a full left hand dexterity back would be nice).
Now I hope I can do stg with who I am or better yet how I feel about myself.

Shezbut, I understand. I hate my face, my body. I avoid mirrors and hate hate hate having my picture taken. I'm also going to the gym 5 or 6 days a week, but yeah, that just opens a whole host of other issues.

YES. I can relate to this.
***TRIGGER TRIGGER TRIGGER.***
Sorry, I just…I can really relate...

On the one hand, alongside the physical abuse and watching my parents fight, I realize I also absorbed a lot of my dad’s negative and demeaning commentary about black people – self-hatred passed on to me from him, that he learned from his parents/family and so on. I did – and do still – walk around thinking I am dirty with skin the colour of rotten piles of ****, because I have grown up with the idea of either lighter is better, or that darker is purer. The medium brown skin tone I have is just blah… I do also remember times when my dad would pass by, see me, and call out “FIXYOUSELF!!”. I would figure he meant posture, so I would stand straighter…yet he’d look at me and shake my head and say things like “Don’t flare out your nose so hard” or “Don’t stick out your lip so much”. I’ve always grown up thinking I am just “awkward” and “wrong” looking. Still do think this way….

On the other hand......I call it that incident/mistake, and all that happened as just more proof of how screwed up I am. My first T called it sexual assault. (SEE http://forums.psychcentral.com/showt...=201159&page=6). I remember it being said aloud at least two times… “You got big soft lips”. Or variations thereof (like beautiful...while touching me...) – they were the same race as I am...Being more involved in therapy, I know now that I still overall withdraw from the idea of “being attractive” – except for the rare times about twice a year I give in to friends calling/texting/contacting me on Facebook/begging/pleading for me to come out clubbing because they haven’t seen me in “FOREVER!! And it’ll be fun!!!!” and more or less drag me out shopping to get the outfit, meet me to put on the makeup (cuz I can’t do anything myself besides gloss and fumbling with mascara), and travel all together to the spot, and with some *liquid* courage, have a blast. But then, I have a panic attack the day after and retreat away in absolute embarrassment because I assume I made a complete *** of myself, and figure this is why I should not be out in public EVER AGAIN. Which means there is even more fear and trying-to-avoid-everyone until the next invitation with the cycle repeating again. I also can’t imagine the idea of me dating, or anyone else finding me attractive or pretty or whatever. I’m a mess. Worse, I am a fraud – if anyone else were to get close, intimate, connect with me = they would be disgusted. That is the expectation I have.

So overall, I exist anticipating condemnation over how bad I look, judgement over how much of a fraud I am because I am just a dumb tease, and isolation because I am ugly and “nothing special” anyway. I’m just that raggety screwed up black chick in the corner. These viewpoints of me above are just 2 of many examples of how much of a scattered mess I am. Pretty “bright eyes” or “whatchustarinat miss bug-eyes”. “Child, you got a lot of nice THICK hair” or “Lawd, WHAT A MESS (i often wrap my hair or wear hats to cover that up).” “Love your style/youre stylish” vs “who are you trying to play/fool/why are you frontin’ with such fakery??” And so on...If it were possible, I would love to have a black female as a T one day to just hear me out…As it stands right now, if asked what do I look like, I just respond with “a mess” and a I have internalized a lot. I can think of traits that *other* people seem to notice about me. But i don't know what *I* could accept about me, in any way…Since my surgery in January (SEE http://forums.psychcentral.com/showthread.php?t=214567) with all of the preparations before, and recovery afterwards, i have lost some weight. A part of me is like "Yes; new beginning, good start, lets keep on going...". But I am scared; i am a freak...what i could be like later on...what if...

Again, thanks for this thread. Bravo for being able to approach this in T. I have no idea how to address this, because there is A LOT of shame and guilt and disgust and fear and just...

(((to everyone here that can relate too)))

Damnit...its too late to delete my post!
Ive been looking at this thread for a while...untill...i really shouldnt have said all of that or any of that or...dumb b1tch i am
I am horrible

No, you are not horrible. This is a hard thing for many of us here. You are not alone in this. I'm sorry you are hurting. Safe hugs...