Body shame

[Saywhat]

Hello everyone,

I've been around a year and a half NC and, even though it's been a rough ride, I'm very happy with my decision. Every area of my life has improved significantly (relationships, profession, marriage, etc), however, I still experience a lot of shame in many situations. This is especially intense when it comes to body shame and shame around having hurt / offended somebody.

I know that this has to do with my wounded inner child and the pain and trauma I experienced, but I don't know how to deal with it or heal it. The topic of body shame is especially annoying. No matter how I look I always feel fat / ugly and positive affirmations / my husband telling me I am beautiful does not seem to help at all.

Does anyone suffer from the same symptoms and what has helped you?

[beacartoonheart]

Hey, i feel the same way, to the point my partner thinks i may have a body dysmorphic disorder. I have good days and bad days, days where i will just stare into the mirror and hate what i see. It's hard to change when all your life you had someone pointing out your flaws and blaming you for their problems. I wish i could help, just know you are not alone.

[Blue233]

Yes, I too have struggled with major body hate, to the point where I restricted my eating to 1200 calories a day and was exercising heavily at the same time.  I lost 40 pounds in a short period and fractured my foot while running (from being so underweight).  I now have regained all the weight back (and a few extra).  I don't care so much about my weight anymore and now am able to focus on overall health and how I feel vs being a certain weight or how I  look.  I know my eating bordered on anorexia, and it was all based on having zero control over certain traumas in my life - so not eating became my way of feeling back in control.

I have found cutting all pages on my social media that relate to diet, weight loss, or super thin models or instagrammers crucial for my wellbeing.  Now I only follow body positive instagrammers and Facebook influencers.  I have read several body positive books (Linda Bacon is a great author, as is Megan Jayne Crabbe (who is also on Instagram). 

I have found that I had to learn how to love myself, and by being gentle with myself I was honoring who I was deep down inside.  Loving my body started happening naturally as I started to heal.  Seeing only positive body positive stuff in my feed everyday helps a lot too.

Hope this helps, and sending a hug over to you.  It takes time, but you can feel better about yourself, too.  You are worth much more than your body!

[Saywhat]

Thank you so much for your answers! I'm happy to see that I'm not alone.

It resonates a lot in me that the more I heal, the more I will naturally love my body. It takes a lot of pressure off to know these things happen naturally.

Surprisingly, body positivity hasn't helped me that much so far. I think anything that puts a focus on the body makes me nervous at this point in time. I might explore it at a later point in time though

[Saywhat]

Just thinking out loud:

Since I was a child (4 or 5), my NPDm shamed me for being overweight and having cellulite. It is true that I was a little overweight growing up, but that had to do with me overeating to compensate for stress / trauma. She shamed me for it nevertheless.

It didn't help that I was bullied in school for it as well. When I was 10 or 11, I remember slapping a boy in my class for repeatedly calling me fat.

At age 12, I developed an eating disorder that left me in the bone. I lost my period and even though I was miserable, my mother (and grandmother) praised me for being so thin. I suspect both of them had body dismorphic disorder, but it broke my heart back then that they were incapable of seeing past my weight loss and noticing how broken I was.

To add insult to injury, my mother is a PSYCHOTHERAPIST who repeatedly warned me about the dangers of anorexia while growing up. Why she didn't notice I had an eating disorder is a mystery to me.

I eventually overcome this eating disorder and have become a fairly happy adult, but this original body shame has never left me.

Sorry if this upsets anyone, I needed to sort through my thoughts.

[JustKat]

When was a kid I was really skinny but NPDmother was on the heavy side. She always complained that having kids ruined her body (specifically me because I was the first born and she was never the same afterward). When I was in high school she was so jealous that she put me on a diet of pure junk food. She withheld fruits and vegetables and practically force-fed me fatty garbage until I gained a lot of weight. All through high school I was bullied for my weight and then NM would tease me when I got home. It made me hate myself.

When I ran away in my senior year of high school I was broke and quite literally starving. I lost the excess weight very quickly. I started eating healthy food once I got back on my feet so the weight stayed off. She was so angry that I had a nice figure again she would shame me at family gatherings for now being thin. She'd bring out photos of when I was heavy and tell everyone I must have an eating disorder because "She was always such a chubby girl and something isn't right."

To this day I'm absolutely obsessed with my weight. I'm in good shape for my age but still hate looking at my body. Part of me is desperate to stay thin just to defy her, even though she's no longer alive. She was always jealous of me and took so much pleasure in body-shaming me. It really doesn't matter that I got my figure back. When you're called "chubby" and "fatso" as a kid, it's in your head for life.

[Jessie]

I used food to escape my home life. I did develop body dysmorphia and have no photographs of my life, not even wedding ones.

I improved hugely by taking the extreme step of life modelling. I've seen me as I am, and way way worse than I am, done by beginner artists! That takes courage.

Of course if I were to become a missing person all my husband has to give to the police are naked drawings. Not sure how that would go down.

[D.Dan]

My uPD mom also body shamed me while growing up and I look similar to her which added an extra layer to my dislike of my body. I actually stopped looking in mirrors at myself for a decade to avoid the shame of being trapped in my body. I have had a few people that would compliment me over the years but it felt weird to hear it. It made my skin crawl. The compliments didn't help me accept myself better.

I got a book called "The self-esteem guided journal". Week 3, day 1 (you do journal entries everyday for 10 weeks) is about physical appearance. This helped me a lot in accepting myself, physically, as I am.

First you list the physical parts of yourself that you don't like. Then you do 4 things to each part.

1) rewrite the item using without using derogatory language.

The example they give is instead of "fat thighs" to maybe use "heavier than ideal thighs". This task is to soften the language your inner critic uses to describe yourself.

2) rewrite the item using accurate language. 

The example is again"fat thighs" and instead using "22 inch thighs". Another example was "week, ugly chin" and using instead "receding chin, about 1/2 inch too far back". The idea behind this task is to remove judgements/negative opinions and replace with accurate descriptions instead.

3) rewrite the item acknowledging an exception.

They describe an exception as being when you were complimented on the undesirable part of your body or a culture or point in history when that part of you would have been viewed as attractive. They also recommend thinking about someone who is considered attractive and shares the same trait as you. (The book examples are Barbra Streisand or JenniferLopez)


I personally, like that there is a point in art history where curvy women were considered the image of beauty and health. I can find hundreds of paintings of these women, and it makes me feel like I would've been considered extremely beautiful at that time.

4) rewrite the item acknowledging a balancing strength.

They ask about if there is a part of your body that you do like or feel better about near the undesired part. Include this in the description of the undesired body part. The example they give is "I have broad, 38 inch hips, similar to J-Lo's, but I also have strong, athletic thighs."


I was actually surprised at how much this helped me, so I wanted to share it, in case it helps someone else too. 

[Fiasco]

Of course if I were to become a missing person all my husband has to give to the police are naked drawings. Not sure how that would go down.

This tickled me! And good for you ☺

[JustKat]

My uPD mom also body shamed me while growing up and I look similar to her which added an extra layer to my dislike of my body. ...... I have had a few people that would compliment me over the years but it felt weird to hear it. It made my skin crawl.

I also looked a lot like my Nmother. Of the three children, I was the one who got her body type, her face, and even her voice. I've spent my entire life hating the way I look simply because I look like my abuser. Even when I've looked my best I've never felt pretty, and as you said, people complimenting me would make my skin crawl. It doesn't come off as a compliment to me but more of a reminder that I look like her.

I've spent a lot of my life trying to alter my appearance so I don't see her face when I look in the mirror; coloring my hair, wearing it long as opposed to her pixie cut, trying to stay thin, just anything. I can't change my voice though. That's a part of myself that I can't stop hating. I just can't stand hearing the sound of my own voice because it's HER voice. When I would answer the phone at home people would mistake me for her and she would tease me over that. I think she loved that I was cursed with physical similarities.

Even though she's dead I feel that she's haunting me from the grave because I'm a walking, talking reminder of her. I've had a lot of therapy for this, but once I get back from the therapist's office, I look in the mirror and there she is. It's very hard to love the way you look when you look just like the monster who harmed you. 

[Saywhat]

Thank you all very much for your reply and helpful insights 

JustKathy. I can really relate to what youre saying. My mother used to stuff me with fatty foods, then tease me for being fat. Thinking back, I realize how competitive she actually was. Once, when I was a teenager, she made me try on a pair of her old skinny jeans, then mocked me for days because I didnt fit into them (I actually think they shrunk in the dryer). I remember thinking to myself, how can I be so fat??.

Who does that to their teenage daugther??

Jessie, thank you for sharing your story. Your joke about going missing made me laugh!

D. Dan, I also look a lot like my mother...yikes. Sometimes I fantasize that my real, long-lost mother will  appear and tell me I was given to another woman at the hospital by mistake. Then I remember how much I look like her, and my fantasy is shattered  In these moments, it helps to remind myself that I'm not her, it's just her genes I inherited. I'm an entirely different person who happens to resemble the woman who biologically brought me to life. It might sound like splitting hairs, but I do believe there is a difference. To me she could be anyone. I have nothing in common with her and God knows why I have to come to life through her.

Yesterday, I had the courage to strip in front of the mirror and confront what I saw and felt. To my great surprise, I did feel a lot of body shame, but mixed in with some body love which seems to come from an entirely different part of my psyche. It felt like having two voices in my head, one saying ' how can you be so fat!!' and the other one saying 'youve gained weight, but I still love those curves!'.


Which made me think, what if I've come farther than I thought?