I was watching the news this morning and saw a bit about how the selfie movement is causing an increase in plastic surgeries. They were saying that taking pictures of your self is causing more people to become insecure over how they look than ever before. As a person who has been told I have Body Dysmorphic Disorder I didn't realize that others may develop this illness just from looking at pictures of themselves.
I guess first I have to explain what that is. BDD is where you are concerned about your bodily image but become overly fixated on it. My family is a little on the bigger than average size. When I was growing up my mom put a lot of stress on me telling me that if I kept doing this or that I was going to get fat like so and so was. WHen I hit puberty she pointed out parts of my body (my hips) and told me I was becoming a fat ass. I was only 12. These constant ranting about how I looked started to really wear on me. I developed an eating disorder, anorexia and bulimia, and would stand looking in the mirror for hours picking apart every inch of my body. My hips were too wide, my thighs were to round, my gut was huge, my teeth looked like (in the words of mommy) a jackasses teeth, my nose isn't straight, I have nappy hair. It got so bad that I started looking for surgery to fix it. Many doctors turned me away saying there was nothing they could do, money was an issue too. Today I am so glad I was poor growing up because I would look like Michael Jackson and Jocelyn Wildenstein had smashed heads! My insurance didn't cover elective surgery but it covered the psychological consultation. That is where I began getting help.
The doctor handed me a mirror and asked me what I saw. After pointing out every flaw I saw. WHen I was done tearing myself apart she told me what she saw. She said she saw a young woman with blue eyes and brown hair. She said that she never even noticed the chicken pox scar on my chin until I pointed it out and even then she had to look really close to find it, that the scar that runs down my left cheek isn't there anymore and unless you knew exactly where it was you wouldn't be able to find it looking up close for it. She wanted to know what made me think my nose wasn't straight. Then she showed me something I had never noticed about others, nobodies face is even from one side to the other. It's one of the things that makes us unique. Then she brought her assistant in and asked me to describe her. She asked me why I didn't point out the fact that her eyelids were hooded. I didn't even notice it. She asked why I didn't point out that she had a gap between her front teeth. Because I thought she had a pretty smile. She told me these were things that this person was always saying she loved about her looks.
I slowly started to realize that the little things I had time to sit and pick out int he mirror others don't even see. When most people look at you they look at you as a whole. Unless they have some issue with themselves they aren't sitting there obsessing about your nostrils or your top lip. I have had to work hard for years to fight the eating disorder, out of fear of reverting to old habits I developed a whole new disorder. I tend to overeat. I've also had to learn that the things that caused my problems weren't anything wrong with me. My mom had her own demons she was fighting and she carried them over on me. Whatever she was dealing with it made her feel better to point out that I wasn't perfect. Looking at my own daughters I can't imagine not thinking they were the most perfect creatures alive but I am not my mom.
I wish I could talk to these people and tell them that no matter what they are looking at chances are no one else is looking at it. I've had to learn to love myself after being taught to hate me. My mom still to this day likes to point out that I am over weight. She likes to point out that I have a wrinkle between my eyes. She likes to talk about how "fat my ass" is compared to hers. I hope one day she finds inner peace and doesn't feel the need to tear others down to feel better. But nothing should ever make you feel less than happy with who you are. We need to learn to love who we are not who magazines and movies say you should be. My husband used to weigh 300 lbs. At 6 ft 4 in that's a lot of man. People say that he got hot and sexy. But I guess they never really knew him because even at 300 lbs he was hot and sexy. He can make me smile when I want nothing more than to cry. He has this soul inside of him that is protective, intelligent, and caring beyond anything I have ever met and for me that was more attractive than abs and biceps. If all you look at is the outside you miss the real beauty that will last way beyond the hair and the lips, or the tight abs and bulging biceps. His eyes carry a love in them when he looks at that makes the rest of the world disappear. When he holds me I feel nothing but love and when he holds our children I know nothing could ever happen to them. And I am so thankful everyday that some other girl was too worried about image to notice it because now he's all mine!
I think if more people worked on their personality as much as they worked on their abs the world would be a much better place. Nobody normal is a perfect size zero and happy. I used to be one of those skinny girls who starved themselves to be "better looking". I think we need to just be happy who we are now. Some people are skinny some are not. It's the image created by media that forces us to think we all need to be one size. The skinny girls make fun of the chunky girls to feel better and many times in trying to make themselves feel better the chunky girls start making fun of the skinny girls. We need to start healing by learning to love ourselves now. Not when we are the size Cosmo says we need to be. When you look at the pictures of yourself try to find two things you love for the one you don't like.
Love,
Mom
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