body dysmorphia
finding respite with gentle curiosity
[Trigger Warning: discussion of disordered eating, self-harm, and diet culture.]
Looking in the mirror yesterday, I did not like what I saw.
I haven’t seen a version of myself in the mirror that I like looking at very much lately.
Sometimes my eyes are untrustworthy narrators.
One year they saw a body that was getting bigger and bigger while my friends saw a body that was getting thinner and thinner and sicker and sicker.
In high school and college, I struggled with binging - eating far beyond satiety and feeling powerless to choose what I ate or how much. This fostered such a sense of self-loathing and disgust at my lack of self-control that I began intentionally throwing up my food.
The frequency with which I binged as well as purged was related to the level of control - or lack thereof - I felt in my young, uncertain life.
I look back on this younger me, brow furrowed with compassion, wishing I could wrap her in my arms and whisper sweetly into her ear.
“Sweet girl. Uncertainty is as constant as the air you breathe. Don’t waste your energy trying to dodge its reach. Plant your feet. Let it be here the way you’d let a breeze pass across your skin or allow the snowfall to melt. It isn’t bad. It’s simply beyond your control. Just like the sky’s mood. Can you love it with similar surrender?”
I was a more casual bulimic if such a violent thing can be casual.
The more I began to understand what supports my brain and being to thrive…
The more I surrounded myself with patient, gentle community…
The more I let my self-acceptance bloom into self-adoration…
The urge to punish myself waned.
For years, I’ve enjoyed an appreciative, peaceful relationship with both food and my body.
There was even a short while when I enjoyed the experience of being in my body as it was getting plumper and softer. I felt maternal and fecund. I felt somehow more of the earth. More made of soil and blossom and root and rain.
For the last few months, I’ve noticed a radio station in the background of my mind gaining volume. I don’t like the shows it broadcasts.
One show is hosted by two rather-unfun versions of me. They discuss what kind of exercise I should be doing and what other things I should cut out my eating. They are believers in austerity measures and never seem to tire of repeating themselves.
Another show just randomly blurts out diet “rules” that a group of men in suits cooked up in a marketing room one afternoon in the late 90s. They don’t hold up to any sort of critical fact-checking. And they certainly carry no understanding of the body as a wilderness ecosystem worthy of hearty nutrients and reverent stewardship.
Another - I swear - is hosted by a mopey, Theora-shaped Eeyore. Downtrodden theatrics and all. She says little but her shoulders slump with disappointment when she sees my closet full of clothes (with their invisible price tags) that don’t fit like they used to.
I’ve done a good job of witnessing this internal landscape with gentleness, refusing to pile self-flagellation onto the flames. I’m proud that I’ve been able to show myself care during a time when my thoughts feel very unloving.
I’ve made a couple of lifestyle changes to try to give my being the resources it needs to re-root and find a louder self-love.
I started by choosing not to imbibe alcohol because my little heart just can’t handle the next-day blues. It’s helping. There isn’t as much self-critique to resist.
But I’m the kind of person that needs something to move towards. I flounder if my only focus is not doing something.
So a new practice bubbled into me, and so far I’m quite fond of it.
Instead of trying to strategize or manage based on things my critical mind thinks I should do, I’ve leaned into asking my body:
What would feel good for you?
I’m sure the answer will be hard to hear sometimes.
Sometimes the answer will not be what my mind wants it to be.
But for now, the answers have been things like drink water, go ahead and foam the coconut milk for your coffee, take a nap, cuddle with the dog, work in the garden, rest, go for a walk, smell that daphne, smell it again, get out of the house, breathe, deeper, pull a card, listen to the stillness, read a chapter in that incredible book, breathe some more, go for a run, feel that feeling, pull that knitting project out tonight, put on a sweater and thicker socks…
Sometimes it has something to say about food, but mostly it has stuff to say about everything else.
And would you look at that?
When I wasn’t looking, listening to what my body has to say about so many other things, has turned the volume down on that damned radio dial.
Invitations:
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Little Gifts:
I’ve been obsessed with gardening. Hugelkultur. Propagating not just edible plants but trees from clippings. Companion planting. Driving around I’ve been distracted by the wealth of plants we have here in Seattle within just a few blocks of our home. I’m concocting plans to knock on neighbors’ doors to ask for cuttings and am keen to have a sign at the foot of my own property someday inviting strangers to do the same. I’m currently working to root some magnolia clippings and successfully transplanted some Italian parsley that had volunteered its way into one of our neglected garden beds.
When buying seeds I really wanted to make a haven for pollinators, so I’m working up the gumption to buy a bee hotel to provide much-needed habitat for native bees.
Per the recommendation of a dear friend, I started listening to The Hobbit as narrated by Andy Serkis. If you are a fan of storytelling and/or fantasy fiction, I cannot recommend it enough. Serkis’s dexterity with voices alone is worth the listen. I’m also regularly struck by the whimsy woven throughout J.R.R. Tolkien’s narrative style. It has been such a delight.
A song for you: