Before we go any further, you may be a little confused with my title. So, let's make sure we are all on the same page.
bod·y dys·mor·phic dis·or·der
noun
- a psychological disorder in which a person becomes obsessed with imaginary defects in their appearance.Sometimes believing they are mutated, much heavier or smaller than appear in real life.
So, now that we all know what I'm talking about, let's move on.
I wasn't originally going to write this blog. A series of events happened to me about a month ago that really disturbed me. I thought that it was the right thing to do. I was talked out of it. But, I can't be quiet about it any longer.
So, backstory. As some of you know, I am a stylist for a living. My career has been spent dressing people to look their best...usually very beautiful and famous people at that. One of my other jobs is as a model on runways and in photos. So, all of my income comes from either being paid to be photographed, or making sure others look good in their photos and performances. So, if I'm essentially paid for my looks, why do I feel this way?
I was heavy most of my childhood and early adulthood. I wasn't born big, but due to lack of appropriate nutrition and depression, I got that bloated belly pretty early in life. I remember not wanting any photos taken of me when I was nine on the family trip to Disney World...because my pants were too tight and I had a muffin top. I couldn't enjoy my trip because of it. I didn't want to go on rides that would jiggle me around, because someone would notice my jiggly gut, and make fun of me. This is what BDD sounds like...I can't experience joy because (insert body part here)
This thinking and behavior followed me into middle and high school. I was too fat to be pretty, and pretty girls are the only ones worth being. I hyper focused on several points. I hated my uneven skin, my nose was too big, and my lack of torso made weight gain in my mid section the most uncomfortable burden I carried physically and mentally. Around this time, MySpace was all the rage. If you wanted to speak to your friends from school, you had to have one. And if you had one, you had to have photos of yourself. I remember the very first time I ever had my photo taken not against my will. I was fourteen. I did my hair and makeup to the best of my ability. I put on my favorite t-shirt. I set the camera's self timer to ten seconds, and walked back across the room. I winced when it went off, as if in pain, and went to see the mutant that would most certainly be staring back at me in the view finder. Imagine my shock when the girl I saw in the photo wasn't a mutant at all. Sure, she was a bit chubby, but the lighting had evened out my skin, and my nose didn't look so big after all! Seeing myself in a view finder was the first time that I could actually accept who I was and what I looked like. After that, I began to stage elaborate (for a fourteen year old) photo shoots with outfits I made and had put together. I learned how to hide the things I didn't want to show, and accentuate what photographed well. I figured out what fabrics were best for on and off camera, and how to copy the poses I saw in magazines. At school, I was the chubby, pimply girl with big hair who liked old music. At home, I had a world that I created in which I was glam squad, stylist, model, and photographer all in one. When I was in my zone, I could accept.
When out in the "real world", my BDD could get the most of me. If someone didn't like me, it was because I wasn't pretty enough. If I was teased, it was because I wasn't good enough. If I wasn't accepted, it was my fault. It fed my social anxiety. Don't go out into the world. There are people out there who are waiting to tell you that you're not good enough.
Fast forward to a few years later. I was a size 14-16, but still practicing my styling skills, makeup artistry, and posing. I could create the girl in the photos. I liked her. Other people liked her too. And one day, I was asked to model...for money. Imagine my shock. I leaped at the opportunity. My first experience on set was me feeling like an inconvenience because I was the biggest girl on set. I powered through and did my job...and they kept calling me. To this day, the best way to explain to people how I feel is "I feel like the less attractive twin of the girl in the photos."
I kept on modeling as a plus size model for a few years. I never felt truly confident in myself during this time period. The other photographers didn't capture me in a way that I thought was flattering, and one even made me do a pin up photo shoot in which I'm eating a piece of pizza over and over again...as to point out something I didn't already know. I was a fat model. I was depressed, and terribly unhealthy. I was carrying around an extra 50 pounds that was weighing me down in more ways than one. Anything wrong with me, I would always blame on my size. If I didn't get a job, it was because I was fat. If I got rejected, it's because I wasn't good enough. It was really easy to blanket all of my problems with the simple excuse "It's just because I'm fat."
And then, one day, something clicked. I ended up watching hours upon hours of documentaries about diet and nutrition. I decided to make the change to a vegan lifestyle. The weight began to fall off of me. Other people started to notice. My skin cleared up, my hair and nails grew like crazy. My waist shrank to half its former size. Imagine my shock when I realized that it didn't solve all of my problems! It made them worse! I thought being thin meant I would book more work. It didn't. I thought skinny meant that I would be handed everything on a silver platter like my straight sized colleagues. Nothing happened. I thought that a skinny body would make the voices in my head stop telling me that I was disgusting. It didn't. They wouldn't stop unless I made them stop.
Over time, with counseling, healers, holistic doctors, and supportive friends, those voices have softened to a whisper when at one period of time, they were screams so loud, I could hear nothing else. But, as mentioned before, the BDD fuels social anxiety. My weight loss in turn made my clothes that used to make me feel safe fall off of me. For most, this is a great problem. And it is. But it also makes getting dressed nearly impossible. I have tried to remedy this situation by stocking a fairly well rounded wardrobe for myself, but at one point, getting dressed to go out at any given point could result in me, crying on the floor, surrounded by jeans that fell off of me. "I just want clothes that fit!" I used to yell. My poor boyfriend has picked me up off the floor, grabbed me by the shoulders, and given me his now infamous pep talk of "You are always the best dressed person in the room. Don't sweat this" too many times to count.
I've learned to mostly manage my end of things. As mentioned before, I tried to stock a wardrobe full of things that are easy to throw it together to dial in. I try to plan these things out in advance if I am walking into a situation that I feel "unsafe" in...but there were several events that happened in the span of a week that really made me angry...that made me want to write this long winded blog in the first place.
The first was running into an acquaintance in a public place. She commented on how thin I was. (If only she had known I was in the process of having a meltdown before I left the house.) And the truth of the matter is? I am thin. I have worked very hard to become healthy, and to maintain. I also know that logically, this person has put on a significant amount of weight since I had met her, and is feeling insecure and jealous. All logic goes out the window when this person starts poking me in the ribs over and over again, and tells me to eat a cheeseburger. This is when I mentally shift into fat kid mode, and shut down. If you wouldn't poke a fat person and comment on their size, why is it okay to do it to me?
Later that night, I ran into another person my partner and I are friendly with. She too poked me in the ribs (ouch!) and called me a "skinny bitch" over and over again. Also, my brain understands why this is happening. Insecurity does strange things to people. But once my boundaries are violated, and any comment is made on my physical appearance in a negative way? I revert. "There must be something wrong with me if my body makes her uncomfortable."
And last, but certainly not least. Later that week, I tackled a lot of my social anxiety and not only went out with my partner and his best friend to a bar (one of my biggest triggers is being around people who are obnoxiously drunk) but to meet friends of his who I've never met. I feel like me being socially awkward at first meeting already is a strike against me...but then the strangest thing happened. My boyfriend and his friend introduced me to a female friend of theirs. She was standoffish and cold to everyone in the group, refusing to look me in the eye. When I was finally introduced, she refused to shake my hand and just said "Uh, huh. Of course you look perfect. You look like a freaking Barbie. I hate you." If only she had known how hard it was just to get me out of the house. I was already feeling like I wasn't up to par as far as my appearance was, and I shed a few tears over it in the bathroom. Why was this stranger spewing such hatred out at me? I thought perhaps she was joking, but she kept harping on it. That familiar sinking feeling in my gut started to happen, and the elephant that I carry with me on my chest in such situations made himself so comfortable sitting on my heart. I choked back tears. What could I have possibly done to make this woman lash out at me? And how would she feel if I had said "Well, you're fat and your shoes make me feel sad. I hate you?" Why is it okay to talk to people this way based on their appearance alone?
I wish that I could go back in time and give my old self a heads up. Hey, keep up the hard work. People pay you to do all of those things now. But, being thin won't solve your problems. It's going to pile on a whole new load of them! Am I glad I am healthy? Certainly. I'm healthier than ever, and I have noticed great progress in how I think about myself, and how I feel about myself. I'm not to a point where I can necessarily control how I feel when other people behave in such a way yet. That, I am working on. But, maybe we should all keep in mind before we lash out at someone over insecurity, or jealousy, that you don't know what the person you're attacking is dealing with.
She probably spent twenty minutes crying over jeans that didn't fit, or something much worse.
So, backstory. As some of you know, I am a stylist for a living. My career has been spent dressing people to look their best...usually very beautiful and famous people at that. One of my other jobs is as a model on runways and in photos. So, all of my income comes from either being paid to be photographed, or making sure others look good in their photos and performances. So, if I'm essentially paid for my looks, why do I feel this way?
I was heavy most of my childhood and early adulthood. I wasn't born big, but due to lack of appropriate nutrition and depression, I got that bloated belly pretty early in life. I remember not wanting any photos taken of me when I was nine on the family trip to Disney World...because my pants were too tight and I had a muffin top. I couldn't enjoy my trip because of it. I didn't want to go on rides that would jiggle me around, because someone would notice my jiggly gut, and make fun of me. This is what BDD sounds like...I can't experience joy because (insert body part here)
This thinking and behavior followed me into middle and high school. I was too fat to be pretty, and pretty girls are the only ones worth being. I hyper focused on several points. I hated my uneven skin, my nose was too big, and my lack of torso made weight gain in my mid section the most uncomfortable burden I carried physically and mentally. Around this time, MySpace was all the rage. If you wanted to speak to your friends from school, you had to have one. And if you had one, you had to have photos of yourself. I remember the very first time I ever had my photo taken not against my will. I was fourteen. I did my hair and makeup to the best of my ability. I put on my favorite t-shirt. I set the camera's self timer to ten seconds, and walked back across the room. I winced when it went off, as if in pain, and went to see the mutant that would most certainly be staring back at me in the view finder. Imagine my shock when the girl I saw in the photo wasn't a mutant at all. Sure, she was a bit chubby, but the lighting had evened out my skin, and my nose didn't look so big after all! Seeing myself in a view finder was the first time that I could actually accept who I was and what I looked like. After that, I began to stage elaborate (for a fourteen year old) photo shoots with outfits I made and had put together. I learned how to hide the things I didn't want to show, and accentuate what photographed well. I figured out what fabrics were best for on and off camera, and how to copy the poses I saw in magazines. At school, I was the chubby, pimply girl with big hair who liked old music. At home, I had a world that I created in which I was glam squad, stylist, model, and photographer all in one. When I was in my zone, I could accept.
When out in the "real world", my BDD could get the most of me. If someone didn't like me, it was because I wasn't pretty enough. If I was teased, it was because I wasn't good enough. If I wasn't accepted, it was my fault. It fed my social anxiety. Don't go out into the world. There are people out there who are waiting to tell you that you're not good enough.
Fast forward to a few years later. I was a size 14-16, but still practicing my styling skills, makeup artistry, and posing. I could create the girl in the photos. I liked her. Other people liked her too. And one day, I was asked to model...for money. Imagine my shock. I leaped at the opportunity. My first experience on set was me feeling like an inconvenience because I was the biggest girl on set. I powered through and did my job...and they kept calling me. To this day, the best way to explain to people how I feel is "I feel like the less attractive twin of the girl in the photos."
I kept on modeling as a plus size model for a few years. I never felt truly confident in myself during this time period. The other photographers didn't capture me in a way that I thought was flattering, and one even made me do a pin up photo shoot in which I'm eating a piece of pizza over and over again...as to point out something I didn't already know. I was a fat model. I was depressed, and terribly unhealthy. I was carrying around an extra 50 pounds that was weighing me down in more ways than one. Anything wrong with me, I would always blame on my size. If I didn't get a job, it was because I was fat. If I got rejected, it's because I wasn't good enough. It was really easy to blanket all of my problems with the simple excuse "It's just because I'm fat."
And then, one day, something clicked. I ended up watching hours upon hours of documentaries about diet and nutrition. I decided to make the change to a vegan lifestyle. The weight began to fall off of me. Other people started to notice. My skin cleared up, my hair and nails grew like crazy. My waist shrank to half its former size. Imagine my shock when I realized that it didn't solve all of my problems! It made them worse! I thought being thin meant I would book more work. It didn't. I thought skinny meant that I would be handed everything on a silver platter like my straight sized colleagues. Nothing happened. I thought that a skinny body would make the voices in my head stop telling me that I was disgusting. It didn't. They wouldn't stop unless I made them stop.
Over time, with counseling, healers, holistic doctors, and supportive friends, those voices have softened to a whisper when at one period of time, they were screams so loud, I could hear nothing else. But, as mentioned before, the BDD fuels social anxiety. My weight loss in turn made my clothes that used to make me feel safe fall off of me. For most, this is a great problem. And it is. But it also makes getting dressed nearly impossible. I have tried to remedy this situation by stocking a fairly well rounded wardrobe for myself, but at one point, getting dressed to go out at any given point could result in me, crying on the floor, surrounded by jeans that fell off of me. "I just want clothes that fit!" I used to yell. My poor boyfriend has picked me up off the floor, grabbed me by the shoulders, and given me his now infamous pep talk of "You are always the best dressed person in the room. Don't sweat this" too many times to count.
I've learned to mostly manage my end of things. As mentioned before, I tried to stock a wardrobe full of things that are easy to throw it together to dial in. I try to plan these things out in advance if I am walking into a situation that I feel "unsafe" in...but there were several events that happened in the span of a week that really made me angry...that made me want to write this long winded blog in the first place.
The first was running into an acquaintance in a public place. She commented on how thin I was. (If only she had known I was in the process of having a meltdown before I left the house.) And the truth of the matter is? I am thin. I have worked very hard to become healthy, and to maintain. I also know that logically, this person has put on a significant amount of weight since I had met her, and is feeling insecure and jealous. All logic goes out the window when this person starts poking me in the ribs over and over again, and tells me to eat a cheeseburger. This is when I mentally shift into fat kid mode, and shut down. If you wouldn't poke a fat person and comment on their size, why is it okay to do it to me?
Later that night, I ran into another person my partner and I are friendly with. She too poked me in the ribs (ouch!) and called me a "skinny bitch" over and over again. Also, my brain understands why this is happening. Insecurity does strange things to people. But once my boundaries are violated, and any comment is made on my physical appearance in a negative way? I revert. "There must be something wrong with me if my body makes her uncomfortable."
And last, but certainly not least. Later that week, I tackled a lot of my social anxiety and not only went out with my partner and his best friend to a bar (one of my biggest triggers is being around people who are obnoxiously drunk) but to meet friends of his who I've never met. I feel like me being socially awkward at first meeting already is a strike against me...but then the strangest thing happened. My boyfriend and his friend introduced me to a female friend of theirs. She was standoffish and cold to everyone in the group, refusing to look me in the eye. When I was finally introduced, she refused to shake my hand and just said "Uh, huh. Of course you look perfect. You look like a freaking Barbie. I hate you." If only she had known how hard it was just to get me out of the house. I was already feeling like I wasn't up to par as far as my appearance was, and I shed a few tears over it in the bathroom. Why was this stranger spewing such hatred out at me? I thought perhaps she was joking, but she kept harping on it. That familiar sinking feeling in my gut started to happen, and the elephant that I carry with me on my chest in such situations made himself so comfortable sitting on my heart. I choked back tears. What could I have possibly done to make this woman lash out at me? And how would she feel if I had said "Well, you're fat and your shoes make me feel sad. I hate you?" Why is it okay to talk to people this way based on their appearance alone?
I wish that I could go back in time and give my old self a heads up. Hey, keep up the hard work. People pay you to do all of those things now. But, being thin won't solve your problems. It's going to pile on a whole new load of them! Am I glad I am healthy? Certainly. I'm healthier than ever, and I have noticed great progress in how I think about myself, and how I feel about myself. I'm not to a point where I can necessarily control how I feel when other people behave in such a way yet. That, I am working on. But, maybe we should all keep in mind before we lash out at someone over insecurity, or jealousy, that you don't know what the person you're attacking is dealing with.
She probably spent twenty minutes crying over jeans that didn't fit, or something much worse.
Being shot by Jerry Gaza. A truly unique moment in time. Not only was this a full circle moment for Jerry and I, but this was the first photo shoot I've done without a meltdown. At all. Shot by my patient partner in crime, Nathan.
