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 Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 7:15 pm
tl;dr : I feel really fat, but it can't be that bad. This is the heaviest I've been in my life, but I still get told that I'm hot/sexy/good shape/etc. But I'm not only feeling fat, I'm feeling failular in multiple areas of life. How do I break out of all of this negativity? I know I've done it in the past, and I didn't need medication for it...
The Long Story:
So, SEG members... I'm having some body image issues.
While trying to finish up my degree, my upper level classes got really intensive and required a lot of effort. I kept trying and trying and I felt like I still wasn't completing them successfully or understanding the material fully. In fact it felt like everything changed. I did well in school when I was trying to understand the world around me - not when I was trying to earn As. (I find that you'll naturally earn As if you've fully understood the material and how it works. So it won't feel like hard studying - it will just flow. But maybe that's just me?) Also teachers tended to like me more when i was studying to understand and not when I was trying to brown-nose. However, I kept hearing a lot of criticism and fatalistic worries from my family that I won't ever get a good job just studying some piddly genetics & environment, and anthropology at a tier-3 institution. (I wish I had known then what I know now about my country's president investing in and working towards creating more green jobs - then I might not have worried as much as I did 3-4 years ago.) So to counter these worries of possible unemployment and college waste, I asked as many advisors as possible how to get a stable job. The answers were more about how I could look outstanding rather than how well I understand the world around me and apply that knowledge. Needless to say, I invested much more of my time in brown-nosing and less of my time in actually understanding the material. I thought that's what mattered...
It may sound insignificant, the back story, but it matters because it started this vicious cycle, if you will. I started becoming mildly depressed. It was in the background of everything I did and it was kinda pervasive, especially around the end. It made me super sad to know that there is an incredible world where awesome things have happened, are happening, will continue to happen... and all people care about is looking snazzy? I don't care about that... but I'll be looked down upon if I look like I don't care? Moralistically, it didn't seem right to me, but hey I don't call the shots in the "real" world.
Well this brown-nosing also included trying to impress my department chairperson who really doesn't even know me - just read through my transcripts and she just assumed she knew the kind of person I was. It became increasingly stressful trying to impress her, do extra curricular activities, focus on brown-nosing rather than understanding the material, complete my internship, complete my thesis, etc.
In this stress I did not exercise as much as I could've/should've. Admittedly, it helps me blow off steam and it gets those endorphins pumping through my system. But after a while my neurotic anxiety symptoms and tendencies started to come out. Sometimes during my work-outs, there are these High Intensity Intervals and after each interval, you're supposed to break for 1 minute while jogging in place or jumping rope - I couldn't even relax during those 1 minute intervals. I kept pacing around, worried, thinking about all the work I had to finish, thinking about how my exercise time may be cutting into my homework time. I couldn't even focus enough to get back to the workout routine!
I kept trying to buy and cook only whole foods, mostly organic, complete a detox regimen, drink ample water, avoid sodium, etc. To no avail - I just kept gaining and gaining and gaining flabby fat. I mean if your muscles are toned underneath, even a little extra weight looks tighter to your body... but not even being able to complete a 45 minute workout? I just started to look flabbier and flabbier. (Not to mention I'm less than 5 ft tall with a small frame so any extra weight stands out a lot more.) I got more and more stressed. None of my teachers liked me anymore. I couldn't complete anything in the deadline that I wanted to. My thesis, a total loss. After all my hard work, I wasn't outstanding to ANYBODY. I ended up having to take an unpaid internship that NOBODY wanted for the past couple of decades. I was trying to finish quickly so I could move to Colorado and be with my sweetheart... in my stress to finish my schooling, we started growing apart... and then he started dating another girl. I mean it was like everything I worked for, everything everyone told me WAS WRONG. It doesn't matter how hard you work or how well you apply yourself - if people don't like you, they just don't like you. If you suck, you just suck in this society so learn to live with how much you suck. It was a real morale killer. I wasn't just mean to people afterwards, I was cold and snooty and cynical.
I looked in the mirror and all I could see was ugly fat and flab. This is the most I've weighed in my entire life - ever. I remember being bridesmaid for one of my friends and upon ordering the dress and giving them my measurements, I was appalled that my measurements added up to a size 12. I have never been more than a size 7 - and that's when I want to wear something baggy!
Guys, this can't be real. On the outside, several of my less mature guy friends and acquaintances talk about how I'm too hot to stay in the house tonight, how I never stop looking good. My photographer and artist friends want me to model for them. When I say I've gained so much weight they say "no - you have a great shape." And for me face, besides some extra width, I think my features are pretty.
I remember reading a lot about psychology and neuroscience in the past. Even people who were blinded sometime in life can still have dreams with images and flashes of light. That's not your eyeball - that's your brain's perception and signals. I've read that it's linked to the same reason why an anorexic girl may look in the mirror and see only fat when she's not fat at all.
I mean I've checked my BMI and my body fat % and they're both in the "poor" or "overweight" region. It feels so bogus that it's easy to gain weight, but if you want to lose it it's not healthy to lose more than 1 or 2 pounds a week. I have so many cute clothes and I can't wear them. I can't dish out all the money for bigger cute clothes if I'm just going to get skinny again.
I'm trying to eat better since I moved back in with my parents and it's working for the bloating at least. I was trying to exercise, but I was in a car accident recently so parts of me still hurt.
I just, I don't know how but I need to get over this negative body image. There's a lot behind it, as my sense of self esteem, self respect, and competence have been challenged and shattered and I just feel... like I'm not good enough - like I'm never good enough.
So... advice?
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Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 9:26 am
I'm somewhat in the same boat in terms of weight. I was always thin but curvy in all the right places. But now I'm almost 30, and my body is changing. I've gained some weight, and my curves are getting curves of their own! I've outgrown some clothes. I'd say I eat better and am more active than ever before, but I guess it's just not enough for my changing metabolism. And I'm ok with that. I mean, it's weird seeing my body change. And it sucks that I can't wear some of my clothes anymore. But other than that, meh. As long as I am doing what I can to be healthy, then my body can do as it wants. Health is my goal, not a certain body type, look, weight, or dress size. I won't let my changing body stop me from working it or from being me. And I will not compare myself to airbrushed and heavily make-uped models on magazine covers. Society is really pushing, "Thin, thin, thin," right now (even if it means an unhealthy thinness), but I will not jump on that bandwagon and neither should you. I've been browsing pinterest.com daily too, and I'm loving it. People used to post a bunch of thinspo, but they've since banned it. But a lot of people post pictures of bigger women looking sexy, bigger women looking beautiful, bigger women looking confident, bigger women looking classy, body/self love blogs, blogs that question society's definition of "beauty," etc.
And I wouldn't worry about your body in terms of a job either. When people say you need to look outstanding to a potential employer, they don't usually mean that you have to be pretty, and thin, and have the measurements 36-24-36, and all that. They usually mean that your cover letter needs to grab a potential employer's attention, your resume needs to be a step above the rest, you have to be clean, you have to be appropriately dressed, etc. That's all stuff that shows a boss that you care about your accomplishments, about yourself, and about getting the job. And it's the stuff that most potential employers will see. Most of them aren't going give you a test to see how well you currently understand and remember what you were taught in college, so how well you understand and remember that stuff probably won't have anything to do with whether or not you get the job (although in some cases it may determine how long you keep the job).
I don't think you need to bust your butt to impress people in college either. Focus on your work. Focus on doing a good job of it. Focus on handing it on time. That's enough to make most professors happy. And if they're happy with your work, you might be able to use some of the as references on your job applications too. I think potential employers would rather hear a reference say, "She did what I asked, and she did it well," than, "She spread herself too thin and ended up doing a mediocre job at everything," you know? So if you don't have enough time to get what you need to do done and if you don't care about all those extras anyway, then I'd say ditch them.
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Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 8:40 pm
Thanks! I wish I had the smarts to ditch them before it all got out of hand.
I remember at graduation, not a single one of my major professors even smiled at me when they shook my hand, but my minor professor gave me a great big hug.
I really need to stop worrying about what other people think about me because in my rush to please everybody, I pleased no one - not even myself. How do you get over a life of people calling you inconsiderate just because you don't conform to their version of what's "right"?
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