Is Body Image Situation Dependent?
I’ve mentioned before that I am overweight. How much doesn’t matter, but that it affects how I view myself does.
Photo by Catnip Intoxicating
I was going through some old personal journal entries, cleaning up my files, when I found one titled “my body.” After opening the file, I saw the first line, “I hate my body.” While on one level this is true, on another level it makes me very sad. It is thoughts like these that make it so hard to treat myself well and get healthy.
I know I’m not the only one who has this problem. I read articles in women’s magazines on a regular basis that deal with accepting yourself. I read one this morning that prompted me to write this article.
Keeping Myself Off Display
For as long as I can remember, I haven’t wanted to show my body. I avoid skin revealing clothing. No plunging necklines or bare middriffs for me. I prefer loose clothing over skintight. In locker rooms back in school, I undressed and redressed as quickly as possible, hiding my body as much as I could. As an adult, I make full use of the bathroom stalls or dressing booths at the gym, not one of the confident women who got dressed in the open in front of the lockers.
This reluctance to show off my body has extended to my romantic relationships as well. However, one can’t hide their body from a lover forever. Even if no clothes are removed, being physically close to someone allows them to know the contours of your body anyway.
Many women find this disconcerting. Those same women’s magazines I mentioned above offer the tip to turn the lights on during sex for a change of pace. Yet, despite my hangups about my body, in my relationship, turning the light off is a change of pace.
When The Situation Changes
A strange thing happens to me when I get naked. After a shower, when I’m alone, I avoid looking at my body in the mirror, focusing on my face instead. Yet when it comes to my husband, I tend not to have reservations about what my body looks like. Of course there is always the occasional fear, but in general, I am accepting of my body.
Part of this is of course because he has let me know repeatedly that my hangups are my hangups – he doesn’t hate my body at all. Just the opposite, in fact. So, how can I be open when he is around, but disgusted when by myself? Is it just his admiration that flips the switch, or is there something else?
When alone, my thoughts are filled with images from magazines, tips for losing weight and exercising, and anger that my clothes don’t fit how I want them to. I find it very difficult to shift my focus to other topics, so I shift my eyes to other areas. For instance, I like my eyes and my lips, so I spend a lot of time examining them in the mirror, rather than the parts I don’t like.
Swirling Thoughts
However, my husband hates to hear me talk about how much I dislike my appearance. So, I don’t talk about it around him. I either have to be quiet (which isn’t like me at all!) or I have to talk about something else. Which means I have to think about something else. Driving in the car, that something else may be blogging or poker. When being romantic, my thoughts can be focused on what my body is capable of, rather than what it looks like.
The challenge going forward, now that I’ve examined my reactions, is to alter my thinking when I’m alone. Instead of looking at myself in the mirror and bemoaning my extra weight, I will be working to look in the mirror and be proud of what my body is able to do. It can hike for hours, it can roller skate with my niece, and it can please my husband. Someday, hopefully sooner rather than later, I will no longer hate my body, but love it instead.
Have you faced this situation? How have you overcome disliking your appearance and accepted yourself? I’m interested in hearing what has worked for others. Please leave me your comments below.
Woman in Bikini Photo by agnesgtr
Art Photo of Woman’s Face by fotologic
Hi Cathy,
Loving yourself means loving the judgemental part of yourself too. You will find that it has your best interests at heart (though it may express this in unhelpful ways). In my experience those women who accept every part of themselves are radiant with beauty – whatever they look like. (I’m a straight male, I guess the same is true for men who accept every part of who they are, I just don’t connect with them in that way.)
For me, enjoying my body was important. This is easier for me being male. Our conditioning is around doing and money not looks – although this is unfortunately changing: men are increasingly being asked to look good too.
I found that enjoying my body is part of joy.
I do think there should be some revolution by women to just not buy those stupid clothes. They don’t fit, and they aren’t designed to look good on most women. How about an “International Sack Day: we’re going to wear a sack – because we look better in it!”?
Thanks for a brave post on an important subject. I look forward to hearing more of your journey to loving every part of yourself.
Evan,
Thank you for your comments. I’m grateful that I’m a lot more accepting of myself than I was even a couple of years ago. However, I do have a ways to go.
Lately, my husband has been wondering why women are so critical of each other when men just accept women’s bodies pretty much as is. I don’t know what the answer to that question is, but I do know that we are even more critical of our own bodies.
Somewhere in my past, I picked up the idea that enjoying my body was unacceptable. And, as an extension, enjoying sex was unacceptable as well. Or at least admitting that you enjoy sex. Which is totally illogical, since our bodies are built to enjoy it. But that’s beside the point; logic doesn’t have anything to do with skewed interior messages.
So, alone with my husband, those messages aren’t blaring, after all, I’m not talking about it. But, to carry that same confidence to the rest of my life would be akin to “doing it” in the street.
Oy vey, this twisted view of myself and an integral part of myself does mess with how I view my physical body. Someday, I’ll straighten out the threads, but today isn’t that day, apparently.
As for International Sack Day – I love that idea! Everyone should wear a burlap sack – underclothes ok to prevent scratching. If for one day we could take away the factor of how clothes fit, and everyone looked the same, maybe, just maybe, we could see each other as people instead of bodies. Well, it a good theory, right?