Oh, you didn't notice PhD behind my name? Well, it's not - but I've had several offers to help me get it there in 6 months or less! So the way I figure, I'm not far off...
I've been thinking. You know how people with serious eating disorders have messed up body images? I've always heard that regardless of how much weight they lose - they still "see" that image of a fat / overweight / chunky body in the mirror. Well I have a messed up body image too!
Well, I don't have that body image disorder- you know the one that sees you in a worse state than is truely there.
I have R-BID. Reverse Body Image Disorder. I have my body image set to default on a more slender, likeable size. Regardless of my current weight - I have this internal image of that girl growing up that was always thin - almost a stick figure, that had to shop at 5, 7, 9's because they carried a size 3. (I know, puke.)
But regardless of the current number on the scale - I just can not wrap my mind around the real picture of the state of my body.
From time to time I have a head-on collision with reality - it usually occurs around swimsuit season. Or around a time that someone points a camera at me and I see the final result - and have to choke on the "holy crap! are you serious?" reaction.
And from time to time - I look around me and think. I'm not as bad off (overweight) as her. Or her. Or her. It's a pathetic game and it's not to be cruel to anyone, but just to find my place on the weight continuum. But then conversations begin to involve numbers and I again have to re-define my place- because I've often assigned myself much lower on the weight scale / clothing size scale than is reality. And while maybe it says something about me having some loving kindness for myself (having a flattering self-image)- that really doesn't help me much if it keeps me in a land of denial while the rest of the world is saying, "Dude, her ass is out of control - why doesn't she DO something about that?"!
Does anyone else suffer from R-BID? Any suggestions on how you get over it? (I know - I could just get my body back to that stick figure so that the image and reality would match - but maybe this R-BID is how I got back here in the first place?) I'm going to have to find one of the millions of Lifetime-ish movies about eating disorders and see if they give tips on how they make your brain picture match the one in the mirror. (See how I just enabled my Lifetime Saturdays?) I'll let you know how it goes - in the meantime, we'll be forming a support group near you!
In a closely related topic -there /is a healthy giveaway at a blog near you...so won't you please consider being part of Go Read?
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6 comments:
I need to join your R-BID support group too. I'm always shocked at how big that woman is, when I see a photo of myself. I too wore the tiny sizes (my mom bought me "slim" clothes as a child) in my younger years, and I tend to still think I look that way. Shocking to realize I don't!
Visiting from a Peek at Karen's world. I think your blog has a really clever name! As a person who is taking the same journey into weight loss I applaud your efforts! Congrats!
I suffer from R-BID. I was skinny until I turned 50 and then hold them horses! Eight years later I still see myself at the age 50 weight and have to take a good look in the mirror for a reality check occasionally. My solution is that I'm going to get back to my ideal weight and then the R-BID will go away!!!!!
I don't know where I fall in the body image view. I gained a lot of weight after two pregnancies, and am still in mourning over my pre-pregnancy body. But I still have the mind set of a thin person. "I'm thinner than she is."
Great post. A lot to think about.
I have that sometimes, and other times I feel like I look worse than I really do.
I realized how common this is, though, when a friend told me to let her know if she ever got as fat as some other person. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she already is.
I have a tendency to look at other people and think "I'm not that fat right," when in fact I probably am. So I guess a lot of the time I suffer from R-BID. Your blog really spoke to me.
-SingleLutheran
strugglingsinglechristian.blogspot.com
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