My poor body image
Archived from June 03, 2006
The first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem.
I am simply going to have to face the fact that I have terrible body image. My terrible body image is daily. I used to think that my distaste for the way I look would go away when I became an adult. Boy was I wrong about that. Even though consciously I know I have always had a healthy weight for my height, and I know I'm not hideous, it doesn't matter. I still have a constant voice of dissatisfaction regarding my looks.
My poor body image is not unfounded. I was on weight watchers when I was in the womb.
My mother has been overweight and dieting for as long as I've known her. Weight watcher’s margarine was consumed in our household like air. Mom was always blaming her problems on her largesse. She blamed her largesse on my dad.
I don't know what my father said to my mom, but I know what he'd say to me. The minute I hit puberty, my father would say "a moment on your lips, eternity on your hips," "don't furrow your brow," "stop it, you'll give yourself wrinkles," "stop it, you'll screw up your face," "you don't want to end up looking like her (i.e. old/fat)," "women who tan age faster," "you know what they say, if you shove it in your face it goes right to your ass." These helpful hints really brought home the apparent emergency of looking good and aging well. They also made me extremely self conscious.
My body was on occasion the topic of my mother's criticism. A couple phrases which stick with me today include: "boy you DO have small breasts" - said to me before the Homecoming dance. Another hit is this conversation:
Me: mom, do you think I'm pretty?
Mom: No. You're rather plain looking.
Me: Oh, ok. Good to know.
Another way my mom contributed to my over indulgence in self hate was by continuing to say "you'll be a size 14 soon." (I was a 10) Then she would only let me buy new clothes at Lane Bryant, and only if she got something at the same time. All the clothes I had that fit me were purchased at garage sales.
I think I was lucky in a way because my adolescence was during the skate and grunge era so my used clothes were cool and my oversized Lane Bryant garments worked also. But mostly I was hiding. I was "lucky" because I was living in a fashion era where no one had to see my waist. I was "lucky" because by swimming in my clothes, I didn't have to worry about being looked at.
Although I can blame my parents for certain particulars of my body type distaste, the true blame belongs to a society and culture which is remarkably thorough in its policy of self hate. Everyday I am faced with examples, images and messages directed at every sense that I am not as human as my male counterparts, that my abilities are meaningless and my capabilities worthless. I am shown that the only truly desirable woman is the one who is airbrushed digitally, on display as a silent, single frame image.
The other day I actually said to someone "if I were forced to have plastic surgery, I would of course first get liposuction, but then I think I'd get some collagen injections." I laughed at myself for even making such a bizarre and desperate discussion premise.
The concept of "not good enough" has dominated human thinking for ages and will be its ultimate peril. From a contemporary standpoint, our consumerist culture completely depends on self dissatisfaction. There is no longer an element of necessity to our consumerism. We are being groomed to completely rely on objects and substances outside ourselves to meet our physical and emotional "needs". We are systematically being untaught all helpful skill sets in an effort to make us entirely dependant. Our capability to reason is being distilled out so that we will not only be easy to train and use, we will be desperate for the direction and arguably unable to function without it.
I am watching myself participate in this intellectual decline. Everyday that I look at a woman on TV and think "I will never look like her, ergo, I am less" or "I'll never get anywhere in life with cellulite" I am contributing to the sheep-ification of humanity.
The first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem.
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