Self-Image

[smoke gets in my eyes]

When I was in graduate school, back when Lincoln was in office, I was walking across campus one day and passed by a classroom building that was faced entirely in glass. I looked up at the building and saw this woman through the glass that was so incredible looking. She was slim and tall, and was walking really fast with lots of energy. She had a cape thrown around her shoulders and had on funky pants and boots, huge earrings. Her cape and her long wild hair trailed behind her as she moved. She was fabulous. I wished I had the nerve to dress like that. I wished I had that height and figure, the grace and purpose of movement. I wished she was me. Funny thing... she was. It took a few seconds for me to realize it was my reflection. I was in a hurry so I didn't have time to stop and find everything that was wrong with her, but I suddenly knew there were lots of flaws.

As a costumer, I am privy to the height and weights of a lot of people. I measure girls who have the same numbers I had in high school and think how beautiful they are. But when I looked like that, I thought I was fat and ugly. I danced five days a week, I was never skinny, but I was slim and toned. And under all that tone was a fat person wanting to confess. My whole life whenever anyone complimented my looks I felt guilty. Afraid they would find out they were deluded, and I was really fat and ugly. And I think that's part of why I never stayed slim for very long. It felt dishonest. I felt guilty. It wasn't the real me.

Tonight I was at a rehearsal where one of the gals is wearing a dress of mine from younger and slimmer days. It's stunning and she's stunning in it, and I realize that I must have looked much the same way when I wore it. But all I saw in the mirror then was potatoes in a sack. Or as one of my friends with very picturesque speech says "two pigs fighting under a blanket."

How do you learn to believe in the thin person?

[Ann]

Wow, Smoke you tell a great story and I can relate because I too have always seen myself as too big, too clumsy, too anything but beautiful. When I look back now at pictures of myself when I was younger, I really was maybe not beautiful but certainly pretty. But that girl is a stranger to me because I never knew her at the time.

Today I feel beautiful. Not because I look like a movie star but because I take care of myself and appreciate the fact that I don't have to look like anyone but me. I still fight my weight but am winning the battle. I no longer want to look like anyone else, I just do the best with what I have and appreciate that I am unique (unique is a great word for unfashionable with a few wrinkles creeping in and Miss Clairol always on hand, LOL)

I always hated my red hair that was too thick and curly in all the wrong places. Today I pay big bucks to "restore" it to that colour and am glad that I can find a good match, and I style it to however I want to, not needing to be cool yet not imaginatively enough to be a "trendsetter".

It wasn't until I was 50 that I could look in the mirror and say "Hey, not bad for an old broad".

Beauty is how we think of our selves and how we are inside. When I feel beautiful inside, it oozes all the way out. When I have my bad days inside, it shows no matter how much makeup I wear or how stylishly I dress.

We're beautiful, Smoke!!! Living Dolls!! We just gotta keep letting it show.

Georgeous and Fashionable Hugs
Nicole Kidman....errr ooops....Ann

[Pony]

Thanks for sharing that Smoke. As a kid, just about preteen, I was on the larger side....but not quite really fat, but the other girls that were really thin would say I was fat.....and make fun of me. The boys would always be friends with me...talking, joking and stuff but I was never a girlfriend to them. That would have gotten them teased as well to pick me..."the fat girl"...... but I look back at pictures of me then and realize that I wasn't that fat.......I was big, but most of my family was big. I was very active and played in all the sports I could, but with asthma I had to be careful.
Anyway, the point being that if I had had the attitude then that it doesn't matter what others think, maybe I wouldn't be struggling with this today. Smoke, you hit a core feeling with me in your story about self image. I can't remember a time that I could ever look in the mirror and be even content with what was looking back, but just figured that is what I was delt....live with it!! Even today my only purpose for looking in the mirror is to make sure that I match and nothing looks dirty, and nothing shows and my hair looks brushed.

Now as I try to lose weight I try imagine myself this thin person, in hopes of staying motivated, but all I see is what reality is standing there. So I try to focus on just being a healthy person because in my mind...I will never ever have the looks.

Thanks again Smoke.....and I agree with Ann.....you are beautiful....both of you!!!

[Paulie]

Well, that is exactly what I am struggling with as my wedding approaches, how can I be 'the beautiful bride' everyone says I will be when I look like this? Not all brides are beautiful just cause they have on a wedding dress, ya know?

My lowest weight as an adult was 104lbs, I am 5'7" - 5'8", that is really thin. At that weight, 17 years ago LOL, I was a size 1/2. I remember looking at myself thinking how fat I was then. I worked with a really large women at the time and I remember looking down at my thighs and thinking they looked like hers, she was probalby close to 300 lbs and about 5'10", I looked nothing like her but that is what I saw.

I know I a losing, but I don't see it, everyonce in a while I feel it in my clothes but that is not good enough for me. I am trying to tan for the wedding, I go to the tanning salon and look around at the other women there and feel like I should not be there.
You really opened up a can here Smokie????

Ann - you are beautiful and so it your attitude!!!!

the logical part of my brain knows I will never be that size 1/2 again and I really don't want to me. I want to be 2 sizes smaller than I am right now. Today I am 4 sizes smaller than I was a year ago. So what is it in me that stops me from feeling good about that.

Oh gee, I think I need to call my sponsor with that one LOL - I know I will get some direction towards my HP.

[smoke gets in my eyes]

What, you don't like worms?


I hope you don't mind too much. I think I need to look at these worms. I know the self esteem problem regarding my appearance is part of what has led me to put up with men who weren't princes. I think my mom was never comfortable with her own looks, and so it was not ever an issue at our house. You were clean and tidy. "Don't eat so much, you're gonna be a 10 ton Tony." was the extent of my beautification program. I got complimented on my brains, never on my looks. I think when you look okay, people assume you know that you look okay. A thing I can't quite figure out is, when so little value was placed on looks in my family, where did I get the obsession with it? We're gonna say TV and magazines, but I was born in 1959 and my mother was a penny pincher. We got the National Geographic and had Black and White TV that we weren't allowed to watch much. We rarely went anywhere. And by the time I was actually becoming media saturated I was already obsessed. So deeply that a regular event in first grade was for me to come home screaming "I'm ugly and everybody hates me." Then Mom would say "Nonsense, you're very pretty." But somehow it seemed to me that it was wrung out of her or she just wanted me to shut up and would say anything. It hadn't helped that the first thing my nasty little deskmate said to me on the first day of school was "You're ugly." (Chris Phillips. Curse you Chris Phillips! )

Sigh. I have to work. Worms. More worms.

[Paulie]

Well Smoke we can work on this together.

I was a chubby kid, until 7th grade. The summer between 6th and 7th grade I barely ate all summer, starved off 30 lbs, I did not want to go to jr. high school being fat. So being the addict that I already was, I just did not eat for 30 months. barely ate for the next 2 years. By the time I was in 9th grade I passed out at school with a vitamin deficency. then I started eating, gained a little, but found drugs and then helped me keep it off for years. Early 20's as I said, thin as a rail!!! Got sober, gained 30 lbs, 15 lbs would have been enough, starved it off in my first year in recovery. Then learned that behaviour does not work for me in recovery. then I gained 60 lbs!!! and as you know am still working on getting that off.

Everyone in my family has a weight problem, so I always say it just runs in the family, but that does not mean Ihave to repeat the cycle.

I was called lots of names in elementary school. I was always the cute chubby little girl. How beautiful I would be when I get older and lost the baby fat. What kind of crap is that to say to a kid???

worms......yep need to do some work on this stuff!

And, curse that Chris Phillips!!!!!

[smoke gets in my eyes]

So your drug use started partly as a result of trying to be thin?

I think a lot of my codie-fying grew out of trying to be loved in spite of the fact that I wasn't worthy. (Of course, my self loathing went a lot deeper that just my weight. I couldn't do anything to suit myself.) When I chose to be totally obliterated for a year or so in college, it was just general anesthetic.

[Paulie]

No it started before that, with eating as a child. I never did anything in moderation. It has always been all or nothing for me.

I think as a young adult part of my drug use continued when I realized that it kept me thin along with took away my shyness with men, my DOC opened me up to be friendly and outgoing, it helped me to have an opinion. I never had an opinion on anything as a kid, as you said, I did not feel worthy enough to have an opinion. I have 3 older siblings, 7, 9 and 10 years older. the 7 and 9 year older ones were really not nice to me at all, teased me about my weight, as a very young child I think being told that you are not really a part of the family means something. And with the huge age difference, being told I was a 'mistake' was huge with my self esteeem. My mother finds comfort in food, I learned that from her.

I know lots of people like you, drank/partied for a while and then walked away from it. But don't you think there was a reason for wanting the anesthetic feeling in the first place?

[smoke gets in my eyes]

Oh sure. I was absolutely miserable with myself. I knew I had to do something when I heard a friend say "That sounds like fun." and I didn't know what "fun" meant. I couldn't think of anything that sounded like fun. I just wanted to be out of it. Things weren't fun... just less painful than others. It occured to me that this was not normal and that there were people who weren't feeling tortured by the effort it took to get up in the morning, or afternoon, whichever. I tried to talk to my friend about it and she told me to write down 10 things I liked about myself. I sat in front of an empty sheet of paper crying for a long time. I wound up going on a spirit quest and studied astrology, reincarnation, near death experiences and stuff like that. I had always been intrigued but kind of jumped in for all I was worth. For some reason that was fun. It sort of chipped the ice. I stopped hanging with the stoners. I did have a bit of a run with alcohol a couple of years later, but there was only one month that I stayed solidly drunk. LOL

[Paulie]

Hmmmm,it really does all come from the same place, out low self esteem. For me feeling like I am underserving of happiness and good things. That black cloud still lingers over me with the years I have sober. Which my disease just loves cause then it can tell me that I suck at sobriety too cause of it.

So you got involved in studying different things that took you out of yourself, me I continued to use. Different outlets for the same thing.

Neither of us used any way to improve out self image.

Smoke, this is really getting me thinking.

[smoke gets in my eyes]

How do we fix our self esteem? I mean... I'm not as hard on myself as I used to be. Intellectually I think a lot of myself. (LOL) But there's still that undercurrent of feeling "not as good as" or "not good enough". It's pretty deep and reasoning only takes me so far.

Does it make sense to say that I don't "think" I'm unworthy, but I "feel" unworthy?

[journeygal]

Wow, this is an incredible thread.

Smoke, I can relate to everything you've said. Sorry to come in so late.

Growing up I always thought I was fat b/c I wasn't as thin as the popular girls in school. I was 5'7, 130 lbs and I thought I was huge. My mom has always had self-image issues with her weight and she very successfully passed those same issues down to me, at a very young age. I remember her getting up early in the mornings to do TV aerobics long before it became popular.

I too was pretty much doomed to have a weight problem. On the inside I was fat and ugly, something reinforced to me by my dad, who probably thought he was just playing around with me whenever he called me fat and ugly, but it was something I internalized and believed. I started gaining weight in college and by the time I turned 30 I had put on a good 65 lbs.

So, besides my weight problem, I knew something was wrong with me but had no idea what it was, so food became my way of coping. Once I started therapy and recovery, I stopped using food for comfort and managed to drop 40 lbs. But I still feel like a fat girl, b/c there has never been a time in my life when I didn't feel fat. And it's sad, b/c I look at pictures of me at my smallest weight and I looked good! Even now, the smallest I've been in about 10 years and the best I've ever looked, I still criticize myself way too much. It's a horrible thing for a person to have such a chronic, distorted view of themselves.

Anyway, on to the next question - self esteem. I don't think I'm unworthy either, but thinking I'm worthy never makes the unworthy feeling go away. Somewhere along the line, that feeling was instilled in me, and as hard as I've tried, I can't let go of it. I have days where I try to convince the committee in my head that I really am worthy - they just laugh or scoff at me. Why is that?

[smoke gets in my eyes]

Wow. There's a lot of this going around.

Now what do we do????

[Pony]

Well, I'm here late tonight and just read through this thread......WOW....you gals really have something good going here. I wish I had been home to be a part of it.

In reading through all this....I was relating to everything being said.
*********
Does it make sense to say that I don't "think" I'm unworthy, but I "feel" unworthy?
*********

Smoke, ditto to that! I have always felt "unworthy" And I DON'T know how to shake it.

All of my using was to escape, numb, whatever it took not to feel sad, leftout, picked on, or alone! I used using to fit in, gain personality, be outgoing, and to forget the reality in my life!
Like Paulie, the adults around me used to tell me....Oh honey, you would be so pretty if you would lose the weight.....then there was the kids at school that said that it wouldn't matter what I did, I would still be ugly. Even now, I get from people that I could be so pretty if I would just lose the weight. Even in my own household......well, I've already mentioned that one before....but it's like my whole value of my existance hinges on if I lose my weight or not. So what if I don't ever lose enough? What if I do get it all down to acceptable level, and I still don't have that beauty that everyone's counting on? What then?

I think of you all and know that you guys are beautiful even before knowing what you looked like, but even after.......I felt like I did in jr./high school that you all are physically beautiful .... more than me....which made me want to stay hidden, until a friend talked me into coming out. And I am glad I did, but I was scared and insecure just like when I was younger looking at all the pretty girls and wishing I could be like them but knowing I couldn't. I just have to me!! But it's funny how your own self image doesn't see what I see and makes up it's own mind and feeds that line of junk to our brain. We are always harder on ourselves, but it comes from years of it being drilled somehow into our heads and us believing it.

So, how do we get passed that. Doing that "self-talk" stuff just hasn't work for me! I keep thinking...."I'm telling myself this positive stuff but the reality is I'm not worth this and I am not good enough...or pretty enough (which is a biggy for me). Growing up and all the emphasis on being pretty...especially for a girl....and me just not making the cut. You know?

[smoke gets in my eyes]

Oh Pony, I hear you!

(I had to come back to the top here and issue this WARNING: This turned into self-indulgeant spewing.)

I think we might all agree, that pretty shouldn't matter. It was, however, the only thing I wanted to be when I was little and the one thing I was sure I wasn't. Well... the one thing that mattered. I also thought my brother had all the artisitic talent. It's not a wonder that I thought that. It was said over and over. He was also musical. I also heard he was brilliant. I was just smart. Okay he is and I am... but while it bugged me to not be the excellent one, I wasn't particularly hurt that I didn't excel in that way.

Oooooooh. I'm having a revelation. I think. Older brother is genius... what can I be? Pretty. I wanted to take ballet lessons. Brother decided he would, too. We auditioned for private lessons and the teacher took us. Mom assured me that the reason she took us was because of brother. I can't believe this.. I'm bawling. I was a GOOD dancer. Even after brother quit the teacher kept me. Mom said teacher felt obligated and I should be glad brother got me in. I would never really be a dancer because I was too fat. HELLO? Message was that this was a permanent unalterable thing.

I was going somewhere completely different with this. I can't seem to bring myself back to the point. I'll try later.

[Paulie]

This thread has helped me to see how far into relapse I really am. No I have picked up drugs or drinking, but as you all know the relaspe starts way before the using.

I need to get off my butt and back into my own program! Everything in my head for me is using talk. I was doing really good for a while and then after we got engaged it all started again, the not worthy to be happy crap.

Thanks Smoke for starting this and everyone for sharing and nudging me back to reality. And I too am crying while I type this.