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Obsessing over my body image.

Metalhead

Metalhead

Metal health will drive you mad!
V.I.P Member
It seems like the last time I was content with my body was when I was 10, before the military doctors tried to fix my autism by feeding me a ton of Lithium. My body never recovered after a few months of that. I heard endless mockery over my weight gain after that from most of the people in my family.

Now I am sticking to a healthy diet and the weight is starting to come off at a decent rate. But I very highly doubt I will ever have the same rail-thin and extremely active body I had when I was 10 again. I know this line of thinking is somewhat unhealthy, though.

Maybe I should bring this up with my therapist the next time I talk with her.
 
Welcome to entropy. No adult has the same body as a 10-year-old. Nobody in their 40s ever has the same body they did in the 20s and very very few can even match the body they had at 30. If members of your family mocked you for weight gain, that's their bad, not yours.

Weight comes and weight goes. I've been up and down by 40 lbs. a couple of times. Desk work and depression are real fat generators. Way too much boredom and comfort eating.
 
Keeping the weight off can be tough especially recently when we've been limited by the pandemic, me and many people I know have put on some weight. But sounds like you are sorting out an effective fitness regime, that's great! I need to get less busy with the snacking too!

Went for an 8 mile walk yesterday, lovely views and we saw deer grazing, some had fawns. I also need to do some specific exercise to help my flexibility, I ve been noticing difficulties getting over stiles and field ladders recently, although the spring weather is also helping with that.

Getting fitter can be enjoyable, and involve fun times with others, whatever has been done by misguided others in the past, you are looking after your body now, despite the challenging times.
 
I've never quite expected or felt the interest in being 10 again, except for maybe innocence and other parts of mentality.

I can however say I'd like to get back to the shape I was when I was 37 or so, and if I could keep my motivation and stick with my food and exercise plan, it would be doable.

I extremely struggle with self control and motivation, so it's not going so well. I'm not gaining, but also not losing.
 
I don't know why humans hate their bodies so. It's endemic. Birds don't hate their bodies. Neither do rats or cats or apes or tigers........what's up with that? I do hope you are able to love your dear body. A body does such amazing things.
 
OkRad said:
I don't know why humans hate their bodies so. It's endemic. Birds don't hate their bodies. Neither do rats or cats or apes or tigers........what's up with that? I do hope you are able to love your dear body. A body does such amazing things.
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We hate our bodies because that's how we are raised. We are raised that way because in the distant past priests and kings and chiefs and whatnot decided that biology was sinful and tempted one from the path of god. (It is the most common interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve.) So we needed to cover those bodies in order to stifle ordinary human behavior.

Well, it didn't work. Human sexuality is a constant. Clothing doesn't reduce the sexual drive at all and one can even carefully select clothing to increase it. Once you start down that road, seeing a body becomes forbidden fruit. Voyeurism and exhibitionism become fetishized and the official reaction to that is always greater restriction because nobody is capable of realizing they went down the wrong path. The Victorians with their multiple layers of clothing and guilt-tripping were just as sexual and far more tweaked out about it, as are other highly repressive cultures today.

Religion is a collection of memes of incredible staying power. As science has become able to provide answers that religion could not, its influence has waned. As affluence has reduced our workload and replaced long hard days of struggle with opportunities for entertainment and play, religious influence has waned. Technology in the form of contraception allowed us to bypass pregnancy and reduce venereal disease from a common tragedy to an occasional inconvenience and in doing so allowed the sexual revolution, further weakening traditional religion.

There is no shortage of beautiful bodies online in all states of undress. But body shame and body fear continue. Part of it is that core of nudity = sex and sex organs = shame that hangs on in everybody's upbringing. We are still more religious and morally conservative than Europe. But there is also the unrealistic comparison we make with the made-up, manscaped or femscaped, photoshopped perfection we see every day. Most people don't actually loath themselves because they don't look like Taylor Swift or Brad Pitt but there's always that bit of insecurity in their mind.

Fantasy is far more exciting than any reality. OTOH if you see something all the time it becomes unremarkable. It takes the forbidden fruit aspect away and you can focus on other, more useful things. At a nudist resort, you see all kinds of bodies and all bodies are accepted and not judged. Most nudists, like most humans in general, are NOT the photoshop ideal. One reason I like being a nudie.
 
At 57, I had a resting heart rate in the low 40s, but still had unwanted inches on my waist.
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I guess a lot of the reasons why I want to be 10 again stem back to spending my 11th birthday in a psych ward while being pumped full of Lithium, then being emotionally and sexually abused by my aunt and uncle shortly after that while my mother was on vacation in Europe. I lost my innocence during that period of my life. My childhood reached an abrupt ending.
 
So sorry that happened to you, they acted shamefully. It sounds like you really grieve for that 10 year old. He deserved better. But you getting healthy and fit now is a great gift to him. As is getting your own house that's affordable independently. You are doing a lot to improve things that are or have been challenging.
 
I feel you, but I not only obsess about weight, but body fat percentage, waist to hip ratio, FFMI etc. I also keep worrying about being ugly too.
 
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