Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology.
Speaker 2: Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
Speaker 2: the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
Speaker 2: the world, it is so great to have you here,
Speaker 2: back for another episode as we, of course break down
Speaker 2: the psychology of our twenties. Of your twenties. Before we begin,
Speaker 2: a brief trigger warning that this episode does deal with
Speaker 2: some fairly in depth discussions around weight loss, weight gain, appearance,
Speaker 2: and eating disorders. So please do just take a second
Speaker 2: to consider whether you are in a healthy mental space,
Speaker 2: a healthy mindset to be listening to this right now.
Speaker 2: This episode will still be here in a few days,
Speaker 2: in a week, in a few months, so you can
Speaker 2: always return to it when the time is right, when
Speaker 2: the time is better. Let's get into it today. We
Speaker 2: are going to be talking about a pretty vulnerable topic,
Speaker 2: one that has I think especially serious implications for our
Speaker 2: mental health, both in our twenties and beyond and even before,
Speaker 2: and it can also just be such a present and
Speaker 2: overwhelming shadow in our lives, our thoughts, our feelings, our
Speaker 2: opinions about our body do have this incredible capacity to
Speaker 2: really influence every other area of our daily life, of
Speaker 2: our existence, of our values, of our relationships, and yet
Speaker 2: we really do tend to kind of keep it out
Speaker 2: of the light of day. We really avoid discussing this
Speaker 2: openly because I think of, you know, well, shame and
Speaker 2: how hard it is to come out and say, you know,
Speaker 2: at the moment, I really dislike my body, I really
Speaker 2: hate some part of me, or I'm fixated on my
Speaker 2: appearance and I don't know how to stop it. I
Speaker 2: think it's also what it comes down to is embarrassment
Speaker 2: as well as shame, the sense that caring this much
Speaker 2: about your looks is somehow, you know, vapid or vain,
Speaker 2: when actually it goes so much deeper than what other
Speaker 2: people might want to label it. It is and can
Speaker 2: be very disordered, a very disordered pattern of thinking, and
Speaker 2: beyond that, something that is hugely and largely beyond our control.
Speaker 2: I've come to realize the more I also choose to
Speaker 2: speak more openly about this experience, how many of us
Speaker 2: are struggling with some form of negative and harsh thinking
Speaker 2: about our bodies, about our weight, about our appearance. But
Speaker 2: you wouldn't think that given how much we have trained
Speaker 2: ourselves in society has trained us to be silent about it.
Speaker 2: Beyond that, it hasn't just trained us to be silent,
Speaker 2: it's also trained us to view and treat our body
Speaker 2: like it is a constant, working progress rather than something
Speaker 2: that we can just be satisfied with as it is.
Speaker 2: So consider this your safe space. We're going to discuss
Speaker 2: everything to do with this today, specifically the topic of
Speaker 2: body dysmorphia and what that actually means. I think we
Speaker 2: hear a lot of people talk about how you know
Speaker 2: they are dissatisfied with their appearance, with their weight. Is
Speaker 2: that always body dysmorphia? Or can we just have symptoms
Speaker 2: without a diagnosable condition. The other point that people mention
Speaker 2: is how it's really difficult to even be able to
Speaker 2: tell what we look like. How a lot of us
Speaker 2: are really struggling with just a genuine acknowledgment of our
Speaker 2: appearance and how other people see us. Is that body
Speaker 2: dysmorphia or is that something else? What is the actual
Speaker 2: I would say pathology and criteria behind BDD body dysmorphic disorder.
Speaker 2: So we're going to discuss all of that, including the
Speaker 2: origins of this condition, what makes us more susceptible, including
Speaker 2: the impact of toxic gym and diet culture, how it
Speaker 2: manifests the impact, but also some stories from you guys,
Speaker 2: the listeners, who were really vulnerable and open about their
Speaker 2: personal experiences. And I also just want to talk more
Speaker 2: generally about what it means to really dislike your body
Speaker 2: without having BDD, and why that is becoming increasingly more common,
Speaker 2: and what we can actually do about it. What are
Speaker 2: ways of interrupting this really negative belief system that our
Speaker 2: appearance is really at the core of our worth all
Speaker 2: matters more than it does. So we have so much
Speaker 2: to talk about, so much research, so much science, and
Speaker 2: of course so much psychology. So without further ado, let
Speaker 2: us get into it. Body dysmorphia is one of those
Speaker 2: conditions that I think we've all heard about, which is
Speaker 2: definitely enlargely misunderstood. So to start off with, I just
Speaker 2: want to get our kind of basics downpat what actually
Speaker 2: is BDD. So BDD body dysmorphic disorder is a mental
Speaker 2: health condition, and it's a lot more than feeling occasionally
Speaker 2: negative about your body. It is an entire pattern roundabout
Speaker 2: cycle maze, inescapable maze of negative emotions, negative perceptions, and
Speaker 2: negative feelings that are all directed towards your appearance. And
Speaker 2: what it really involves is an obsessive focus and shame
Speaker 2: and anxiety around some perceived flaw in our appearance. This
Speaker 2: often very small feature of us. It could be, you know,
Speaker 2: some feature of our face, our physique, muscle mass, our skin,
Speaker 2: combination of all of those things, our weight, our height,
Speaker 2: and this feature becomes a preoccupation, regardless of whether it
Speaker 2: is real or imagined, no matter how small it is.
Speaker 2: So when I say real or imagined, I mean that
Speaker 2: this thing that we really dislike about ourselves. You know,
Speaker 2: it could be so tiny and obscure that no one
Speaker 2: else would ever notice it. But for us, it feels
Speaker 2: like a huge part of who we are. It feels
Speaker 2: like we exist in the world, and as we are existing,
Speaker 2: this huge spotlight is highlighting to ourselves and everybody around us,
Speaker 2: this feature that we really don't like. Even when others
Speaker 2: say that we look amazing, they compliment us, they say
Speaker 2: we look lovely, They reassure us that no one is
Speaker 2: noticing this floor that we are focused on. We can't
Speaker 2: believe them. There is a part of us that is
Speaker 2: quite honestly delusional and constantly tells us that all these
Speaker 2: other people must be lying, just can't see it, they
Speaker 2: must be blind in some way. And so we continue
Speaker 2: to have this like hyper focus on this floor, and
Speaker 2: we normally resort to repetitive behaviors in order to kind
Speaker 2: of self soothe or regain some control over this aspect
Speaker 2: of our appearance that is causing mental tension. So these
Speaker 2: behaviors are things like always checking ourselves in the mirror,
Speaker 2: constant mirror checking, constant grooming and touching or skin picking,
Speaker 2: only choosing clothes that will hide this feature or a
Speaker 2: part of yourself. So these are actually called BDD safety behaviors,
Speaker 2: and they're one step above avoidance, whereby they make us
Speaker 2: feel like we have control over what part of us
Speaker 2: is being made visible to others, and therefore we can
Speaker 2: control the judgments that we assume people are making about
Speaker 2: us based on this feature. So it's not just that
Speaker 2: we have a fixation on this floor. It's not just
Speaker 2: that we have this personal spotlight. It's also that in
Speaker 2: order to be meeting the criteria of BDD, you have
Speaker 2: to become obsessed with how you can fix it. In
Speaker 2: our minds, if the floor was to disappear or suddenly
Speaker 2: go away, so would all of our mental distress. And
Speaker 2: so we are always searching or coming up with a
Speaker 2: plan to erase this part of us, whether that is
Speaker 2: through excessive exercise, intense skincare routines, or cosmetic surgery. So
Speaker 2: cosmetic surgery has a really important kind of place in
Speaker 2: this discussion, now that I've kind of brought it up,
Speaker 2: what I found was really interesting when I was really
Speaker 2: digging into this research is that whilst only about I
Speaker 2: would say three to five percent of the general population
Speaker 2: has BDD, and that's even quite a generous statistic, it's
Speaker 2: probably sitting at around three point five amongst people who
Speaker 2: pursue cosmetic interventions, not just surgery but fillers and actions,
Speaker 2: non invasive procedures, that prevalence of BDD in that population
Speaker 2: rises to almost twenty five percent. So, depending on how
Speaker 2: you feel about cosmetic surgery, you may think that this
Speaker 2: could provide some relief to people with BDD. It's almost
Speaker 2: like a treatment, right, you know, if they're experiencing so
Speaker 2: much shame, associated with their appearance. Here is this fix.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, this is a multi billion
Speaker 2: dollar industry that makes its money on exacerbating and preying
Speaker 2: on these insecurities and the purported ability to kind of
Speaker 2: fix them. We have to remember BDD is a mental disorder,
Speaker 2: not a physical disorder. The problem is with cosmetic intervention
Speaker 2: is that it actually often makes people with body dysmorphic
Speaker 2: disorder feel worse or actually just the same. After the procedure.
Speaker 2: They may even become more preoccupied with the perceived floor
Speaker 2: because it has just changed, it hasn't gone away, and
Speaker 2: they can seek further medic procedures, leading to at times
Speaker 2: an addiction. So something that really fascinated me about this
Speaker 2: kind of interaction between body dysmorphic disorder and cosmetic surgery
Speaker 2: is the study that said that, yes, a lot of
Speaker 2: people who pursue cosmetic surgery would actually make the criteria
Speaker 2: for this mental condition, but more so, they are actually
Speaker 2: also the people that are most likely to take legal
Speaker 2: action against surgeons because even when the surgeon in their
Speaker 2: mind has fixed this flaw, you know, it's it hasn't
Speaker 2: gone away, just because it's you know, physical form has
Speaker 2: changed this feature of us is once again a preoccupation
Speaker 2: that it's coming from something that is kind of mentally
Speaker 2: disturbed or mentally I don't like to say broken. Mentally
Speaker 2: different is probably a better way mentally disordered, right, It's
Speaker 2: just not an accurate reflection of what we actually look like.
Speaker 2: It's not an accurate reflection of our physical forms, So
Speaker 2: it doesn't actually matter if that feature of us changes.
Speaker 2: So obviously not everybody with BDD is going to seek
Speaker 2: out cosmetic surgery, but I think it does really reveal
Speaker 2: to us how hard it is to control such a
Speaker 2: loud and persistent thoughts about our body, and why it
Speaker 2: does seem that drastic measures will be the only solution
Speaker 2: to silence them. This is often why as well BDD
Speaker 2: is compared to parallel disorders like OCD and eating disorders.
Speaker 2: I feel like that one might have come to mind
Speaker 2: for you almost immediately, And these disorders in particular have
Speaker 2: a high chromobility. With BDD, that means that often not often,
Speaker 2: but you know, it's not uncommon for people to have
Speaker 2: a dual diagnosis. So for these two things to be
Speaker 2: occurring at the same time, for somebody to have BDD
Speaker 2: and an eating disorder or OCD and BDD. So the
Speaker 2: comparison to OCD really emerges because of the excessive sixuation
Speaker 2: which results in compulsive behaviors, which really kind of follows
Speaker 2: a similar format to how OCD manifests. However, with you know,
Speaker 2: body dysmorphia, it's really solely based on an obsession and
Speaker 2: a compulsion to do with appearance. So the link to
Speaker 2: eating disorders is also quite a common one. If someone
Speaker 2: is that disgusted i would say, almost tormented by their appearance.
Speaker 2: Sometimes this can really manifest in disordered eating habits, you know,
Speaker 2: wanting to control this aspect of yourself through whatever behavior
Speaker 2: or means necessary. But it's also important to remember that
Speaker 2: a lot of people with BEDD do actually just have
Speaker 2: quite normal eating patterns, like you can have BDD without
Speaker 2: abnormal eating. It's also interesting because people who are experiencing
Speaker 2: anorexia or binge eating disorder or bolimia, yes, they may
Speaker 2: find that this has resulted from initial feelings of like
Speaker 2: extreme dissatisfaction and fixation with some perceived flaw. But also
Speaker 2: another component of this is that sometimes there is you know,
Speaker 2: behaviors like restricting food or excessive exercising or purging can
Speaker 2: also emerge simply from a place of control, not just
Speaker 2: bodily modification, which is why I think BDD is really
Speaker 2: deserving of its own separate diagnosis. All right, so let's
Speaker 2: talk about risk factors here. There are obviously some people
Speaker 2: who are a lot more susceptible to this than others,
Speaker 2: like most mental health conditions, And when we talk about
Speaker 2: mental health conditions and we talk about who's at risk,
Speaker 2: the biggest thing it mostly comes down to, or always
Speaker 2: comes back to in some sense, is family history. If
Speaker 2: someone in your close or your immediate family has endured BDD,
Speaker 2: your chances go up quite a bit. This, You know,
Speaker 2: it comes down to genetic predisposition, but also exposure and
Speaker 2: life experiences. You know, if that individual with BDD was
Speaker 2: a parent, their own experience with this condition is going
Speaker 2: to influence how they raise you and how they parent you,
Speaker 2: as much as they may try for it not to.
Speaker 2: You know, if this kind of condition goes untreated, it
Speaker 2: does have the impact of bleeding into all these other
Speaker 2: aspects of our lives, including our relationships. So, for example,
Speaker 2: I heard from someone who spoke about how their mother
Speaker 2: was obsessed with slimness for all her life. She would
Speaker 2: endure these like drastic diets. She got multiple surgeries in
Speaker 2: the pursuit of this small body, this small physique. She
Speaker 2: would always comment on her weight to others. She really
Speaker 2: never seemed happy regardless of the results, So definitely meeting
Speaker 2: the criteria for BDD here and as a child, this
Speaker 2: person spoke about how her mother really implanted a lot
Speaker 2: of those beliefs in her through the way that she,
Speaker 2: you know, controlled her as a parent. She would, you know,
Speaker 2: control her food. For example, she would choose flattering clothes
Speaker 2: and colors for her and tell her these are the
Speaker 2: colors that you should wear, or you can't wear those things,
Speaker 2: they make you look fat. She was constantly commenting on
Speaker 2: her skin, especially as she hit puberty and developed acne.
Speaker 2: And this person said to me, you know, two years ago,
Speaker 2: I got the same diagnosis that my mum had gotten.
Speaker 2: And sometimes I think how much of it was genetic
Speaker 2: and how much of it was environmental? And was my
Speaker 2: you know, the environment of my upbringing. Because in those situations,
Speaker 2: how are you meant to develop a healthy sense of
Speaker 2: self esteem? How are you meant to detach your appearance
Speaker 2: from your self worth? When that kind of preoccupation is
Speaker 2: being passed down to you by the person in your
Speaker 2: life that matters the most to you as a child,
Speaker 2: which is your caregiver. This kind of example, and I
Speaker 2: don't like to say example, this person's experienceerience, Yeah, they're
Speaker 2: very much personal experience. Really demonstrates to me as well
Speaker 2: how negative life experiences also play a really crucial role,
Speaker 2: especially experiences like childhood bullying, like neglect, like teasing, like abuse.
Speaker 2: So I actually have a story about this that is
Speaker 2: from my own life that I've never really shared before
Speaker 2: on the show. You know, it never really came up,
Speaker 2: but it is one of my earliest and most lucid
Speaker 2: memories from childhood. It's also one of those moments that
Speaker 2: really goes to show how, you know, passing words can
Speaker 2: really leave quite a lifelong mark. So when I was
Speaker 2: around seven, six or seven years old, I used to
Speaker 2: always go to out of after school hours care Like
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's a thing everywhere in the world,
Speaker 2: but you know, both my parents were working, and so
Speaker 2: I like stayed at the school a little bit longer
Speaker 2: with like other kids whose parents were also working or
Speaker 2: also had things to do. And we were watching this
Speaker 2: movie with a bunch of other kids called the little princess,
Speaker 2: and this boy turns to me and he goes, you know,
Speaker 2: you would look just like her if you weren't so fat.
Speaker 2: I have never been able to shake those words, even
Speaker 2: to this day. They have left such an imprint on me.
Speaker 2: It was like the first time that I ever felt
Speaker 2: shame about my body. And I think when I was
Speaker 2: a teenager. Now as an adult, my whole life, my
Speaker 2: weight has been a point of fixation for me. There
Speaker 2: has never been a period of my life where I've
Speaker 2: been satisfied with how I look or how I weigh,
Speaker 2: how I feel in my body, and I often wonder
Speaker 2: whether that would have been different if that hadn't happened,
Speaker 2: because it was almost like this new you know, It
Speaker 2: was almost like that was the beginning, Like I became
Speaker 2: conscious of everything that I could change that I didn't
Speaker 2: like myself, and the fact that people could observe these
Speaker 2: things that I didn't like about myself and could make
Speaker 2: judgments or mean comments to me about my appearance, and
Speaker 2: it mattered. It's also really interesting to me how that
Speaker 2: continues to come up as a problem for me in
Speaker 2: my life. I posted like this random video on my
Speaker 2: Instagram a few weeks ago. If you follow me over there,
Speaker 2: I think you'll know which one it is. And it
Speaker 2: reached an audience that I basically like didn't intend it
Speaker 2: to like. It went semi viral, and the audience was
Speaker 2: you know, men in their like thirties and forties who
Speaker 2: didn't you didn't agree with what I was saying. And
Speaker 2: as always goes with those situations, if like a middle
Speaker 2: aged man doesn't agree with what you're saying, the first
Speaker 2: thing they're going to resort to doing is making a
Speaker 2: comment about your weight or your appearance. And oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: did I not get hundreds of them? And they were awful,
Speaker 2: And the only thing I could think of was, oh
Speaker 2: my god, this is just like this all over again.
Speaker 2: It brought me right back to that version of me
Speaker 2: who was first really made aware that her body wasn't
Speaker 2: just there to climb and to run and to play
Speaker 2: and to giggle and to eat yummy foods like it
Speaker 2: was there to be judged. Those early life experiences might
Speaker 2: seem very far in the past, but they definitely linger,
Speaker 2: especially since BDD typically starts, you know, in our early
Speaker 2: teen years when everything is so formative, but also when
Speaker 2: those childhood experiences and memories are a lot more fresh
Speaker 2: and we are a lot more impressionable. So there are
Speaker 2: some other risk factors, including personality traits like perfectionism. If
Speaker 2: we are, of course preoccupied with being flawless in every
Speaker 2: other area of our life, of course our appearance is
Speaker 2: going to come into that. You know, the existence of
Speaker 2: even a tiny perceived floor, a bad skin day, stretch
Speaker 2: marks a facial feature that can really disrupt our whole
Speaker 2: identity and be quite distressing. I will say something that
Speaker 2: is not a fact to hear is gender. So with
Speaker 2: eating disorders, for example, there is you know, typically a
Speaker 2: much higher prevalence amongst women. It's normally around three times
Speaker 2: the rates that we would see in men for things
Speaker 2: like anorexia and bolimia. But for BDD men and women,
Speaker 2: people of all genders are influenced the same, It just
Speaker 2: expresses itself quite differently. One area that this is really
Speaker 2: evident to me is when it comes to weight. Women
Speaker 2: typically want to be thinner, whereas men want more muscle.
Speaker 2: They're preoccupied with gaining weight. Obviously this isn't always the case,
Speaker 2: but I do think that it's a distinction that we
Speaker 2: can really see when we just look around ourselves, when
Speaker 2: we just compare what our male friends versus our female
Speaker 2: friends complain about when it comes to their size. So
Speaker 2: in the DSM there is even a specifier around this
Speaker 2: particular kind of BDD that results from muscles dysmorphia, whereby
Speaker 2: somebody is really engrossed with the idea that their body
Speaker 2: build is too small. They are not muscular enough to
Speaker 2: be seen as I don't know, manly, or to be
Speaker 2: seen as big enough, or worthy enough, or like strong enough,
Speaker 2: whatever it is. This, in my mind can also be
Speaker 2: really attributed to, I would say, a rise in toxic
Speaker 2: gym culture and this idea of big erexia. Now, this
Speaker 2: is a term that I learned from a recent article
Speaker 2: by the Guardian and they talk about like how you know,
Speaker 2: we all know what anorexia is. This is a play
Speaker 2: on words, and anorexia is typically associated with the pursuit
Speaker 2: of smallness and thinness, whereas big erexia is this pursuit
Speaker 2: of being as huge as possible. And in this article
Speaker 2: they spoke to some you know, guys and some women
Speaker 2: as well, but mainly men about the lengths that they
Speaker 2: are willing to go to to achieve this, and how
Speaker 2: no matter how many people say, wow, like you are
Speaker 2: so huge, huge, You're massive, Like every time they look
Speaker 2: in the mirror, they do not see that. They see
Speaker 2: themselves as tiny. And this one man in this article
Speaker 2: was talking about how he would like eat the only
Speaker 2: thing he would eat would be like chicken breasts and
Speaker 2: protein sources. And he was like, I looked amazing, Like
Speaker 2: in my mind, I looked so huge, but I was
Speaker 2: so unhealthy, and like his kidneys started failing and his
Speaker 2: livers started failing. And I think that that really comes
Speaker 2: down to this crucial point, which is that this obsession
Speaker 2: with a muscular body is largely ignored because it's seen
Speaker 2: as healthy or a worthwhile bodily pursuit. Because you know,
Speaker 2: what's unhealthy about strength, and what's unhealthy about spending time
Speaker 2: in the gym, what's unhealthy with fueling your body in
Speaker 2: this opt optimal way, what's unhealthy about protein? And I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people experiencing this, witnessing this would
Speaker 2: be quick to highlight how easy it is for this
Speaker 2: to tip into very unhealthy and maladaptive terrain. How this
Speaker 2: is just another version of an unrealistic or an extreme
Speaker 2: expectation for our body image that is promoted by certain
Speaker 2: in groups and certain cultures and certain aspects of society.
Speaker 2: So this distinction, this general distinction is I think between
Speaker 2: weight loss and weight gain for different genders is essentially
Speaker 2: a reflection of what society expects from men and women,
Speaker 2: you know, the beauty ideals that each gender is very
Speaker 2: much forced to endure. And we can't ignore that component,
Speaker 2: the influence of our social conditioning and how we have
Speaker 2: been taught to hate our bodies, not instinctially but through
Speaker 2: external influence. So BDD, I think, is what I would
Speaker 2: call a modern day disorder because it really has arisen
Speaker 2: mainly in the last one hundred years, probably even twenty
Speaker 2: to fifty years specifically, and it's really emerged, as some
Speaker 2: researchers would say, from the fact that we now have
Speaker 2: more comparison points than ever to judge ourselves based on,
Speaker 2: and we are increasingly being exposed to this messaging around
Speaker 2: what we should look like and what is not desirable.
Speaker 2: This is because things like TV, advertising, social media, they
Speaker 2: have made us more aware of the social norms around
Speaker 2: attraction and what society sees as beautiful or not. Secondly,
Speaker 2: they've exposed us to what other people look like, meaning,
Speaker 2: of course, more opportunities to come up short and compare.
Speaker 2: And finally, you know, the media uses looks and appearance
Speaker 2: as something through which they can influence and sell us things,
Speaker 2: And so let's be honest, they benefit from us not
Speaker 2: feeling great. They benefit from us seeing a beautiful person
Speaker 2: on TV and wanting whatever skincare product that they're using,
Speaker 2: or seeing you know, a huge, huge guy on some
Speaker 2: superhero movie and admiring not just this plotline and this
Speaker 2: narrative around him being a hero, but the fact that
Speaker 2: he looks so great and the fact that we could
Speaker 2: copy his work out routine, and the fact that he
Speaker 2: is like this really jacked cool guy. And the sociocultural
Speaker 2: theory of self esteem would tell you that the messages
Speaker 2: given to us by the media about the importance of
Speaker 2: appearance and what is hot and what is attractive and
Speaker 2: what looks good, they are so easily internalized by us
Speaker 2: as individuals, and they also so easily influence how we
Speaker 2: treat ourselves, our standards, our habits, and our behaviors. I
Speaker 2: think as we feel more pressure to conform with that,
Speaker 2: we become more aware once again of the aspects of
Speaker 2: ourselves that we feel will be judged based on prevailing
Speaker 2: norms of attraction. If I am not thinn does that
Speaker 2: mean I will be unhappy? If I I'm not bigger,
Speaker 2: If I don't fix my nose, if I don't fix
Speaker 2: my skin, does that mean that I will never find love?
Speaker 2: Will they consider me for this job? If my hair
Speaker 2: is thinning, If I'm too frail, if whatever, my teeth
Speaker 2: aren't straight? And all of it comes back to this idea,
Speaker 2: this irrational belief that the secret to happiness is our appearance.
Speaker 2: I want to share another person's experience here because I
Speaker 2: think they articulated it so well, in a much better
Speaker 2: way than I ever could. I've struggled with body dysmorphia
Speaker 2: and eating disorders since I was twelve. I'm twenty two now.
Speaker 2: Last year I started recovery and treatment after being at
Speaker 2: my lowest with my symptoms, so I had the urge
Speaker 2: of seeking help. It's been a tough journey and very
Speaker 2: difficult to accept the diagnosis. The mind blowing thing is
Speaker 2: that almost my entire adolescence and early adult years, I
Speaker 2: thought life was about my weight, appearance, and body composition,
Speaker 2: and I made it till now just like that, fitting
Speaker 2: so perfectly into society and no one noticed that something
Speaker 2: was going on. What I'd like to emphasize is that
Speaker 2: just because weight loss and obsession with appearance is culturally
Speaker 2: normalized in our society doesn't mean that it is healthy
Speaker 2: or even pleasurable at all. I've been in this mental
Speaker 2: prison for years, losing time, missing experiences people that I
Speaker 2: will never regain. I really hope that we could move
Speaker 2: towards a more inclusive society in terms of body norms,
Speaker 2: to not feel like the only way to fit in
Speaker 2: is through a stereotype of beauty that is unachievable, unachievable.
Speaker 2: I love that this individual. Firstly, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for sharing and it's that was like kind of emotional
Speaker 2: when I first read that. But secondly, I like that
Speaker 2: you finished on that because so many of of the
Speaker 2: examples that fuel our body dysmorphia are the one percent
Speaker 2: to like crazy amazing genetics, are due to something that
Speaker 2: we could never change, and at times or even due
Speaker 2: to somebody who themselves has body dysmorphia and who is
Speaker 2: you know, undergoing some you know, crazy surgeries and crazy
Speaker 2: efforts to fix the part of themselves that we are
Speaker 2: sitting back and admiring. So I really think that it
Speaker 2: is such a weird mess around where if everybody's experiencing this,
Speaker 2: the person that we are probably comparing ourselves too, is
Speaker 2: probably looking at us or looking at somebody else and
Speaker 2: wanting what they have as well. So, you know, the
Speaker 2: norm is constantly evolving, and yet we're constantly chasing the
Speaker 2: sense of again that appearance equals happiness. All right, we're
Speaker 2: going to take a short break, but when we come back,
Speaker 2: I want to discuss whether body dysmorphia is more prevalent
Speaker 2: than we think, but also how we can kind of
Speaker 2: move through some of the stress, dissatisfaction, worry, anxiety around
Speaker 2: our appearance stay with us. There is an important distinction
Speaker 2: here between BDD and having the occasional negative perception about
Speaker 2: our body, and it is an important one because I
Speaker 2: would go so far as to say that nearly every
Speaker 2: single one of us has something that they want to
Speaker 2: change about how we look, but we aren't really going
Speaker 2: to drastic measures to do that. You know, maybe that
Speaker 2: doesn't qualify us as having a mental health condition. However,
Speaker 2: I think just because it's not as intense as it
Speaker 2: is for people with body dysmorphia doesn't make hating your
Speaker 2: body easy. It is so difficult to wake up in
Speaker 2: a body that you increasingly do not like or find
Speaker 2: problem with, because that is your home, you know, as
Speaker 2: the incredible Emma Thompson says, that is your vessel. There
Speaker 2: is no escaping that you will exist in this body,
Speaker 2: and no one else says until the day that you die.
Speaker 2: So hating how you look and how you feel quickly
Speaker 2: evolves into hating yourself almost instantly, because the two things
Speaker 2: you know, yourself or your soul and your appearance your body,
Speaker 2: they're very hard to separate. So I wanted to hear
Speaker 2: from you guys, the listeners around the world around just
Speaker 2: how many of us are experiencing this kind of daily dislike,
Speaker 2: how endemic it is, because whilst I think we can
Speaker 2: all recognize the universality of warry and dissatisfaction towards our appearance,
Speaker 2: I don't think we talk about it enough. But I
Speaker 2: think that having a general and a more like kind
Speaker 2: of bird's eye view of just how many of us
Speaker 2: are going through this is quite comforting. So I kind
Speaker 2: of wanted to just siphon it down to the area
Speaker 2: of weight loss because I feel like or weight change,
Speaker 2: more like weight loss or weight change, because I think
Speaker 2: that weight is something that most of us have a
Speaker 2: general insecurity about compared to more unique things about ourselves
Speaker 2: that are probably different between each of us. You know,
Speaker 2: it's kind of hard to talk about, like, oh, would
Speaker 2: you want to change that unique scar or would you
Speaker 2: want to change that do you want to know his job?
Speaker 2: Like when people you know, that's yeah, big insecurity, but
Speaker 2: not as prominent as weight is for all of us. So,
Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of sad to say it, but
Speaker 2: weight dissatisfaction is a bit of a human equalizer. That's
Speaker 2: why I chose it. It's out of almost two thousand
Speaker 2: of you, seventy percent of you said that in the
Speaker 2: past year you had thought about losing weight nearly every month.
Speaker 2: And for those of you who said every month, shockingly,
Speaker 2: it was like forty seven percent of that faction who
Speaker 2: said that you thought about it every day every day,
Speaker 2: some nearly fifty percent of you said every day that
Speaker 2: weight loss is on your mind, clouding your thoughts and
Speaker 2: your judgment. I want you to like genuinely think about
Speaker 2: this for a second. Is there any other warrior insecurity
Speaker 2: that we all share as much as that one. You know,
Speaker 2: as we are all going about our daily lives, we
Speaker 2: each have our own unique set of problems. We each
Speaker 2: have you know, work deadlines, we each have relationship issues,
Speaker 2: we each have small anxieties, small to do lists. And
Speaker 2: the one thing that seems to you know, bind us
Speaker 2: all together is that in this small reality that is
Speaker 2: our own reality, all of us are sharing this collective
Speaker 2: thought that we don't like how we look and that
Speaker 2: we want to lose weight. Like I was thinking about
Speaker 2: this the other day when I was on the train
Speaker 2: and I was looking around. It was like a pack train,
Speaker 2: and I was like, how many people here right now
Speaker 2: have thought about dieting today? How many people on this
Speaker 2: train have, you know, put on their Janes in the
Speaker 2: morning and been like, oh gosh, I really probably should
Speaker 2: lose a few like And that's just crazy to me
Speaker 2: because you look at all these people, and you know,
Speaker 2: if the statistics that I got from you guys are
Speaker 2: saying it, that's like fifty percent of those people on
Speaker 2: that train have thought about it that day. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been able to tell you that that's what
Speaker 2: they were thinking. And yet I would have thought that
Speaker 2: I would be the only one, because our own lives
Speaker 2: just feel so unique and so isolated. Beyond that, the
Speaker 2: other interesting question I asked you, guys was whether you
Speaker 2: think that weight loss or a change in your size
Speaker 2: weight game for some people, would make you happier, And
Speaker 2: sixty seven percent of you said yes. Is there any
Speaker 2: other factor in our life in which two thirds of
Speaker 2: us would put our hands up and say, if that changed,
Speaker 2: I would be happier. Maybe like winning a million dollars,
Speaker 2: maybe like finding the love of your life. But both
Speaker 2: of those things are like additions, right, weight loss is
Speaker 2: this thing, this subtraction that we believe is suddenly going
Speaker 2: to open a whole new world to us, is suddenly
Speaker 2: going to eliminate so much, I guess insecurity, so much
Speaker 2: like hate that we have for ourselves. And I think
Speaker 2: that right there is where the core problem in this lies.
Speaker 2: The problem is that we have these delusions that take
Speaker 2: over that insidiously tell us that if we just looked
Speaker 2: like her, if we just lost that last killer or
Speaker 2: fix this small thing, gain some more muscle, our whole
Speaker 2: life would change. And so until then, there's nothing else
Speaker 2: we can do until then, until this miracle occurs, until
Speaker 2: this thing is fixed, we just kind of have to
Speaker 2: endure a less than happy reality. This thinking, which I
Speaker 2: think most commonly we don't even adopt by choice, also
Speaker 2: causes us to very much intrinsically tie our value to
Speaker 2: our appearance, and that is what influences our behaviors. If
Speaker 2: your worth, if my worth is only activated when I
Speaker 2: think I look good, when that is not the case,
Speaker 2: why let myself be seen? Why believe I am deserving
Speaker 2: of happiness? Why feel happy? And we spoke about briefly before,
Speaker 2: but to return to an example of this that I
Speaker 2: find particularly compelling is the experience of thinking that we
Speaker 2: need to look a certain way before dating, that no
Speaker 2: one could possibly love us at this size or this
Speaker 2: shape or this composition. And so our appearance is like
Speaker 2: almost this thing that we need to sort out before
Speaker 2: putting ourselves out there, because we kind of realize that
Speaker 2: when we put ourselves out into the romantic world, something
Speaker 2: that we're going to be evaluated on is appearance. And
Speaker 2: so the problem is is that we begin to firstly
Speaker 2: overestimate the likelihood that others are going to respond to
Speaker 2: our appearance in a negative way. Secondly, we underestimate our
Speaker 2: ability to cope if they did. You know, if somebody
Speaker 2: doesn't like what you look like, is that the end
Speaker 2: of the world. If you have this fixation on your
Speaker 2: appearance in this sense that it's tied to your worth,
Speaker 2: then of course it's going to matter. But thirdly, we
Speaker 2: really tend to discount any information which kind of suggests
Speaker 2: that things are not going to go as bad as
Speaker 2: we predicted. You know, when we're dating, we overlook all
Speaker 2: the times that people did find us really attractive, We
Speaker 2: overlook all the times that we were complemented, and we
Speaker 2: just continue to think that if we were to be seen,
Speaker 2: if we were to be perceived, we would not be loved.
Speaker 2: And that just really really broke my heart to just
Speaker 2: like even consider to even say just then, these negative
Speaker 2: and false beliefs really follow us into every corner of
Speaker 2: our lives. And the thing is is that they are
Speaker 2: entirely incorrect. This idea that your appearance determines your worthiness
Speaker 2: of love, your worthiness of opportunity, of success, of happiness
Speaker 2: is a false belief. And you know how I know
Speaker 2: that these beliefs are incorrect is because all of us
Speaker 2: are thinking them, and none of us think that they
Speaker 2: are true. For anybody but ourselves. None of us would
Speaker 2: for a second believe that one of our friends, you know,
Speaker 2: is unworthy of love or dates or affection because you know,
Speaker 2: they didn't get a nose job when they were sixteen.
Speaker 2: Not a single person listening to this would tell their
Speaker 2: friend to not go for a job until they'd lost
Speaker 2: a few kilos. You know, have you ever heard somebody
Speaker 2: look at their partner and say, yeah, sorry, babe. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to say I love you until you
Speaker 2: fix those freckles or until you like, gain some more muscle. No,
Speaker 2: because that is ridiculous when we say it out loud,
Speaker 2: When we say it in the context of somebody else,
Speaker 2: that is ridiculous, And let's be honest, it's also incredibly
Speaker 2: toxic and harsh and dangerous. We would never say that
Speaker 2: to somebody else, and that's like a major red flag.
Speaker 2: If somebody ever even suggested that, it would be like
Speaker 2: the end of that relationship. And yet we have no
Speaker 2: problem believing those things about ourselves, saying it to ourselves,
Speaker 2: you know, demolishing our self esteem and self war the
Speaker 2: way that we would never do to somebody that we loved.
Speaker 2: And you know what's even worse is that it doesn't
Speaker 2: even feel like it's in our control. You know, that
Speaker 2: internal voice that in a critic, that is so loud
Speaker 2: and that does so much harm is something that we
Speaker 2: never quite feel like is part of us.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It feels like this external thing that is within us
Speaker 2: that pops up that we didn't even consciously want to
Speaker 2: hate our body or hate our appearance today, and yet
Speaker 2: here we are doing it. So what's next? If we
Speaker 2: have accepted that this is something that we are dealing
Speaker 2: with that is holding us back, that is causing us
Speaker 2: social anxiety, causing us avoidance, causing us to hold off
Speaker 2: on life, what can we change? What can we actually do?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: I drew some stuff from both the research and the psychology,
Speaker 2: the science, but also my own experience is to really
Speaker 2: guide us through. I think this past year for me
Speaker 2: has been a journey of body recognition. And you know,
Speaker 2: I say recognition rather than acceptance or positivity. And I
Speaker 2: say that deliberately because I really wanted it to be
Speaker 2: quite a neutral experience for me. You know, I didn't
Speaker 2: need to learn to love every part of myself straight away.
Speaker 2: That felt like a lot of pressure. I didn't need
Speaker 2: to celebrate the things immediately that I, you know, disliked
Speaker 2: for so many years because it felt artificial to you know,
Speaker 2: do that overnight. It also felt like huge hill to climb.
Speaker 2: So the first step was actually just getting comfortable with
Speaker 2: recognizing what my body actually looked like, Actually recognizing, you know,
Speaker 2: my features, not choosing to obscure them or cover them,
Speaker 2: not looking away from mirrors, or buying clothes that I
Speaker 2: knew were going to be the wrong size. You know,
Speaker 2: I had this awful habit of always buying clothes that
Speaker 2: were like, genuinely two to three sizes too big for
Speaker 2: me because I didn't want to deal with the idea
Speaker 2: of like not fitting into something and thinking that I
Speaker 2: gained weight. Like I told myself to stop doing that.
Speaker 2: I actually figured out what my size was, what I
Speaker 2: actually looked like, and it didn't matter whether that was
Speaker 2: a good thing or a bad thing. It was neutral.
Speaker 2: It was an honest process of just again recognition. Like
Speaker 2: the way I always put this to other people was
Speaker 2: that I was observing a painting and the colors, the technique,
Speaker 2: the shadows, the textures, and I wasn't saying anything about
Speaker 2: whether I liked that painting or not. I wasn't saying
Speaker 2: anything about how I would have done it differently. I
Speaker 2: was just observing. The second element I think that comes
Speaker 2: after being committed to seeing your body for what it
Speaker 2: actually is, neither positively or negatively, is noticing your unhelpful appearance,
Speaker 2: assumptions or judgments and really interrogating where they came from.
Speaker 2: Was it because you experienced, as we talked about, negative
Speaker 2: events in the past that came back and were tied
Speaker 2: to kind of a trauma around appearance. Was it that
Speaker 2: you know, where did you learn this from? What was
Speaker 2: the experience where you first remember having a recognition that
Speaker 2: you didn't like how you looked? And who told you that?
Speaker 2: Who said something? What did you say to yourself? Is
Speaker 2: there something that you tell yourself that you must or
Speaker 2: should do in order to avoid judgment about your appearance?
Speaker 2: Why is that? Why do you tell yourself, Oh, you know,
Speaker 2: I can't wear those kinds of jeans, or like, oh no,
Speaker 2: I can't go to work without wearing makeup. Oh you know, no,
Speaker 2: I need to get my eyelashes done on my hair
Speaker 2: dyed once a month. Why do you feel the need
Speaker 2: to do that? What negative predictions do you have around
Speaker 2: what would happen if you didn't do those things. And
Speaker 2: to go one step further, it's you know, what is
Speaker 2: the worst thing that could occur from somebody actually noticing
Speaker 2: that floor that I try so hard to hide and
Speaker 2: I try so hard to obscure. What is the worst thing, truly,
Speaker 2: the worst thing that could come from somebody judging me
Speaker 2: based on my appearance? They could not like you. I know,
Speaker 2: it sounds so obvious to say that is the worst
Speaker 2: up And they could just not like you. They could
Speaker 2: not give you attention, They couldn't They might not give
Speaker 2: you something that you want from them. But if that
Speaker 2: is a friend, a love interest, a colleague, whoever, if
Speaker 2: that is how they judge or they value you is
Speaker 2: based on your appearance, if that is how they determine
Speaker 2: what you are deserving of. I have a feeling that
Speaker 2: that relationship wasn't going to last that long anyways, and
Speaker 2: I have a feeling that it wasn't going to be
Speaker 2: particularly fruitful. So is it actually a loss? Is it
Speaker 2: truly a loss that this person couldn't look past the
Speaker 2: most uninteresting thing about you, which is your appearance, to
Speaker 2: the thing that really exists below the surface. This whole
Speaker 2: process is about really taking your irrational beliefs about your
Speaker 2: body to their final conclusion. What is the darkest place
Speaker 2: that they could go? Stop there and really assess whether
Speaker 2: that is a bad you know, as as bad as
Speaker 2: you tend to believe, because often we just have this
Speaker 2: belief and we avoid really thinking about what is that
Speaker 2: sustaining it. And when we actually look at the underlying
Speaker 2: fears that we have and we realize how untrue or
Speaker 2: how unnecessary they are, we escape from our initial compulsions.
Speaker 2: I would also say find a way to feel good
Speaker 2: in your body that doesn't have the primary goal of
Speaker 2: changing it. For example, when you exercise, instead of thinking
Speaker 2: about calories, about muscle growth, about weight loss, broaden your
Speaker 2: focus to how much better it makes you feel. Mentally,
Speaker 2: when you're choosing clothes, instead of always thinking about what's
Speaker 2: flattering first, think about what you would wear if you
Speaker 2: were the person you most admired. What would you dress
Speaker 2: the hottest person alive in and why not wear those
Speaker 2: clothes yourself. Someone was telling me how they used to
Speaker 2: really see doing their makeup as a way to conceal,
Speaker 2: and now they see it as a way to be creative. Right.
Speaker 2: It's that mindset shift of focusing on what makes you
Speaker 2: feel confident despite the dysmorphia, and doing more of retraining
Speaker 2: your brain to remember that your appearance is once again
Speaker 2: not tied to your value. There is something that matters more,
Speaker 2: and that is how you feel about the world. That's
Speaker 2: feeling good in yourself. That's feeling healthy. That's your kindness,
Speaker 2: your creativity, your intelligence, your wellbeing. All of those come above.
Speaker 2: So some final tips and some lightning round advice. Every day,
Speaker 2: try and find one thing to compliment about yourself that
Speaker 2: is not looks based. To kind of steer your brain
Speaker 2: and your mind away from centering appearance at the core
Speaker 2: of everything else and compliment others as well. Create more
Speaker 2: positive reactions in yourself by extending those kind of reactions
Speaker 2: to those around you as well. Try and break out
Speaker 2: of the narrative that your body and your appearance has
Speaker 2: to be a constant work in progress. It can be
Speaker 2: the final destination. Where you are right now can be
Speaker 2: the end goal. If your body can do what it
Speaker 2: needs to do, if it can have fun, if it
Speaker 2: can move, if it can dance, if it can laugh,
Speaker 2: if it can love, that's it great. It's done everything
Speaker 2: that it needs to do. You don't need to improve
Speaker 2: it beyond that, you don't require any anything more from it.
Speaker 2: You don't have any further demands. Speak to your body
Speaker 2: as if the person you are speaking to is that
Speaker 2: childhood version of yourself who probably first encountered the belief
Speaker 2: that they didn't like something about their appearance. If you were,
Speaker 2: if you knew what you knew now, and you were
Speaker 2: speaking to that child version of yourself in this moment,
Speaker 2: what would you be saying And are the things that
Speaker 2: you would be saying to that version of you, that
Speaker 2: five six seven year old version of you, that sweet,
Speaker 2: innocent person. Would you be saying to them what you
Speaker 2: were saying to yourself? Would you be as harsh? Would
Speaker 2: you be looking in the mirror seeing that childhood version
Speaker 2: of you reflected back and saying, Wow, you really need
Speaker 2: to do something about X, or you're not going to
Speaker 2: be happy until you change why, or like that's revolting,
Speaker 2: that's disgusting. Of course you wouldn't, So why are you
Speaker 2: saying that to yourself now? That version of you, that innocent,
Speaker 2: you know, unashamed version of you, still exists and still
Speaker 2: deserves to be alive and present in the version of
Speaker 2: you now that is an adult, and every time we
Speaker 2: are harsh and critical and unkind to ourselves, I do
Speaker 2: honestly believe that we kill a little part of us
Speaker 2: that is quite pure and quite happy. So that is
Speaker 2: kind of my final reminder for the day. I really
Speaker 2: hope that this episode has brought you something, whether that
Speaker 2: is information, whether that is peace, whether that is closure, community,
Speaker 2: a sense that other people are going through what you
Speaker 2: are going through. I promise you are not alone. This
Speaker 2: is so much more common, and I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's a good thing, but at least it doesn't feel
Speaker 2: as solitary, and I just hope that you're taking care
Speaker 2: of yourself and that you're choosing to be kinder to
Speaker 2: yourself as a result. So again, thank you for listening.
Speaker 2: If you did enjoy this episode, please feel free to
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Speaker 2: have hundreds more that might be of use. But whatever
Speaker 2: you're going through, and if you have a suggestion, if
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Speaker 2: next time, be kind to yourself. Please be gentle with
Speaker 2: yourself and we will talk soon.