Speaker 1: Hey, guys, it is producer Keisha here, and if you
Speaker 1: listened to last week's episode, you would have heard Laura
Speaker 1: and Britt say that they were on their midyear break,
Speaker 1: which is where they are right now, which is why
Speaker 1: you're stuck with me.
Speaker 2: And some of you are probably like, who the heck
Speaker 2: is this extra chick.
Speaker 1: I am the behind the scenes girl that is a
Speaker 1: part of Life on Cut, and I've got some really
Speaker 1: exciting things coming up for you this week. Somehow, I
Speaker 1: actually don't know how we've managed to do this, but
Speaker 1: we've ended.
Speaker 2: Up with more episodes than normal.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow you are going to be having an extra bonus
Speaker 1: episode of dating accidentally unfiltered stories. If I'm being completely honest,
Speaker 1: this was probably the funniest episode of Life on Cut
Speaker 1: I've ever edited or listened to. I had to pause
Speaker 1: midway through it editing it and send the girls a
Speaker 1: video because I was crying of laughter. I'm in the
Speaker 1: dating world with you, guys, and it's an absolute shit show,
Speaker 1: and these stories prove to me that I am not alone.
Speaker 1: They are possibly the most cooked dating stories I've ever
Speaker 1: heard in my life, and for a lot of us
Speaker 1: at the moment, we need a laugh, and this episode
Speaker 1: is going to be a laugh and a half. On Thursday,
Speaker 1: something very exciting is happening. Laura will actually be catching
Speaker 1: up with India Oxenburg, and some of you might recognize
Speaker 1: that name because we did an interview with India in January.
Speaker 1: She was the victim of a sex cult called Nexium,
Speaker 1: and there's actually been some developments in that case. Alison Mack,
Speaker 1: who was an actress on Small vilm and a part
Speaker 1: of the Nexium sex cult, was charged for her crimes.
Speaker 1: And so we're just going to be catching up with
Speaker 1: India and finding out how she's been since we spoke
Speaker 1: to her last. That will be dropping in your feeds
Speaker 1: on Thursday and today.
Speaker 2: This is what I mean.
Speaker 1: The Girls go on holidays and somehow you guys end
Speaker 1: up with more content. Don't worry, I'm working behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: Today We're actually going to be taking a trip down
Speaker 1: memory lane to episode forty four that was released last June. Now,
Speaker 1: the Girls has spoken a whole bunch about comparison culture
Speaker 1: and about the effects of social media and how much
Speaker 1: it can kind of have a play on our mentality
Speaker 1: and the reason we thought this episode was quite timely
Speaker 1: at the moment is because there have been some really
Speaker 1: really interesting laws passed over in Norway.
Speaker 2: Throughout the week. They actually require.
Speaker 1: Any photos posted on social media by influencers or by
Speaker 1: models and celebrities that include edited faces and bodies to
Speaker 1: have a disclaimer on them, and they say that this
Speaker 1: is in a bold attempt to curb unrealistic beauty standards online.
Speaker 2: People all over the world.
Speaker 1: Are just going absolutely crazy for this, saying that this
Speaker 1: is amazing that they wish that it was brought in
Speaker 1: in places like Australia. So basically, it makes it illegal
Speaker 1: to publish any images of models or influences that have
Speaker 1: been retouched without having this government established symbol on them.
Speaker 1: The new laws apply to any photos or videos that
Speaker 1: include people with altered bodies, and they say that it
Speaker 1: includes things like enlarged lips, edited muscles, and wastelines.
Speaker 2: So it's pretty massive.
Speaker 1: Like this is a really bold thing and it's going
Speaker 1: to be coming into the laws in Norway.
Speaker 2: After the King approves. It is pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: So let's jump into this chat about body dysmorphia and
Speaker 1: social media and we'll join you tomorrow for your bonus
Speaker 1: episode of Accidentally Unfiltered Dating Stories.
Speaker 3: Today's culture is so obsessed with looking and.
Speaker 4: Acting young, and we want to talk about a topic
Speaker 4: that we think is really important to women and men,
Speaker 4: but especially our youth, and that is body dysmorphia. Have
Speaker 4: you heard of it, Laura, Yes, that's why we're talking
Speaker 4: about it. The real problem if I hadn't, Wow, So
Speaker 4: it was a rhetorical question. Bring the goods, Brittany, give
Speaker 4: us an intro. Body dysmorphia syndrome or BDS is also
Speaker 4: known as and it's something that affects a lot of people,
Speaker 4: and that's why we wanted to delve into it. And
Speaker 4: I think it's because we sort of bombarded daily with
Speaker 4: images via magazines and billboards and the TV and the Internet,
Speaker 4: and it's all about what the person looks like. It's
Speaker 4: all about they seem beautiful and they seem perfect. And
Speaker 4: I think that really creates some issues in young people,
Speaker 4: people thinking that they think to be successful they need
Speaker 4: to be beautiful. They think to be successful, they need
Speaker 4: to be perfect, and they need to look a certain way.
Speaker 4: They need to look like the model, and they need
Speaker 4: to look like the TV presenter. And I think that
Speaker 4: really plans this deep seated issue in a lot of people.
Speaker 5: So for those of you who don't know what body
Speaker 5: dysmorphia is, it is basically this obsession with the way
Speaker 5: that you look, which may not actually relate to what's
Speaker 5: happening in real life. So, for example, people who have
Speaker 5: this illness constantly worry about the way they look. They
Speaker 5: believe and inconspicuous or relatively non existent physical attribute is
Speaker 5: a serious defect. I think a lot of people often
Speaker 5: have it about their skin.
Speaker 2: For example.
Speaker 5: They can become very obsessive about something that they deem
Speaker 5: as a flaw, that that other people might look at
Speaker 5: and go, oh gosh, there's literally nothing there. It's this
Speaker 5: obsessive nature that really is what creates this illness. And basically,
Speaker 5: I think you know when people are looking at themselves
Speaker 5: in the mirror all the time, constantly checking something, constantly
Speaker 5: compare the way they.
Speaker 2: Look to other people.
Speaker 5: These are all symptoms and signs of a type of
Speaker 5: body dysmorphia. And body dysmorphia itself has many, many levels.
Speaker 4: There is people who have very extreme cases and it's debilitating,
Speaker 4: and then there are people who have very mild cases
Speaker 4: where they may deem a certain thing a flaw about
Speaker 4: themselves and they have obsessive tendencies over it, but doesn't
Speaker 4: completely overrun their day or their ability to live a
Speaker 4: normal life.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, The severity can differ from people that know that
Speaker 4: what they're seeing and what they're thinking and what they're
Speaker 4: feeling isn't rational and isn't justified. So they're looking at
Speaker 4: themselves and they might, for example, they might say, oh
Speaker 4: my god, I'm so fat, but they know that they're
Speaker 4: putting their size ten genes on.
Speaker 3: They know they're not. So there's those people, But then.
Speaker 4: There are the people that it really really cause emotional
Speaker 4: distress and it can really affect their entire life because
Speaker 4: they completely believe that what they're seeing is real, and
Speaker 4: what they're seeing is actually has no connection to reality.
Speaker 3: It's not them in any means, and that.
Speaker 4: Sometimes sometimes they see things on their face that aren't there,
Speaker 4: they see things on their body that aren't there, And
Speaker 4: it's really concerning because it's led to quite a high
Speaker 4: level of depression and suicide in teenagers. And that's why
Speaker 4: I think it's so important to highlight now.
Speaker 5: So one of the reasons why we wanted to talk
Speaker 5: about this on today's episode was because there was a
Speaker 5: post that went up. Kim Kardashian had posted a video
Speaker 5: of herself wearing a corset, and there was a really
Speaker 5: interesting conversation that happened on Jamila Jimil's Instagram page. She's
Speaker 5: a British actress, a radio presenter, a model, a writer,
Speaker 5: an activist and a feminist. And what she has written
Speaker 5: on her Instagram is so interesting because she kind of
Speaker 5: encapsulates and really shows how the changing times in social media,
Speaker 5: how there has been a bit of a revolt. Basically,
Speaker 5: the photo that Kim Kardashin has posted, it's a video
Speaker 5: and it's her wearing her corset from the Met gala,
Speaker 5: where her waist is incredibly almost like unbelievably tiny.
Speaker 4: You didn't see the video that she posted, if like, so,
Speaker 4: I saw the photo and I thought it's got to
Speaker 4: be photoshopped. But then she's obviously realized that too, and
Speaker 4: Kim Kanashi's posted a video so that she can prove
Speaker 4: us not photoshopped. And it's ridiculous. You guys need to
Speaker 4: go and have a Google look it up.
Speaker 2: It's insane.
Speaker 5: It's it doesn't it looks so unbelievably not a real person.
Speaker 5: That's how tiny her waist is. She looks like a
Speaker 5: Barbie doll in this. We actually received messages to our
Speaker 5: own instagram saying like this is such a good topic
Speaker 5: for conversation, which is why we wanted to kind of
Speaker 5: delve into it deeper. I really feel like Jamila jimil
Speaker 5: really encapsulated the most perfect response about this post. So
Speaker 5: what she's said in her Instagram, and I would love
Speaker 5: for you to go and read it because it's just
Speaker 5: it's literally the most perfectly worded response to what is
Speaker 5: happening on social media, and what she's said there is
Speaker 5: that there's no point in screaming at Kim herself. The
Speaker 5: smart thing to do is to protect yourself from the
Speaker 5: images that you see on social media. But also if
Speaker 5: you look at something like that and you recognize that
Speaker 5: that's wrong and that that is going to do hard
Speaker 5: to other people, and that that isn't like the image
Speaker 5: we should be putting out there for a realistic and
Speaker 5: attainable body, then the work's already done. You're already woke
Speaker 5: to what's happening in society.
Speaker 4: Well, you can already recognize that it's damage and it's
Speaker 4: unnatural and it's not right and it's causing havoc. I
Speaker 4: guess what Jamila Jamila is saying is that if you
Speaker 4: recognize that this is that this is toxic, and you
Speaker 4: recognize that it's damaging, you're able to kind of disengage
Speaker 4: with Instagram pages or with people or celebrities who don't
Speaker 4: make you feel good about yourself. But I think that
Speaker 4: that's the first step in recognizing and unpacking this idea
Speaker 4: of body dysmorphia. But it's funny, isn't it, Because so
Speaker 4: many people recognize how ridiculous it is and how unattainable
Speaker 4: it is, and how damaging it is, but they still
Speaker 4: follow pages. It's like a train wreck. They can't unfollow it.
Speaker 4: They know what makes them feel bad, but they can't
Speaker 4: unfollow it. It's like almost this obsession with the unnatural
Speaker 4: and the unattainable.
Speaker 1: I think that it's almost a little bit easy to say, oh,
Speaker 1: just tune out and unsubscribe it, unfollow the things that
Speaker 1: you know make you feel bad, because it's everywhere. It's
Speaker 1: not just on the Instagram pages that you were elect
Speaker 1: to follow on Instagram. It's in marketing, it's in retail.
Speaker 1: It's this total lack and underrepresentation of diversity in what
Speaker 1: people look like, which is what creates this feeling of
Speaker 1: not being good enough.
Speaker 5: So I mean, I know, like us growing up when
Speaker 5: I was like what in the nineties, the idea of
Speaker 5: what was beautiful in the nineties was like heroin chic,
Speaker 5: like think Kate Moss, young sos, sucking, underweight, like super
Speaker 5: super skinny, if you look like you had a drug
Speaker 5: at a drug addiction like, that's what was deemed beautiful.
Speaker 5: And it was literally called heroin chic and so ridiculous
Speaker 5: when you think about it, isn't it outrageous? You didn't
Speaker 5: think of what the name meant when you were young.
Speaker 4: You were like, oh, heroin chic, but you didn't think them,
Speaker 4: oh that we're saying, she actually looks like a junkie.
Speaker 4: She looks like a heroin.
Speaker 3: At it, and that shit's chic.
Speaker 5: But that was the that was the goalpost that we
Speaker 5: grew up with. And I remember girls in school aspiring
Speaker 5: to want to look like that, and I remember girls
Speaker 5: that were young adults in my university wanting to aspider
Speaker 5: look like that. It changes throughout the years, but there's
Speaker 5: always been this one constant, which is this lack of
Speaker 5: diversity in what represents beauty and we have seen just recently,
Speaker 5: which I think is another amazing point to bring into
Speaker 5: this chat. So for anybody who missed it, Calvin Klein
Speaker 5: has recently released a new billboard in New York City
Speaker 5: which features black plus sized model and LGBT icon Jari Jones,
Speaker 5: and I think that this in itself, it's a really
Speaker 5: amazing image. Go and have a look at that as well.
Speaker 5: But turn around, yes, so basically on one side, they've
Speaker 5: got a photo of what Calvin Klein had as their
Speaker 5: model in the nineties and now what they have in
Speaker 5: the twenties, and you know in twenty twenty and that in.
Speaker 3: The wild and outrageous twenties.
Speaker 4: But it shows how far we have come in now
Speaker 4: representing different types of beauty, but there is still a
Speaker 4: very long way to go. I remember, so, like you said,
Speaker 4: when we were growing up and heroin chic was a thing,
Speaker 4: I definitely suffered from dysmorphia. I until not that long ago.
Speaker 4: I still sort of do suffer from it, to the
Speaker 4: point where it really really affected my life. I looked
Speaker 4: at myself like I was the biggest, ugliest thing. And
Speaker 4: I'm not just saying I was like having a down day.
Speaker 4: There were times where I couldn't look at myself in
Speaker 4: a mirror. I would not look at myself in a
Speaker 4: mirror for days on end because I was I was
Speaker 4: actually disgusted at what I saw. I would not take photos.
Speaker 4: I would not let people take photos of me. I
Speaker 4: would be beside myself, and my family used to I
Speaker 4: stopped eating, like developed an eating disorder, and my family like,
Speaker 4: you've been like, we didn't know.
Speaker 3: What it was then, like you're being ridiculous.
Speaker 4: But I genuinely believed that what I saw something different
Speaker 4: looking back at me in the mirror, And over the
Speaker 4: years it got a lot lot better, where I finally
Speaker 4: got to the point where I had changed from being
Speaker 4: severe to less severe, where I realized that I wasn't
Speaker 4: making sense, and really I started to tell myself, you've
Speaker 4: been ridiculous because because you're putting on size eight pants,
Speaker 4: you're not overweight, You're wearing size eight. And I really
Speaker 4: had to start to talk myself out of it and
Speaker 4: put myself back into reality and say, if you had
Speaker 4: a weight problem, you wouldn't be putting size eight pants on.
Speaker 4: I still wasn't liking what I saw, but it took
Speaker 4: me a long time to get there, and it was
Speaker 4: a real, really really hard time. And I still, up
Speaker 4: until a couple of years ago, was still battling that
Speaker 4: to an extent. And my sister always has to pull
Speaker 4: me in line. She always had to say to me,
Speaker 4: tell me what size you're wearing, tell me, like, you're beautiful, Brittany,
Speaker 4: look at this photo like, because I would be like,
Speaker 4: I can't even look at myself, and it's really worrying
Speaker 4: because I don't want anyone to have to go through that.
Speaker 5: I think it's interesting what you say that you used
Speaker 5: to feel like that, because I don't know if it
Speaker 5: ever fully leaves you, like when you have these feelings
Speaker 5: of I think when you have these insecurities and you
Speaker 5: don't feel like you're good enough, I don't think it
Speaker 5: completely completely goes away. I think that you just get
Speaker 5: better at managing it and you grow to accept things
Speaker 5: about yourself. But I still think that there's always this
Speaker 5: level of underlying insecurity that stays there, and maybe it
Speaker 5: can flare up depending on triggers, because obviously you can
Speaker 5: be triggered by things that people say, can be triggered
Speaker 5: by things that you read. I myself, like we've spoken
Speaker 5: about this on a past episode, but really briefly, so
Speaker 5: I think it's nice to kind of delve into a
Speaker 5: little bit deeper. After the show and being on the Bachelor,
Speaker 5: I became really really self conscious about the way that
Speaker 5: I look. And that's not something that I've ever really
Speaker 5: worried about so much, not from a vanity perspective, but
Speaker 5: just because it never I never really thought about it.
Speaker 5: It wasn't until after doing the show where I would
Speaker 5: see pat photos of myself and I was being scrutinized
Speaker 5: by people on social media saying whether I was pretty
Speaker 5: enough or not that I really really really started to
Speaker 5: get insecure about the way that I look. And particularly
Speaker 5: for me, it was about my skin because I suffer
Speaker 5: from pigmentation. I've spoken about a lot in my social
Speaker 5: media now, but I get pigmentation. I get really bad malasma,
Speaker 5: and you know, I have done loads of things to
Speaker 5: my skin to get rid of it.
Speaker 2: I have had a crazy.
Speaker 5: Hectic, couple thousand dollar peals that left me unable to
Speaker 5: leave house for ten days because I literally burnt my
Speaker 5: hair my face off, like I burnt my face off
Speaker 5: because I really wanted to get rid of it. And
Speaker 5: I became obsessed by it to the point where every
Speaker 5: day I was taking photos of my skin to see
Speaker 5: how bad it was, and every day I was checking
Speaker 5: it in the mirror. And that has changed now. I
Speaker 5: definitely don't have the same insecurities about it.
Speaker 4: It's still there. It's actually worse than ever after pregnancy.
Speaker 4: But for me, what kind of shifted my mentality towards
Speaker 4: it was having Maley. Like I think since becoming a mum,
Speaker 4: I have become less self focused and less worried about
Speaker 4: the way that I look. And there was like a
Speaker 4: very clear line in the sand when that changed me,
Speaker 4: and that was Marley. It's funny when you say that
Speaker 4: we never really shake it, because if I'm going to
Speaker 4: be completely honest, and I will be and I'm gonna
Speaker 4: be really raw.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 4: When I was in the finale of The Bachelor, when
Speaker 4: Nick told me he wasn't going to be with me,
Speaker 4: I member saying to myself, of course, he wasn't gonna
Speaker 4: be with you. Look at you? Why why would anyone
Speaker 4: pick you? This is what this is my internal monologue.
Speaker 4: I was like, of course, like if anyone in the
Speaker 4: whole world, Brittany is gonna be the first person to
Speaker 4: not be good enough to win. It's you, like, and
Speaker 4: I was really bad to myself. I was like, you
Speaker 4: should have known better. You can't believe you did this
Speaker 4: to yourself. And I convinced myself that he it wasn't
Speaker 4: his problem. The reason he didn't pick anyone was me.
Speaker 3: It was he was He.
Speaker 4: Couldn't he could not fathom to wake up to me
Speaker 4: every day and to look at me every day. And
Speaker 4: it was a really really low point. So you definitely
Speaker 4: don't always shake it, and you're not going to grow
Speaker 4: out of it. And I haven't said that before, So
Speaker 4: there you go.
Speaker 3: That was me being really wrong.
Speaker 5: Guys, but different triggers, different things that happen in your
Speaker 5: life can trigger that feeling of not being good enough
Speaker 5: and that feeling of insecurity. It doesn't ever completely go away.
Speaker 5: And like I know that, you know that that's not
Speaker 5: the case with like your finale, Like I know that
Speaker 5: now you can rationalize it and look back and go forill.
Speaker 5: There was twenty four other girls in that season and
Speaker 5: nobody got picked. Like, it wasn't a reflection on you
Speaker 5: as a person. It's a reflection on him. But it
Speaker 5: doesn't mean that that doesn't make you question or look
Speaker 5: at yourself and try and pick apart. Why are you
Speaker 5: not the one that's good enough?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's hard tough.
Speaker 5: The thing with this idea of body dysmorphia is that
Speaker 5: it is a lot more common than what people realize.
Speaker 5: It only really comes into the limelight when someone has
Speaker 5: such a severe issue with it that they're having to
Speaker 5: seek treatment. I think that so many women have different
Speaker 5: varying levels of body dysmorphia that never really get talked
Speaker 5: about or spoken about because it doesn't affect there every day,
Speaker 5: but they do have this internal monologue where they're thinking, Okay,
Speaker 5: my skin's not good enough, my eyebrows are not this,
Speaker 5: my lips are not this, And that's their internal thought patterns.
Speaker 5: That's what they're telling themselves all the time. And I
Speaker 5: think that that's going to be really relatable to a
Speaker 5: lot of women who are listening to this, because I mean,
Speaker 5: I know that I've done it so many times in
Speaker 5: my life. I just don't tell people that that's what
Speaker 5: I'm thinking. Breaking it down and kind of getting into
Speaker 5: what constitutes bodydysmorphia, what are some symptoms where you would
Speaker 5: be able to identify Okay, oh my god, this is what.
Speaker 5: This is what I'm doing to myself. This is what
Speaker 5: I'm struggling with at the moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So look, in terms of common areas that people struggle
Speaker 4: with and symptoms, according to the Victorian Government Health Channel, common.
Speaker 2: Areas are facial skins.
Speaker 4: So it's funny you said that, Laura, because that's the
Speaker 4: number one thing that the Victorian Health Government says people
Speaker 4: with body dysmorphia suffer from is it's looking at their skin.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I was so I cannot explain to
Speaker 4: you how fixated I was on it for a while. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and now, like I still don't. Don't get me wrong, guys,
Speaker 4: Like I'm not over it. I still worry about it.
Speaker 4: It's still something that I feel very insecure about from
Speaker 4: time to time. It was like it was something I
Speaker 4: thought about all day every day, Like that was where
Speaker 4: my head was at in regards. I thought about what
Speaker 4: my skin looked like. I would be having conversations with
Speaker 4: people and they might look at me in a funny way,
Speaker 4: and I would think, oh, that they're looking at my malasma.
Speaker 2: That's what they're thinking. That my plasma is really bad.
Speaker 4: So funny because I don't even notice it on you
Speaker 4: I'm not even saying that, but that just goes to
Speaker 4: show you how it's this huge thing for you. And
Speaker 4: I look at you every day and I'm not even
Speaker 4: tooted in your horn. I always walk into Laura and
Speaker 4: I'm like, you look really great today.
Speaker 5: It happened this one time. So I went to Mama
Speaker 5: Mirr to record a podcast and with Tully smythe I
Speaker 5: was recording podcasts with Tully and I remember her coming up.
Speaker 5: Was the first time I'd ever seen her in real life,
Speaker 5: and she came up and spoke to me, and I
Speaker 5: looked at her and I was like, oh, my god, like,
Speaker 5: your skin's so perfect. And then she was talking to
Speaker 5: me and I thought, oh, you're looking at my skin.
Speaker 5: You think my skin's bad? And that was what was
Speaker 5: going through my head before we recorded the podcast. And
Speaker 5: I know that she was probably in retrospect. There's no
Speaker 5: way she was thinking that, Like she's a lovely girl.
Speaker 5: Why on earth would she be thinking.
Speaker 3: That about me?
Speaker 5: But that's all I was thinking. And then the whole
Speaker 5: time we were recording the podcast, I was like, I'm
Speaker 5: so self conscious about my skin. And then the first
Speaker 5: thing I did is I went and looked in the
Speaker 5: mirror to see if by a.
Speaker 4: Concealer was still concealing it. Like, that's how silly, And
Speaker 4: it's not even that bad, guys. It's just something that's
Speaker 4: like been my biggest instant security, your insecurity. Y. That's
Speaker 4: why what's funny because that's the number one facial skin.
Speaker 4: Then they talk about the face in general, including the
Speaker 4: size and the shape of your eyes, or your nose,
Speaker 4: or your ease or your lip, so that's the other
Speaker 4: thing that people are really worried about. Then of course
Speaker 4: it's thighs, stomach, boobs, legs, breasts, and genitals. So these
Speaker 4: are all the things that women worry about, and that's
Speaker 4: the size and the shape.
Speaker 3: Genitals is a big one.
Speaker 4: People get really worried about if they've got any or
Speaker 4: audy labia. What other people's looks like is there's two bigs,
Speaker 4: there's too small, So that's a really big one and
Speaker 4: they go to the extent of having surgery on it.
Speaker 3: But that's a whole other topic.
Speaker 5: I think this idea of like talking about genitals is
Speaker 5: really interesting because it's something that we never speak about,
Speaker 5: even with like our closest friends. I don't think I've
Speaker 5: ever spoken to my closest friends about what my vagina
Speaker 5: looks like.
Speaker 4: I don't know if vaginal's like no, Ada'm definitely not
Speaker 4: going to tell y'all on this podcast.
Speaker 1: But I do think that like there becomes this insecurity
Speaker 1: around it when there is no conversation because you have
Speaker 1: no point of comparison. So I guess, like, what in
Speaker 1: an ideal world if you were going to hold up
Speaker 1: a Barbie doll. We've we've been raised with Barbie as
Speaker 1: like your toy. They don't have any generitalia. Yeah she's smooth,
Speaker 1: Yeah she's smooth, she's bold.
Speaker 4: But like this idea of it being an innie is
Speaker 4: like perfect little vagina, but like women don't have innies,
Speaker 4: Like that's like some do. Sure, great majority of women
Speaker 4: don't have innies. Yeah, good for you, fantastic, take a photo.
Speaker 3: I guess for me it's different.
Speaker 4: I work in an industry where there's a big part
Speaker 4: of my job that I look at vaginas and penises
Speaker 4: all day. It's like what we do and you don't
Speaker 4: even that's just.
Speaker 2: When she's on lunch break, like, oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's before work.
Speaker 4: We do it all day, Like I do things where
Speaker 4: we used to you know women are having trouble falling pregnant,
Speaker 4: we flash their Filippine tubes. Most of our patients are
Speaker 4: in gowns with their underwear, ultrasounds, everything, So I see
Speaker 4: them all day, every day. I don't even register it.
Speaker 4: It's second nature. Yeah, it would be. Looking at someone's
Speaker 4: genitals for me is like looking at their hand. It's
Speaker 4: it's just part of the job. But the point of
Speaker 4: this is there are so many different kinds.
Speaker 3: And and they're all normal.
Speaker 4: Every single one is normal because there is no normal,
Speaker 4: and that's what I think people need to understand. But
Speaker 4: for you, because you get to see it all the time,
Speaker 4: surely there's some level of reassurance there as well. You're like, ah, oh,
Speaker 4: I know where I sit in the spectrum of life. Well,
Speaker 4: most people don't have that. They don't have a point
Speaker 4: of comparison with that sort of stuff. Whereas unlike your
Speaker 4: face or another part of your body, you can actually
Speaker 4: see and compare that to somebody else, Whereas like your genitals, yeah,
Speaker 4: I ain't got the same sort of Well we really
Speaker 4: really doged into the genital part, but let's talk about Okay,
Speaker 4: So they're like the main areas that people struggle with
Speaker 4: and I totally get that. For me, it was my weight.
Speaker 4: I had never had a problem with my skin or
Speaker 4: anything else. It was just like I thought I looked
Speaker 4: like the size of a house when I didn't.
Speaker 3: That was my thing.
Speaker 4: Your thing was a skin. But let's talk about some
Speaker 4: other symptoms of BDD body dysmorphic disorder.
Speaker 5: One of them was I touched on earlier a little bit,
Speaker 5: which is this constantness of looking at yourself in the
Speaker 5: mirror or taking photos, or sometimes it's almost the opposite
Speaker 5: of that, if you find yourself having to completely avoid
Speaker 5: mirrors because you don't like what you see in there.
Speaker 5: These are all also symptoms of someone who might be
Speaker 5: suffering from some level of body dysmorphia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we.
Speaker 4: Have like constant dieting and over exercising, which I feel
Speaker 4: like majority of people are going to say, well, I've
Speaker 4: done that before.
Speaker 3: The grooming to excess.
Speaker 4: So, for example, a big thing is like brushing the
Speaker 4: same bit of your hair over and over and over,
Speaker 4: shaving the same patch of your skin over and over
Speaker 4: and over, putting concealer on the same part of your
Speaker 4: melasma all day, and it's all you think about. Excessive
Speaker 4: consumption of your thoughts of this one area of your face.
Speaker 5: Repeat cosmetic surgery or procedures. So I think like if
Speaker 5: you get yourself into a habit of constantly trying to
Speaker 5: fix something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's like especially if it's the same body
Speaker 4: partly being improved. So like you get your boobs done,
Speaker 4: but then you get them again because you still like
Speaker 4: they're they're not right, they're not right.
Speaker 3: You're gonna be get and again.
Speaker 4: So it's like proscedures, because make prosceigures is one thing,
Speaker 4: but then like over and over and over again, Like
Speaker 4: there is this obsessive nature, in this repetitive nature, which
Speaker 4: is what starts to really signify if you've got body dysmorphia. Yeah,
Speaker 4: then there's like obviously the whole comparison. You spend a
Speaker 4: lot of time comparing yourself. You wait and your looks
Speaker 4: to your friends or to models, or to people that
Speaker 4: you know are unattainable, Like, okay, well why is Kim Kardashian's.
Speaker 3: Waiste like that?
Speaker 4: I need my waist to be like that, or I'm
Speaker 4: not gonna beautiful, no one's.
Speaker 3: Gonna love me.
Speaker 4: So that's a really big one. Depression, anxiety feeling really
Speaker 4: down and feeling really low, not wanting to go to
Speaker 4: social events, not wanting your friends to see you excessively
Speaker 4: trying to cover up your body so it might be
Speaker 4: somewhere and it's really hot and you're like, I'm just
Speaker 4: gonna wear my jumper. I think as well, like when
Speaker 4: you get into like those sorts of strategies for coping,
Speaker 4: like when you are displaying avoidance behavior or you're trying
Speaker 4: to cover up, like, that's when you're really kind of
Speaker 4: falling deeply down the rabbit hole of like this actually
Speaker 4: being a significant issue that affects your life. And I
Speaker 4: think that that's when you really need to have a
Speaker 4: look at yourself and go, Okay, what can I do
Speaker 4: to better develop the coping mechanisms and the skills to
Speaker 4: be okay with the way that I look? Because you
Speaker 4: know what, like every single person is unique. We've all
Speaker 4: been given vastly different personalities and aesthetics, and the difference
Speaker 4: in us is what makes us all beautiful and unique.
Speaker 3: A really really.
Speaker 4: Really big one and one that I happened to me
Speaker 4: and I experienced when I was young to it's it's
Speaker 4: not even feeling comfortable in front of your partner. You
Speaker 4: don't want them to see you naked, you don't want
Speaker 4: them to see you in swimwear because you're just mortified
Speaker 4: that they'll think you're unattractive. That's a really big one,
Speaker 4: and that one breaks my heart because this person's with
Speaker 4: you because they love you. They love every part of you.
Speaker 4: If you, guys, do feel like you had any of
Speaker 4: these symptoms, and you are listening to this podcast being
Speaker 4: like yep, yep, tick tick, been there, done that, then
Speaker 4: you do need to go and seek help because it
Speaker 4: is a serious condition. So you need to go to
Speaker 4: your GP or go and speak to a therapist. And
Speaker 4: the number one treatment for body dysmorphia is cognitive behavior therapy,
Speaker 4: and they'll do that. A therapist will do that with you.
Speaker 4: It's just a short term therapy technique. It does have
Speaker 4: an end, an end time, so it's not like something
Speaker 4: you have to go and do for years. They'll often
Speaker 4: it's part of the therapies. They'll put a timeline on it.
Speaker 4: They'll saying three months, will get there. In three months,
Speaker 4: this will be over, for example. And basically it just
Speaker 4: helps people find a new way to behave It changes
Speaker 4: their thought processes and this is the number one treatment
Speaker 4: that they use. It's all about like retraining your brain
Speaker 4: and retraining your thought patterns. And also I guess it
Speaker 4: comes into this idea of mindfulness, like when you know
Speaker 4: that you're falling down the rabbit hole of thinking these
Speaker 4: things and thinking these negative thoughts, trying to stop yourself
Speaker 4: and focus on other aspects of your life that bring
Speaker 4: you joy and make you happy. And like I said,
Speaker 4: like I think a massive turning point for me was
Speaker 4: when I had Mali. Having a shift in my life,
Speaker 4: having a shift in my focus really made a huge
Speaker 4: difference in my own vanity.
Speaker 5: I think like I no longer am the only person
Speaker 5: in my world, I'm no longer the most important person
Speaker 5: in my world, and that changed my life incredibly. However,
Speaker 5: I don't think going and having a kid is a solution.
Speaker 4: No everyone, Okay, going and having a baby is not
Speaker 4: on the treatment plan, Guys, Laura, it works for Laura,
Speaker 4: it's not gonna work for everyone else. But it's just
Speaker 4: another way to deal with stress. It can you can
Speaker 4: use it for other things too, relationship breakdowns, grief loss.
Speaker 4: It's really really powerful tool and it's something that everybody
Speaker 4: should learn and taking to that life. So I do
Speaker 4: really really want you to not shy away from this.
Speaker 4: If you do feel like there is any of this
Speaker 4: that is ringing true to you, please come and seek help.
Speaker 5: Often like thinking that needing to go to therapy is
Speaker 5: like the most drastic and like you can only do
Speaker 5: that when it's at the very very like bleakest moment.
Speaker 5: I do think that there's other things that you can
Speaker 5: do before having to like seek out that sort of
Speaker 5: professional help. I think if you are struggling with some
Speaker 5: aspect of body dysmorphia, depending on how debilitating it is
Speaker 5: to your life, things like unfollowing people on social media
Speaker 5: who make you feel bad, things like being really really
Speaker 5: mindful of what con you're consuming, also being aware of
Speaker 5: what you're being marketed, because like you know, we seek
Speaker 5: out what we want to know. So I think it's
Speaker 5: very easy to continue to read blogs about how to
Speaker 5: make your skin better, or to look up, like you know,
Speaker 5: different exercise programs, or like just constantly consuming content that
Speaker 5: is feeding this insecurity that you have. That's where you
Speaker 5: have to try and break the cycle as well. Acknowledge
Speaker 5: that you're doing it, don't beat yourself up for doing it,
Speaker 5: but put the phone down and walk away from the
Speaker 5: laptop when you are finding yourself constantly consuming information or
Speaker 5: looking at photos that are just perpetuating this feeling of
Speaker 5: not being good enough.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I recently had a few months ago. Now, I
Speaker 4: had a social media color where I was looking at
Speaker 4: people and I'm like, that actually does make me feel shit.
Speaker 4: I went through I called a couple of hundred people
Speaker 4: from my I didn't know them personally. They were people
Speaker 4: that I had obviously just followed once upon a time
Speaker 4: because I thought they were beautiful or for whatever reason.
Speaker 4: And then I was like, you actually don't give me
Speaker 4: one bit of content that benefits my life. Well, don't
Speaker 4: gain anything from them except I look at them and
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh my god, there's so like why can't
Speaker 4: I be like.
Speaker 5: That and this and this totally like then, oh oh
Speaker 5: my god, I love the symbiosis of this. How this
Speaker 5: just feeds full circle world. And then this just kind
Speaker 5: of comes full circle again to what Jamila Jamil was
Speaker 5: saying in her post and what we touched on at
Speaker 5: the very start of this chat, and that is that
Speaker 5: you can be empowered like you are the one who
Speaker 5: dictates the content that you consume. You are the one
Speaker 5: that dictates the products that you buy. You are the
Speaker 5: one that dictates what you're being marketed to. So take power,
Speaker 5: take control, use the tools that you've been given, and
Speaker 5: recognize what makes you feel bad and what adds to that,
Speaker 5: and make empowered choices to live a better life where
Speaker 5: one way, you're not comparing yourself to other people and
Speaker 5: you're not allowing yourself to feel insecure because of shit
Speaker 5: like social media.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just be kind to yourself.
Speaker 5: I just want to finish this with the quote from
Speaker 5: this post where Jamila Jamil has said, you have the power.
Speaker 5: You control every market. You choose what and who is trendy.
Speaker 5: Unfollow the people who tell you things that hurt your
Speaker 5: self esteem. Don't let the debris of their damage spill
Speaker 5: onto you. You unfollow people brands that don't make you
Speaker 5: feel powerful and happy and grateful for what you have.
Speaker 5: Block mute, delete repeats.
Speaker 3: B boom mic drop. I think what a way to
Speaker 3: finish law. Thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Please come again.