Over the past few years, I have had a few spells of being quite thin. Which was my ultimate goal, lame as that is.
But whenever I was thin, I never felt it, and it was never good enough. Even though all times in between when I wasn’t as thin, I dreamt of the wonder the world would be when I was finally thin again. And then I would become thin again, and I didn’t soak it in. I literally didn’t feel it- even though I can look back at picture now and think “WHAT!? WHY DIDN’T THIS REGISTER?!”
And actually, the most recent time, even though I knew logically that I was thin, I would have at least one time a day where I worried I was fat. And I even said to my best friend “I think I have that body dysmorphic disorder they talk about. I go from thinking I am fine, to thinking I am fat in 20 minutes flat!”.
I felt the exact same amount of discontent when I was thin- that I felt when I wasn’t. And I had read about the psychology of this over and over again in different books, and I had identified it as a true phenomenon for me, but somehow- it didn’t teach me.
This hit me like a ton of bricks a few months ago:
If I can’t feel good enough now, in this body, (whatever the size and situation), I never will.
It isn’t the size that dictates how I feel. It is how I feel that dictates how I feel.
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Exercise: Write for 15 minutes answering the following 2 questions:
At my thinnest, I felt it, but had starved myself so thoroughly, my body decided my normal weight needed to be achieved and as fast as possible. It didn’t last long…and just prior to that, thin wasn’t thin enough. Quickly became normal weight, which I considered excessively fat. Now that I think of it, just because my clothes no longer fit. I just needed a new wardrobe. Ha!