by Leslie Lane —
Behaviors that I developed over the years, ones that are constantly used by people who don’t have diagnosed eating disorders, had been killing me for years. I’m not talking about just binging, purging and restricting. The way I engaged on an emotional level with my body for so many years was so negative that I am honestly shocked to find myself still standing. Ultimately, each and every day, I committed terrible hate crimes against myself due to the way I perceived myself to look. I am embarrassed to recall some of the terribly destructive things that I said to myself before I had even opened my eyes for the day.
While in treatment, though, I exposed that demon, which is to say that I finally said aloud the things I had been saying to myself in private for so long. In doing so, I was both pleased and saddened to find that I was far from alone in regard to negative self talk. The women (no men at this facility) with whom I went to groups and different types of therapies with all had similar experiences with self hatred and body negativity. I found that while I shared and listened to all of the different specifics in regard to this terrible shared experience, I became more and more angry. What were all of these beautiful women doing hating their bodies? What was I doing?
When in treatment for my eating disorder, there was often regarding the ease with which such hateful words would roll off our tongues when we got out of the shower and saw our reflections in the mirror or when we were picking out clothing to wear each morning. Negative self talk is highly addictive, and it certainly isn’t specific to the eating disordered population. In this day and age, mirrors have become a place where people spend time picking out each and every part of their bodies, often subjecting themselves to lengthy sessions of self deprecation. Often we fail to see reflect positively in regard to the parts of our bodies that we like, because we have learned to be so critical that, to be honest, we really do not find any aspects of our physical selves to be acceptable. dBeing uncomfortable in ones own skin has become epidemic and affects many peoples emotions on a daily basis.
I don’t really know how to close this post because, as I well understand, this hateful language and negative self-talk doesn’t just disappear upon our wishing it away. It takes a lot of work to unlearn habits that have likely become second nature to many human beings. Personally I have to fight those voices every day. I can’t always come up with an effective counter argument to some of the judgements that I make, but I can definitely recognize them and try my very best to soften my voice a bit in order to preserve my integrity even just a little bit.
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