I Had a Body Image Meltdown
I had a body image meltdown in Bloomingdales this past weekend.
Before I was a tried-and-true New England country girl, I was a city gal, calling New York City my home. My mother still lives there, and I hadn't been back to visit in over two years, so a trip was overdue. We had an awesome time, and I was VERY proud that I brought sensible shoes to walk miles in.
The visit was going splendidly until I landed in Bloomingdales (for those of you who don’t know, it’s a large department store in Midtown Manhattan) to accompany my mother on a shopping errand. By the time I got there, I was exhausted- my body hurt from walking over 5 miles that day, and I was tired from being surrounded by so many people and the loud sounds of NY. Basically, I was toast and had NO business being in a department store—during Holiday time, no less.
Sitting in a chair (the only woman amongst men waiting for their partners) and waiting for my mother, I looked around and saw only thin women shopping for very beautiful clothes that I could not fit into. And I swear to God, I think the size 0 mannequins were taunting me. Is that the truth? I don't know, but that's what I was focusing on. Sitting in that chair, tired to the bone, I just lost it. I could feel my face and body getting hot (and no, it wasn't a perimenopausal hot flash, but I guess it could have been!). I had the major urge to FLEE but was too tired to get up.
When we finally left the store, I started crying. I mean, BAWLING. I felt inadequate, shlumpy, ashamed that my body had gotten larger (and mind you, I felt GOOD earlier that morning). I felt grief that I didn't see anyone shopping who looked like me. I just felt BAD.
We all have bad body moments. Even people like me who do body image work for a living.
So even though I experience poor body image at times, how I deal with it has dramatically changed.
1. Resist the urge to fix. In my former disordered eating days, this would have been the watershed moment that would have me screaming from the rooftops or on my social media: "I am going on a diet! Who is joining me?!" But, instead, the discomfort of feeling body dissatisfaction can be so great that the only thing we have been taught to do is FIX IT. CHANGE IT. And, whatever you do, DON’T SIT IN IT AND FEEL SHITTY.
2. Sit in it. As my mentor, Bri Campos (@bodyimagewithbri), calls it, "Sitting in the SUCK." Instead of my mind going to the "fix it, damnit- you're not good as you are!" place, I sat with it. Well, I walked with it really as I sobbed for 20 blocks back to the apartment. I let myself feel the suck. Cried to my mother and the people on the street. Let myself experience the pain and frustration of having a changed body, of experiencing how sucky it is to compare yourself to your former self.
3. Practice compassion and self-care to repair. Compassion is hard to access sometimes, and I sure as hell couldn’t access it in the moment. But when I got back home, I laid on the floor and put my legs up the wall (ahh, relief after all of that walking!) and let myself decompress for a while. I had some tea. Ate some excellent sushi. Watched some Netflix. And told myself that having these experiences shows me where I still have work to do, and that's a GOOD thing. Of course, I still felt raw and vulnerable for the rest of the night, but I allowed myself the space to be that way.
4. Remember, the goal in body image work is NOT being free from bad body moments. That's just not possible, unfortunately. The body positivity movement and its toxic positivity have told us that if you just “Love Your Body!” then that’s where you’ll stay, and all will be perfect. Nope! We are dynamic, ever-changing, incredible human beings (not robots!) with meltdowns in department stores. The goal is to shorten the time you hang out in bad body image spaces, not eradicate them entirely. So, if you're prone to bad body weeks, you're aiming for bad body days. And from days to single day. And single day to hours. From hours to moments. As you build your tools to cope with body image and learn to sit in the suck, you can experience sucky body moments and move through them without the fixing.
How would it feel to start off 2022 NOT on a diet? Amazing, right?
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