"Body Image Issues"

[Empty_Purple_Stars]

Someone "not so thoughtfully" brought up " Body Image Issues".

This happens to be one of my biggest soapbox topics.

Out of curiosity, how many of you have " Body Image Issues " ?

So we're clear on what I mean by ' Body Image ' Issues, I'll share mine.

I have this thing about my ass. Everyone seems to adore my ' Badunkadunk' but I just don't dig it at all. When I was much younger it caused me some serious mental anguish. It's only after I started to change my perception a bit, that it didn't bug me as much. But it still bums me out occasionally. I also don't like my tummy. After 9 abdominal surgeries, you can imagine what having my muscles cut that many times did to my tone. That plus the scars REALLY do a number on my head.

And apparently the way I perceive myself, is not at all the way others perceive me.

I am going to go out on a friggin limb here and say I bet most of us have some sorta " Body Image Issue" in one form or another. Which would mean that this is NOT an INCOMMON problem at all. Nor should it be some kind of deep dark creepy secret.

I could go on my nine hour rant about how Physical beauty has been twisted and perverted until we are brainwashed to believe we have to be some freakish parody of ourselves to be 'beautiful".

Look at any of Botticell's paintings. His women had curves. Juicy, squeezable asses. Gently rounded stomachs. Large curvy thighs. And they were beautiful.

So satisfy my curiosity and spill it.

How many of you have "Issues" about your bodies and why?

(Except for Mael, who we all know is perfect in every way. :P )

Or is this really some " Taboo" forbidden shameful topic as some people make it seem like?

[FenrisQueen]

ooh! oooh! Mememe!!!

I haven't always had problems with how I looked, I actually used to be fine with myself. Then when I was 9, I decided to keep my hair short for sports, and for the occasional(alright, everyday) scuffle on the playground. After being called a boy so many times, my self esteem dropped. A long fucking way down.
Then when my dad got diagnosed with cancer, i lost it even more, and started eating...a lot. And when he died, whoo, boy, my self esteem was at the slime of oozing doom level. I started not caring about anything, and I hated the way I looked. I berated myself, and made enormous sacrifices to be accepted by my peers. I hated who I was, and who I was becoming. I thought I was ugly and nobody would ever love me, (as cliche as that sounds)

I decided to ditch my old "friends" and started focusing on the good things about myself. I immersed myself in art and reading, and made friends who didn't give a flaming dog shit about how I looked. I still had a lot of problems with my appearance, but my self-esteem was slowly chipping back up.

I still am definitely not satisfied with the way I look, and sure, being called fat hurts..a lot. But I am what I am, to quote a certain sailor, and people can talk shit all they fucking want. i know I am not perfect.




but then again, who the fuck is?



(excepting, of course, the delectable maelstrom)

[Solumina]

Well if we are sharing I would have to say that the things that bother me the most about my body are by boobs and my ass. I’m so damn disproportionate it drives me insane, I wish I could make my boobs a little smaller and my ass slightly, not much, bigger.

[Manimal]

I do.

Quite simply I'm too short and too thin. I'm working on the thin part but being short will always bug me somewhat.

[reborndead]

I think that everyone clearly has body image issues even if they dont show it as much as others. I know that i do.
sometimes these insecurities can just pop up. Like i used to be a normal little kid and then when i got older everyone would lose their baby fat and get into those tight clothes and i kinda just stayed there for a while. sixth grade was horrible for me, if i can remember that far. no one really said anything but i always thought that i was just too chubby. which now i realize was completely wrong.

i even tried to diet and stuff, as a little sixth grader. I just wish that i never had those ideas now because of how much that hurt me in the past. and i dont think that i have completely gotten over that because i still dont think that i'm where i want to be and that just makes me angry that i cant like myself the way i am.

anyway, then there was this one time where a friend was over and we were discussing random things when she asked me what i like least about myself. i looked in the mirror and said that i didnt know and she asked me if it was my face. i had never seen anything wrong with my face but when she went home i couldnt stop thinking about it. I think its just stupid how insecurities can be raised by such little supposedly harmless comments that can really hurt so much.

alright, straying from topic here...yeah, i could give a whole long lecture about this too, and not run out of anything to say, although i'm sure that everyone has already heard it all before, so i wont.

And the painting, i have tons of those, in art books and look through them every night. I wish that it wasnt like this and that people could think of themselves as beautiful the way they are but i guess this is what we're stuck with.

I guess i dont really know what i'm trying to say so i'll stop but you asked if anyone had body image issues- well thats for sure.

[Empty_Purple_Stars]

Originally Posted by Solumina

Well if we are sharing I would have to say that the things that bother me the most about my body are by boobs and my ass. I’m so damn disproportionate it drives me insane, I wish I could make my boobs a little smaller and my ass slightly, not much, bigger.

Hey I'll trade ya!

I want bigger titties and a smaller 'Badunkadunk'

I'll even throw in a stale Saltine cracker..

:shock:

But seriously, I really do believe this is a perception that almost all of us have in one way or another. And it is quite frequently a skewed perception.

Beauty needs to be redefined.

And NOTHING about this topic should be something to be sneered at.

What is beautiful?

[Solumina]

I can empathize with you about being too thin. Because of the medication I’m on I have a really high metabolism and so I have to eat about 3000 calories a day just to maintain my weight.

[AlKilyu]

I have issues with EPS's ass too.

It is fine.

Not fine like alright, but fine like dayum.

See (and take note Fenris) most guys nowadays don't want Twiggy. Why do ya think J-Lo is so popular?

Manimal also has a fine ass. And I hate him for many reasons, but one being that the fucker actually has six pack abs.We were geting ready to all go out one night, I'm feeling good about myself, then he takes his shirt off to change.

I hate to say this, since everyone is being so open, but after weighing myself two days in a row (post bowel movements) I am actually under 200 for the first time in a couple of years!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!

My ideal weight is 185. I always kept it until I had something very similar to Fenris. then I dropped to 155. After the ordeal came to a horrible end, I gained it back and then some, up to 222. So 23lbs later (and going) I think I found the secrets to doing it, and if you think Atkins go to your room!

[TeapotScar]

*edited because my problems are nothing compared to solumina's*

*tear*










:roll:

[tiffany_the_writer]

My biggest self esteem issue has been putting myself down, not about my weight or hair or anything, just putting myself down in general. I would do that a lot in Jr. High. But I stopped, I have learned to just accept how I am. And it wasn't easy either. It took a lot of work to train myself not to put myself down all the time. I would have conversations in my head, ex. “He’ cute you should go talk to him,” “No don’t, you look so bad in that, and he wouldn’t want you anyways.” So, whenever I did that, I would tell myself out loud to stop it. And after a while it worked. I would call myself beautiful and gorgeous instead, and to hell with what other people think. And it taught me not to care about the stupid things people say. If someone I don't know says, “You have ugly shoes,” I laugh to myself in amazement that someone I don’t know could really care what shoes I am wearing. As long as you know who you are and accept yourself, in my humble eyes, that is beautiful.

[Empty_Purple_Stars]

Originally Posted by TeapotScar

And a note to EPS- ... you're just as fucking passionate as I am sometimes. You post in huuuge letters and get all angry- and you're the last person I'd have expected to hear about judging me. It was quite a surprise- I don't get why you single me out all the time and such. Nobody else on this board voices their hatred for me as often or as loudly as you do. But thanks, every once in a while it's good to not feel good about yourself.

If you wish a more detailed explanation for some 'animosity' you perceive I have, feel free to PM or email me. Apparently that " Thread Rehab" didn't work real well after The Wolf Moon Insurrection.

This thread asked an honest an sincere question on the perception of Body Image Issues and the way they are viewed by everyone here.

Odd though, if you have "Body Image issues" of your own, why would you deride someone else for having them. Wasn't 'hypocritical' the word you used repeatedly?

Either way, back to the topic at hand.

:wink:

[tekajo]

i had to really think about this one...
i really dont have anything positive to say about any physical aspect of myself...maybe except maybe people say i am intimidating and imposing and such...i dont see it. At the same time, though, i can honestly say that i don't have any Body Image Issues. i mean, at the present, i am overweight but i know that as soon as i leave home be on my own again, i'll drop the pounds i acquired these last six years, and if i dont lose the weight...im still me.

[TeapotScar]

Originally Posted by Empty_Purple_Stars

Odd though, if you have "Body Image issues" of your own, why would you deride someone else for having them. Wasn't 'hypocritical' the word you used repeatedly?

I never made fun of Al's body image issues- I simply reminded him of them so that he would remember how fat he thinks he is and be hurt by that. Nothing hypocritical about that. And yeah- I have PM'd you- and I *would* like an in-depth explaination for the animosity.

[Solumina]

Teapot I’m very sorry if I misinterpreted your post but you make it sound as if you think that you body issues must be more important that anyone else’s. I do hope that is not the case. I have had to struggle with my weight more than anyone I know but due to the fact that I was never anorexic or bulimic I never had any support from my friends or family. If I ever wanted to talk to anyone their response was nearly always “shut up and just be happy that you’re skinny.” There was a point, I believe in my freshmen year, when I weighed 87lbs, not exactly healthy for 5’6½. I was then put on a 3500-calorie diet, but I didn’t feel skinny so when I started to gain weight I thought I was getting fat. I went back and forth between sticking to my diet then thinking I was too fat and refusing to eat more than anyone else was. After all this time I still think upon occasion that I could stand to loose a few pounds but thankfully I quickly remember that I hardly maintain a healthy weight (117lb), my doctor still wants me to gain a few but he isn’t being pushy.

[Jane13]

Ok... I have some insecurities, myself.. but not as badl as I used to. You see.. when I was little (from about kindergarten to 5th grade) I was always the kid with the morbid curiosity. I was the one who went around telling the other kids that ring around the rosies is about the plague, and shouting "Bring out your dead!" as a game (Yes- I watched Monty Python when I was 5). THen I realized That people were giving me wierd looks at anything I would say. I looked normal (well.. more like I tryed to fit in.), except I was pretty chubby.
MY friend wanted to be popular, and se was afraid to be without her old friends, so I went with her. That just made things awkward for both of us. People still thought I was depressing... so I looked for a role-model. As stupid as it now sounds (I LIVE IN MAKANDA! If you came here you might understand) I chose the hippies. The town is full of them, and people think of them as happy and funny, so I tried to be like them. I gained A LOT of weight. I was a twelve year old in size 18 pants. I sat around in the dark, in my ugly pocho, in my cold bedroom (I wouldn't turn on the heater because it would waste electricity), listening to the moody blues. I became a vegan, but i really didn't lose any weight untill I felt like I was worth something. I stopped wearing the Tye die (oh, man) and stuff, found things I like.
I found music, and art, and I found out that finding the "macabre" interesting isn't bad.... Well, I'm four dress sizes smaller... but I'm still really not as small as I'd like.. and I have a thing about my skin and hair... and body hair. Stuff like finger hair and not tweezing my eyebrows make me insane. I also think my hands are ugly- I have long skinny fingers. My hair gets greazy quickly, and my skin is wierd because it's sort of pale, but it's sort of olive... and it loks a little yellow to me, like I have a wierd disease... Ok. I'm done now, I guess.

[edible_eye]

when i was a kid, i was fat, fat, fat. i'm talking multiple, thick rolls on my sides and big fuckin' boy-tits, the kind that would flop and bounce when i ran. i remember tilting one up to my mouth once and sucking the nipple - imagine that? it was an exploration phase...

anyway, i got sick of being so big somewhere around the eighth grade, never having taken my shirt off either for swimming or for sports - i was NEVER a skin when we played shirts and skins. i went on a strict diet when i was a freshman - strict like 300 calories a day and dropped a ton of weight over the course of a month and a half. ever since then, it's been a daily battle with food i never feel i'm on top of. i mentally weigh everything i put in my mouth, chastising the living shit out of myself no matter what it is. i'm stuck. no matter what i do, i'm still that fat kid in my brain.

i go to the gym and bash the piss out of my body, always wanting to shed weight. i'm never satisfied. i always see the faults and rarely see the benefits. after a work-out, i feel almost all right. any other time, i see a fat guy standing there with tits. it bothers me, it bums me out and there's nothing i can really do about it, i guess.

i'm glad this is in whining cuz i think this is about as close to whining as i'll get. hopefully, you got bored with this post and stopped reading after a sentence or two. if you read all the way to the end - sorry for my wah-wah-wah's.

[WolfMoon]

I only remember being happy with my body once.

I was a size 3 and had just ditched my X, which made me feel great that not only had I ditched him, but I had looked amazing when I did it.I was that same size 3 when I met the man who is my husband today.

The woman he fell in love with did look amazing and was very confident in herself.Til she ballooned to a 12 from a 3.

Even at my smallest, I wished my tits were bigger.I did eventually get back down to between a 5-7.Then I got pregnant with my daughter.I watched my weight like a hawk and drank plenty of water excercized and dropped most of the extra weight I gained with her by breast feeding(no, they don't sag afterwards!).I went out for the first time 3 mos. post-partum,while still feeling very insecure about the weight I still see in those Halloween pics,but which everyone else who's seen them is either blind to or too nice to say anything.

The pic I posted for my b-day, I almost didn't.I think I look like a cow.I was working out like a mad-woman.

Then when I my goal was this close ><, I found out I was pregnant again!And I had worked soooooo hard to slim down from the first one.

I got very,very depressed.I'm actually scared that I won't be able to get the weight off from this one.Everyone says it's harder the second time around.And everyone I work with is telling me everyday how big I look which just makes me want to cry all the more.I haven't gained enough weigt to cause stretch marks, but thanks to everyone teeling me how much I resemble Moby Dick, I've been watching everything I put into my mouth very carefully.Besides my decaf, I've gotta at least taste the coffee, lol.

I'm just not feeling the pregnant-mommy-happiness-glow that everyone thinks they see in me.


Another issue I have is with other people's bodies.

I don't mean by any means that I hate people that are fat/skinny.I mean people that complain about a fixable part of their bodies.

I work with a girl that complained that she wasn't losing weight on that Atkins diet.I asked her how long she'd been on it."Two weeks, and I haven't lost any weight yet!"I told that, duh, it takes about a month or 2 before you see any real results of any dieting or excercise!

Or when people tell me they hate their arms/legs/butt etc.I tell them to do excercises that tone those certain areas and quit complaining!Or to cut down on their portoins, which people hate hearing, it seems they wanna hear everything but the truth.

It's not you fault it's that french frie's fault for tasting sooooo good.let's sue the people who made it, even though they don't force you to eat their food are consume the quantities that you do of it.


Every day is so wonderful
Then suddenly, it's hard to breathe
Now and then, I get insecure
From all the pain, I'm so ashamed

I am beautiful no matter what they say
Words can't bring me down
I am beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can't bring me down
So don't you bring me down today

To all your friends, you're delirious
So consumed in all your doom
Trying hard to fill the emptiness
The pieces gone, left the puzzle undone
Is that the way it is

You are beautiful no matter what they say
Words can't bring you down
You are beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can't bring you down
Don't you bring me down today...



[/i]

[TeapotScar]

Wolfmoon, I have a question- how much weight are pregnant women supposed to gain? Because my mom's definitely got weird body issues, but she used to be a runner, and that was when she was pregnant with me. She said she was like 104 when she was running, non-pregnant, and when she got pregnant she "ballooned up" to 115. I think it's *really* super weird that my mom weighed less than I weigh, now, when she was pregnant, and I was just wondering about that.

[AlKilyu]

Dude edible you are buff man. Like Triple H or even Batista.

[Solumina]

*edited because my problems are nothing compared to solumina's*

*tear*

Teapot my post was not to demean your problems or to say that my problems are worse, in fact I do think your problems are much more serious than mine are. My point was simply that you should not demean other people’s problems, but thanks for basically perverting my post into an attack on you and then lashing out at me, really very classy.

[TeapotScar]

I'm a classy girl.

[Granny-like_the_apple]

Funny cuz it's so not true!

[TeapotScar]

You're so right, Granny. *You're* the classy one.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...Picture049.jpg

[Granny-like_the_apple]

Fuck yeah I am! I can even look classy like that after a long hard night of whoring myself.

[TeapotScar]

Originally Posted by Granny-like_the_apple

Fuck yeah I am! I can even look classy like that after a long hard night of whoring myself.

We worked hard that night, or should I say *I* worked hard. I kept having to pull up the slack since Granny sucks at whoring herself.