We’re about to enter a truth-telling zone that I find rather embarrassing. Buckle up.
The biggest hurdle I have to truly embracing a mentality of radical self love is…my hot husband.
Donnie has always been traditionally attractive and through my own body dysmorphia I’ve often struggled with feeling like it’s an obvious mismatch when we go out in public. When I was at my smallest I didn’t feel this as much, but I did always feel it to some degree. Like we had a big sign over our heads that said: HOW WEIRD ARE THESE TWO? HE’S SO MUCH BETTER LOOKING THAN HER!
And it’s made harder by the fact that our culture conditions us to find aging men more attractive and yet we convince women with wrinkles that they need to spend hundreds of dollars on skincare to look younger. So as we both drift through our 40s I’m feeling like I look like I’m aging and he somehow looks younger every year.
I have learned to squash so many of the voices in my head that tell me I’m fat or old or ugly or whatever insult that has been programmed by industries that profit off my self-hatred. I can easily spot my dysmorphia from years past when I was repulsed by my petite body. When I am with my daughter we preach to each other about loving ourselves AS WE ARE because that is what everyone deserves and we don’t allow ourselves negative self-talk and we build each other up constantly.
But my one weak spot that I still can’t seem to move past is that I feel like an ogre next to my husband.
My husband was injured early in the pandemic and so he spent most of it doing weight training and actually got his body STRONGER and BUFFER while the rest of us were wallowing in lockdown depression. And then? When his injury healed he realized: Oh…this extra muscle is heavier and so now I’m getting impact injuries when I run so I need to lose some of this muscle. It’s hard to lose muscle when you’re active so he started a regimented monitoring of his caloric intake and now he is exactly where he wants to be and is constantly coming back from his runs and asking everyone to punch his 6 pack to show how strong he is. He is a 40-something model of perfection and I’m the fatest (and oldest…obvs) I’ve ever been and I am really struggling.
One of the things that got one of my past therapists to help me pry open my previous battles with BDD (Body Dysmorphia Disorder) was I found myself uncomfortable in social situations because I constantly felt repulsive. And y’all? I haven’t had to deal with that in a pandemic but I can feel it creeping back in my bones. Me on my own? No problem. But he wanted me to come with him to Home Depot and it was like the old dysmorphic Kim was back and suddenly I was like: I can go by myself! We don’t have to go together! Or you can go without me!
BECAUSE I WAS TOO EMBARRASSED TO BE SEEN IN PUBLIC WITH MY HOT HUSBAND.
So this is a fun thing to start to unpack.
I’m going to dig up some old tricks. One thing my therapist used to make me do is write down 5 positive things that have NOTHING to do with my appearance when I feel bogged down by my dysmorphia and self-loathing. She would challenge me to start one page in my journal (she knew I was a journaler, not sure what she would have told someone else) and limit me I couldn’t repeat one single one until I started a new page. (There’s 35 lines on a page!) This forced me to be very specific. “I painted a beautiful postcard today.”
I also need to revisit my mantra from that era. I can’t remember what it used to be, something like, “I am much more than my body,” but I think I’d like to choose something a bit more situation specific this time and remind myself: Anyone who thinks derogatorily about me when they see my husband and I together is a piece of shit human who doesn’t deserve to have power over my radical self love.
It’s a little long and clunky but it reminds me to not give shitty people control over my expression of radical self love.
Hell, even typing it out just then kinda dusted off some of those old feelings of empowerment I got during the last time I had to deal with some of these BDD demons.
Don’t judge a book by its cover. Hot people can be assholes and no one likes that. DEF not saying Donnie is an asshole! But over the years I’ve learned that outside appearances don’t always reflect the inside of a person. You’re smart, clever, creative, loving, passionate, fun, witty, kind, thoughtful, giving, strong, genuine, friendly, authentic........
And that’s just a snippet.
I feel this too. My husband is no athlete, but I'm more overweight for my height and age than he is and I've felt a physical mis-match with him ever since grad school. There's no amount of mental hurdles I can clear to change that except to lose the weight. We took some pics together today and I hated all of them but it provided me some motivation. Here's to once again trying to get back on track.