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Is Your Body the Enemy?

By Margarita Tartakovsky, MS
Associate Editor

I used to view my body as the enemy. It made me overeat. It wasn’t thin enough. It wasn’t muscular. It didn’t have a fast …
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7 Comments to
“Is Your Body the Enemy?”

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Sarah 10:14 am on December 4th, 2009

Incredibly apt article, I’m just coming round to seeing this. I had an ED (anorexia) for about two years as a teen, and have struggled with poor self esteem and treating myself badly in the six years since.

Whenever I have seen articles or programmes about ED/obesity I think the problems/solutions fail to mention learning compassion and self-care for oneself. Its the first step to treating yourself right, and taking the focus off weight/food/exercise as the only bodily expression one has.

Instead I am learning to focus on exercise and movement as a joy in itself, clothes as art apart from my body, and so on. This is what we need to teach our friends and daughters, instead of judgement and ‘fat talk’-ing

Jessica 11:39 am on December 4th, 2009

Have you heard of Eve Ensler’s “The Good Body?”

I bet you’d appreciate it.

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Body-Eve-Ensler/dp/037550284X

Margarita Tartakovsky, MS 3:29 pm on December 4th, 2009

Sarah, I love your attitude! I’m not sure why those kinds of programs don’t focus on self-care, because it’s so key. Oftentimes, negative body image has little to do with weight. Even after people lose weight and get to their “ideal,” they may still have a poor self-image. And self-care is important no matter your weight, anyway! Thank you for sharing!

Jessica, thanks for the link! I haven’t heard of the book, but after reading the amazon link, it sounds great. I’ll be sure to check it out.

Jayne Coleman 6:17 am on December 7th, 2009

It’s only over the past fifteen years that my body has become my enemy – the reasons didn’t have so much to do with weight but with ill-health. It seemed like I had a never-ending series of health problems that eventually led to weight gain but I think I felt betrayed by my body. How come I had tachycardia, endometriosis, IBS, fibromyalgia, depression, panic attacks and never seemed to be completely well? I realised a couple of months ago that what I do is to live in my head rather than my body because I don’t want to feel the chronic pain, sore muscles and fat. The fat is like the end result of all these other problems. If I hadn’t had them I might still be quite slim. It took a long time for me to realise that I had become fat. I had a kind of reversed body dysmorphia – I always felt thinner and smaller than I was. It was only when I saw photographs of myself that I realised how much weight I’d gained and how my shape had changed. So then I just made sure that I was the one taking the photos rather than the one in the photo. If I had to be in a photo I’d position myself tucked behind my husband with my son in front like a shield so that all that could be seen was my face. All of these are ways I use to escape the reality that I feel ugly and fat. I still feel like myself inside but I’m ashamed of what the outside looks like now – so yes, my body is my enemy and I find it very difficult to find something nice about the way I look. Even my hair, which has always been beautiful, fell out in a big chunk earlier this year and prompted a major weeping jag – “I’ve got nothing beautiful left” I wept on my husband’s shoulder and that was really how I felt. It’s grown back again but I know now from the skin specialist that I have androgen induced hair loss taking place that is also contributing to the fat stomach – male hormones ouweighing female hormones in some post menopausal women. I’ve got the script for a new HRT pill but we can’t afford it each month so I have to wait/weight until January to try it again. Sorry this is a long post but your blog just spoke to me – I will try to start feeling that my body is my best friend and appreciate the things that I can do with it.

Margarita Tartakovsky, MS 11:10 am on December 7th, 2009

No apologies, Jayne! I appreciate you sharing your story! I think many people feel the way you do, and I appreciate you bringing it up.

I’m so sorry about your health problems. When I was writing this post, I thought about how individuals with health problems feel, such as women with breast cancer. You do in a sense start to view your body as foreign, and like you said, you feel betrayed. Though not fully, I can understand how you’d feel betrayed. I’ve experienced a panic attack before, so I have a glimpse into how you feel. It’s terrible not having control over your body, and it can make you resent your body for that.

I’m happy to hear that you’ll work toward appreciating your body! For many of us, it’s a long process to reach unconditional love, but it’s an important and worthy one!

Thanks again for sharing!

Jayne Coleman 5:08 am on December 14th, 2009

Just to let you know that I went down to the beach with my son and our dog on Saturday morning and swam and played and just enjoyed myself. I didn’t care that I carry too much weight, I just enjoyed the feeling of sunshine and water on my body and the fact that I can still swim and walk and have fun. My son is a blessing who far, far outweighs whatever happened to my body as a result of hormone treatments and pregnancy while trying to have him, and he loves me just as I am. It was a precious morning

Margarita Tartakovsky, MS 9:48 am on December 14th, 2009

@ Jayne, wow, what a great moment! Thank you for sharing that! I love that you focused on the beautiful weather and having a wonderful time with your son. That you focused on thanking your body for what it has helped you do, which is a ton! For one thing, giving birth is nothing to take lightly, that’s for sure. Thanks for putting it into perspective for us!