I still look fat, and I am not. (TW: dysmorphia)

Thank you, Rando. Keep up the great work!

I'll carry a $50 bill with me, ready for whoever first tells me, "Hey, it seems like you've dropped some weight."
 
randompersonrandom said:

Just so the kind-hearted folks know upfront: I don't want soothing words or pep talks. I'm okay, not struggling. The reason I'm posting this is for anyone who feels this way AND is struggling — so they know they aren't the only one.

Okay, so... I'm 5'5", and I've dropped over fifty pounds, landing at 134 (that was a week ago). For me — someone who's always carried extra weight — I was wonderfully thin, and I saw myself as wonderfully thin. My goal is 125, though I intend to be relaxed and inconsistent about those last nine.

Today the scale says 136, two pounds up. That's just how my body works; right before my cycle I get hungry, hold onto a lot of water, and then it all whooshes off once my period arrives.

Over the past two weeks, nothing meaningful has shifted with my body, exercise included. Yet this entire week, I look fat. VERY fat. As in, if someone showed me a photo from this weight and said [[Q1]], I'd respond [[Q2]] My arms, face, midsection, legs — all of it suddenly seems exactly as large as it did when I weighed fifty pounds more.

None of that is remotely accurate; I fit into size six pants. Every shirt I own is a small, and a third of them hang loose on me. The scale gives me a number, my belt has no holes left so I need to punch smaller ones — there's hard evidence that what I'm seeing isn't real. But I glance around at women I know — we're all open about weight and size since half of us use GLP-1's and the rest are just interested — and a few of them are larger than me. Every single one of them looks WAY slimmer than I do.

Emotionally I'm steady, not upset or in pain, because I dealt with AWFUL dysmorphia in my younger years (mine was [[Q3]] rather than [[Q4]], but a lie is a lie) and I've gotten very good at shrugging it off, telling myself [[Q5]] and treating it like a flaw in my vision — the same way I'd handle being color-blind — so it doesn't wreck me. Still, I believe this is the first time my eyes have fed me such an OBJECTIVE falsehood. I put it to a friend today like this: [[Q6]]

My guess is that once my period begins and I drop a few more pounds, I'll look thin again until the next fluctuation, and then I'll look fat again out of nowhere. I figured this kind of self-perception distortion would disappear once I wasn't heavy anymore, but NOPE!
Click to expand...
You're okay, random...
 
randompersonrandom said:

Just so the kind-hearted folks know upfront: I don't want soothing words or pep talks. I'm okay, not struggling. The reason I'm posting this is for anyone who feels this way AND is struggling — so they know they aren't the only one.

Okay, so... I'm 5'5", and I've dropped over fifty pounds, landing at 134 (that was a week ago). For me — someone who's always carried extra weight — I was wonderfully thin, and I saw myself as wonderfully thin. My goal is 125, though I intend to be relaxed and inconsistent about those last nine.

Today the scale says 136, two pounds up. That's just how my body works; right before my cycle I get hungry, hold onto a lot of water, and then it all whooshes off once my period arrives.

Over the past two weeks, nothing meaningful has shifted with my body, exercise included. Yet this entire week, I look fat. VERY fat. As in, if someone showed me a photo from this weight and said [[Q1]], I'd respond [[Q2]] My arms, face, midsection, legs — all of it suddenly seems exactly as large as it did when I weighed fifty pounds more.

None of that is remotely accurate; I fit into size six pants. Every shirt I own is a small, and a third of them hang loose on me. The scale gives me a number, my belt has no holes left so I need to punch smaller ones — there's hard evidence that what I'm seeing isn't real. But I glance around at women I know — we're all open about weight and size since half of us use GLP-1's and the rest are just interested — and a few of them are larger than me. Every single one of them looks WAY slimmer than I do.

Emotionally I'm steady, not upset or in pain, because I dealt with AWFUL dysmorphia in my younger years (mine was [[Q3]] rather than [[Q4]], but a lie is a lie) and I've gotten very good at shrugging it off, telling myself [[Q5]] and treating it like a flaw in my vision — the same way I'd handle being color-blind — so it doesn't wreck me. Still, I believe this is the first time my eyes have fed me such an OBJECTIVE falsehood. I put it to a friend today like this: [[Q6]]

My guess is that once my period begins and I drop a few more pounds, I'll look thin again until the next fluctuation, and then I'll look fat again out of nowhere. I figured this kind of self-perception distortion would disappear once I wasn't heavy anymore, but NOPE!
Click to expand...
The same situation happens with my wife. She has lost more than 100 lbs. She used to be heading toward a 2XL, and now she needs an XS, which might still be too large. I have no idea what to tell her or how to support her. Even so, she has a hard time not seeing herself the way she used to be.
 
Airborne Daddy said:

randompersonrandom said:

Just so the kind-hearted folks know upfront: I don't want soothing words or pep talks. I'm okay, not struggling. The reason I'm posting this is for anyone who feels this way AND is struggling — so they know they aren't the only one.

Okay, so... I'm 5'5", and I've dropped over fifty pounds, landing at 134 (that was a week ago). For me — someone who's always carried extra weight — I was wonderfully thin, and I saw myself as wonderfully thin. My goal is 125, though I intend to be relaxed and inconsistent about those last nine.

Today the scale says 136, two pounds up. That's just how my body works; right before my cycle I get hungry, hold onto a lot of water, and then it all whooshes off once my period arrives.

Over the past two weeks, nothing meaningful has shifted with my body, exercise included. Yet this entire week, I look fat. VERY fat. As in, if someone showed me a photo from this weight and said [[Q1]], I'd respond [[Q2]] My arms, face, midsection, legs — all of it suddenly seems exactly as large as it did when I weighed fifty pounds more.

None of that is remotely accurate; I fit into size six pants. Every shirt I own is a small, and a third of them hang loose on me. The scale gives me a number, my belt has no holes left so I need to punch smaller ones — there's hard evidence that what I'm seeing isn't real. But I glance around at women I know — we're all open about weight and size since half of us use GLP-1's and the rest are just interested — and a few of them are larger than me. Every single one of them looks WAY slimmer than I do.

Emotionally I'm steady, not upset or in pain, because I dealt with AWFUL dysmorphia in my younger years (mine was [[Q3]] rather than [[Q4]], but a lie is a lie) and I've gotten very good at shrugging it off, telling myself [[Q5]] and treating it like a flaw in my vision — the same way I'd handle being color-blind — so it doesn't wreck me. Still, I believe this is the first time my eyes have fed me such an OBJECTIVE falsehood. I put it to a friend today like this: [[Q6]]

My guess is that once my period begins and I drop a few more pounds, I'll look thin again until the next fluctuation, and then I'll look fat again out of nowhere. I figured this kind of self-perception distortion would disappear once I wasn't heavy anymore, but NOPE!
Click to expand...
You're okay, random...
Click to expand...
you've seen me! Picture it: if I still were fat, you'd say “Yeah, I caught one of her mini-recitals and she's still a bit roly-poly. 😀”
 
It boggles my mind that I can wear one outfit all day and have two opposite reactions: at one point I feel like I've gotten noticeably thinner, and then hours later I feel enormous.

I hope that as time goes on and you stay at that lower weight, your mind will become more accurate at perceiving the real you.

Also, well done on losing the weight. For me, that goal often feels impossibly distant!
 
professorpeppy said:

Oh, absolutely. That familiar "I'm huge, I'm useless, nobody could ever care about me" feeling right before my period. I know it well.
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Oh no, nobody's ever going to love me, because I won't stay until some guy gets so settled that he stops appreciating me and starts farting around me — the fat doesn't even come into it. 😀
 
During the days leading up to my period, I honestly turn into someone else entirely. Out of nowhere I feel so unattractive that I considered divorcing my husband. My job annoys me and I want to escape to the mountains since people get on my nerves. Not one of those things reflects reality — it's simply the crazy hormone rollercoaster 😳😂

This thread also fascinates me, since my experience is the complete reverse.

In my mind I'm thinner than I really am, and then the mirror hits me with "who the hell is this chubby bitch?" — it's about how my body feels and how I move, ect. I feel like someone who weighs 120lb, yet in reality I'm probably 50lbs heavier than that. I believe it's been this way since childhood, and even when relatives made remarks about my weight (classic 90s diet culture), I simply didn't get it! Inside my head, I was slim just like everyone else.
 
Winnifer said:

During the days leading up to my period, I honestly turn into someone else entirely. Out of nowhere I feel so unattractive that I considered divorcing my husband. My job annoys me and I want to escape to the mountains since people get on my nerves. Not one of those things reflects reality — it's simply the crazy hormone rollercoaster 😳😂

This thread also fascinates me, since my experience is the complete reverse.

In my mind I'm thinner than I really am, and then the mirror hits me with "who the hell is this chubby bitch?" — it's about how my body feels and how I move, ect. I feel like someone who weighs 120lb, yet in reality I'm probably 50lbs heavier than that. I believe it's been this way since childhood, and even when relatives made remarks about my weight (classic 90s diet culture), I simply didn't get it! Inside my head, I was slim just like everyone else.
Click to expand...

I'm with you on this, and since my period began yesterday, it's definitely happening.
 
Body dysmorphia has been part of my life for as long as I can remember — it was there even when I weighed 116lbs. That gets really frustrating, and I really wish I could perceive my real appearance. The good thing is that I know the dysmorphia is there, so I'm able to brush off the ridiculous things I say to myself.
 
This has been a lifelong problem for me. At school, I was the overweight one, always. During Jr high I dropped a significant amount, and from then on it has been a fight. Across my life, the total of pounds I have shed and put back on likely exceeds 1,000. If I am honest, thin is probably something I will never perceive myself as. My plan is simply to avoid shedding too many pounds, and to judge things by my physical sensations rather than by my mental picture of how I appear.
 
In the week leading up to your period, hormone levels drop, which can make low self-esteem and insecurity more likely. This hits me almost every single month, and I'm about to start progesterone.
 
That stomach situation is no joke. Down 26lbs, yet the reflection still shows a paunch. At 215 I was seriously overweight, and that was far heavier than I'd been in ages. My goal was 175, and I might push for 170-165. Honestly, my guess is that midsection is a sit-up problem. Gross. I'm male, 6' tall, closing in on 67. Like the saying goes, gaining is simpler than losing.
 
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