Dysmorphia, Body Positivity and a Virtual World

Campaign photo 2019 ~ photo credit Erin Latterell Burk (IG @beseenasyouare)

Part I

In 2019, I ran for office for the first time. I had considered running for several years but one thing held me back. I suffer from body dysmorphia. Being a candidate and an elected official requires a significant amount of time in front of a camera and on display for scrutiny. Forums, panels, debates, endorsement interviews and events unavoidable. Knowing how consuming my dysmorphia can be, running for office terrified me.

I didn’t realize how disruptive and crippling my dysmorphia was until I had postpartum depression in 2005. We live in a hyper focused world of self-promoting and image branding. It's unavoidable. The reasons photographic and video images of myself can trigger borderline debilitating paralysis goes far deeper than knowing how to pose in more flattering ways. I think of it as a virus that my brain has been infected with. So far, there is no vaccine just management.

It’s simplistic to say that I cannot look at photos of myself. I have not figured out how to fully describe this experience. For me in the past twenty years, it’s often triggered by getting dressed, trying on clothes, and having photos and videos of myself taken. There is a panic that causes my nervous system to believe we're in danger and must get away. I rarely try something on in a dressing room because of the mirrors. I will avoid looking at reflections of myself in windows, too. In some ways, it feels like a monster under the bed. I never know when it will pop up or how intense the emotional dysregulation will be. The physical changes with pregnancy and postpartum magnified this condition exponentially. Most of this angst happens in secret. A silent suffering.

One therapist I worked with for years, instructed me to put up a full-length mirror in my bedroom. It was so distracting and stress inducing that I made a sign for it that said, “I HATE THIS FUCKING MIRROR.” Needless to say, I finally took it down. I ended up avoiding a quarter of the bedroom to avoid the chance of seeing my reflection. I later understood what terrible advice this was and by someone who didn’t actually understand what I was struggling with. We tried for years to make progress and never truly did under his care.

Prior to this, I saw another therapist, for one session, who told me that I “just need to do cardio 4-5 times a week for 45 minutes,” when I explained that I was taking an anti-depressant. She explained to me that exercise is a natural anti-depressant. We were going through an intake process. Everything from that point on had me on the defense. A few days earlier, I had been in crisis due to a misdiagnosis and suffered a breakdown that was triggered by an intense episode of dysmorphia. I thought I needed to see a woman. My current therapist was a man and in my mind a woman, preferably another mother, would have a greater understanding of what I was going through. This woman gave me damaging and harmful advice. I sat in my car after that session and sobbed. Then called my existing therapist to reschedule.

A budding ballerina. A year after this photo was take, my ballet teacher told me and my mom that I didn't have a "ballerina body" and should stop taking classes because I had no future in ballet when I was seven years old.

Receiving compliments and admiration used to be painful. The younger, unhealed girl I share this life with physically reacts, cringes, and turns away from them. She believed that her flaws were fatal, a punishment for not being enough. Parenting has helped me slowly heal. I used to pray that I would see the beauty my child saw in me. I knew that I couldn't trust what my brain was telling.me. I had to start listening to those who loved me if I was going to make any progress and end this cycle of suffering. What if I believed them?

A mantra I use to calm my brain ~

This is just a moment. Moments are snapshots. Literally a moment in time. More often than not, it can be an opportunity to pause, sometimes completely stop, and assess. Even if just for a few seconds. A moment is simply that….a moment.

I have been conditioned to mourn a body free from scars and surgical incisions. To punish the one that actually exists. One without disability, limitations, or injury. A body that performs flawlessly at all times. What I am working on detangling is mourning a body that never existed. One that isn’t genetically attainable. Like a fairy tale, the body I learned to believe I should have is made up or fantasy. A fairy tale that destroys dreams and crushes souls. This fairy tale keeps us pitted against one another.

I was weeks away from my 14th birthday. I had already been put on my first liquid diet by my mom and grandmother. Who sat me down to explain that I would be happier and boys would like me better if I lost 10 to 15 pounds. Because that was how I was conditioned to measure my personal value.

Facebook memory from 2/4/2018.

"Growing up I was told that my body defined my success. The very things I had no control of, genetics and DNA, became cages. My abilities, perceived or otherwise, were regulated by everyone but me.

Every day I worked harder and harder to prove them wrong…But I did not control the story about me. They did. I began to believe and own the stories told about me. Without question. I silenced my inner voice even though it kept saying,“But wait…”

Thousands of decisions I have made are from the stories told about me and TO me. I was not the writer of my own story. My own experiences. My own dreams. They were determined for me by people who assumed to know me. My future was scripted before I even had a say. Causing me to run defense day after day after day. I still don’t own my story. But I am closer.

I resist ideas of who and what I am supposed to be. Each day, I gain strength standing in my own identity. Some days are easier than others. Some days I believe in me. Some days I don’t. And none of that defines ME. I am the author of me."

1eeceae341c2e35a8153aafdefcf50f1035ccd69.heic — 2nd grade me.

When I look at the little girl I was I see a curious, loving, and adorable child. I want to play, laugh, and sing with her at the top of our lungs. Like I did with my daughter. I want to scoop her up and speak into her soul how cherished she is and that the world is her to paint and create into existence. I wish so badly that she would have known the love and possibility my daughter, Stella, grew up with.

Change takes time and persistence.

In July of 2021, I started a new movement journey with a cheep stationary bike and the Peloton app. Last week, I completed my 900th ride on my actual Peloton bike. I use exercise and movement as a practice to reset my nervous system. It’s a tool to help me come back into my body when I am disregulated or stressed. It truly is a movement meditation. I have come to rely on these classes and instructors to cleanse my mind, ease my soul from internal noise. I ingest the messages and importance of showing up, trying, not comparing yourself to others, to polish my crown. They are medicine. A salve for my soul.

I’m still healing old wounds and untangling lies and cruelty the trusted adults in my life injected me with. I can tell that I am rewiring my brain. I keep striving to care for myself the ways I want to care for little me. I have many more good days now. The noise is more like a buzz I don't always hear or can adjust the station to get a clearer signal. I have also become more forgiving and compassionate with myself. I’ll take that as a win for today.