All I Really Want is to be Wonderful

Me, this morning.
Nervous so I have good makeup on. 

When I'm anxious I tend to over-analyze the way I look. I never really considered this a big deal, maybe just a weird personality trait. When things are really bad I have this tendency to feel like my body isn't mine. I know that sounds strange and vague but there isn't really a better to describe it. I learned a few years ago that these things are actually symptoms of anxiety known as dysmorphia and depersonalization.

You may have heard the term dysmorphia before, body dismorphic disorder (BDD) is it's own diagnosis and is most often the cause of things like anorexic nervosa or bulimia. Thankfully, mine has never been that severe, it's definitely not it's own disorder in my case but more like a symptom. Some examples of things I have fixated on because of it; body hair, acne and other skin issues, my teeth, my nails and hands. Now, keeping yourself clean and healthy and well groomed is fine it's when you cross that border into obsession and fixation that it becomes a problem.

When I was younger and started shaving there would be times where I would shave just about everything I could reach from the neck down. This was in like eight grade. I felt that any trace of body hair on me was ugly and therefore made me ugly. I didn't judge other people's body hair, so why I did I feel like I would be judged because of it? Who knows, but I did, I was sure of it. For a time in my early twenties I waxed my arms. Who does that? I had a tendency to over pluck my eyebrows because they never looked the right shape to me. I would just pluck and pluck until I eventually I gave up trying because they were never going to be perfect. I would spend literally hours a coupe times a week plucking my eyebrows and the hair above my lip that only I saw. If I didn't, I was sure people were looking at me strange. Once I got older and had kids (oh god I hate writing this next part) I started getting these terrible black hairs on my chin and neck. They basically look like straight pubic hairs. They are the bane of my existence. If I'm depressed and neglecting myself and they grow out a little I absolutely freak out once I'm well enough to stand looking in a mirror again. I have cried over these stupid hairs more times than I can count. I know a lot of other women have them because we've commiserated about it but, you know, I never, ever notice them on other people. They make me more self-conscious than being fat and having stretch marks combined. I have more pairs of tweezers than even I know of because if I leave the house and check my makeup and see one I've missed I will buy a new pair if I've forgotten to leave one in the car.

Just woke up.

Dog cuddles

I started having acne in probably third grade. I still do sometimes but thankfully not like it used to be. Over the years, I have tried almost everything to get rid of it. I was on oral antibiotics for years. I was on birth control pills in high school just to control the acne, I wasn't sexually active at all. I've used creams that have made my skin peel like a sunburn. I've used creams with more side effects than benefits. I have bought skincare regimes that were way too expensive and did nothing but dry my skin out like the surface of Mars. I've tried tanning. I've tried staying out of the sun for years at a time. None of it gave me the skin I wanted, probably because what I wanted was nearly unattainable. I have spent countless hours with mirrors 2 or 3 inches from my face trying to dig out the imperfections. Usually all it does make things worse but when I'm hyper-focused on the blackheads on my nose I forget that. As for other skin issues, I have picked skin tags off with my fingernails before because I got fixated on the fact they were there at all. I couldn't see them really because they were on my back. They weren't causing me discomfort, they weren't being rubbed by a bra strap or anything. I just knew they were there and I couldn't stop myself. (As a warning, don't do this ever because they bleed a lot.) I have cut into my own leg with an Exacto knife to remove a blemish before. Typing that out makes me realize more clearly how fucked up that is.

I don't really fixate on my teeth too much anymore but when I was younger I was constantly trying to whiten them. My favorite product was this thing that looked like a mouth guard that you filled with this whitening gel. I did it way too often and got to the point where it hurt to brush my teeth or eat cold foods. The stuff also made my gums raw sometimes. But I kept doing it. I was convinced that if I could just get my teeth a little whiter, I'd be prettier. I was the only person that thought there was anything wrong with my teeth. I'm going to attribute some of this one to the fact that when I was little my teeth were pretty fucked up. It's hard to find a picture of me actually smiling from ages 11 until about 14. They were all in the wrong places so I got braces in seventh grade. They moved really easily, which hurts really badly by the way, so I got the braces off at the end of eighth grade. I wore my retainers religiously for years and off and on until I was about 25 because I was so scared I would go back to looking like that again.

Maybe I still don't smile.

Good hair but resting bitch face

When I obsess over my nails I can easily spend 6-8 hours a week working on them. This will usually go on for weeks at time. I will meticulously clean, file, buff, and moisturize, over and over. I'll polish them and then once the first little bit chips off I will scrape the rest off, sometimes with my teeth, and then start the process all over again. I don't know what makes me do it, but if I don't do it, it's all I think about. I cannot do fake nails. I cannot handle the feeling of them and the clean up once I freak out and pull them all off. I stopped trying. It's far too stressful.

Reading on the porch

I often wish I could get back the hours of time I've wasted in my life obsessing about these things that don't matter. Not once has anyone complimented me on any of the things I've fixated, with the exception of my nails and that's usually just because I've painted them a good color. People have noticed in other ways, like when my eyebrows have been weird. Comments were definitely made and they were not complimentary. I've had to explain not going out in the sun because the antibiotics I'm taking or the cream I'm using will make me burn almost instantly. I've actually caused myself more embarrassing situations than beneficial ones doing most of these things. I could accomplished so many good things in my life in this time I've wasted.

Now, the depersonalization I don't have any control over and I have no idea that it's going to happen but when it does it's so confusing and overwhelming. The best way I can describe it is that it doesn't feel like your body belongs to you, or maybe that it doesn't fit right, or you're somehow outside of it. I guess it depends on the day which one of those situations happens. In another blog post I mentioned that I felt that day like my skin didn't fit. I often just say I don't feel comfortable in my own skin. And it varies as to why this is, some days I feel like I'm not filling up the whole space and sometimes it feels like this body is too small to contain me. I've had experiences before when I've been walking or riding in a car and it feels like my body is moving forward but part of me is only half in it and the other part is just slightly behind, like my spirit and my body aren't joined for a second. It's a very strange sensation and I'm sure it sounds crazy to anyone reading this.

Feeling like my body isn't mine sometimes causes some strange ramifications. There have been times where I haven't recognized myself in a reflection. I really have to look at it again and study it to know that it's me. The same goes for pictures. A few weeks ago, Tom and I planned to do a retro, pin-up style photo shoot. I was really excited for it. I touched up my hair color and even bought fake eyelashes. I had fun during the shoot and it felt like we got some cute pictures. When I looked at the pictures right after though, I lost it. I cried for an hour. I didn't see myself in those pictures at all. It didn't look like me. I didn't recognize that person. I was really upset about it in a completely irrational way. Because I knew it was me. I was there. It just happened. But I couldn't see me.

I'm including photos in the post to show there's nothing actually wrong with me. My perceived physical flaws are almost all in my head. I'm going to also include the official pin-ups that made me lose my shit. I can look at them now and I don't see anything wrong with them. I looked at them after about three days and I was actually able to find ones that I thought were good. Whatever came over me at the time of the shoot was limited to just that day, at that specific time. But I guess that's how anxiety works. Even when you think you know your triggers and you know how you're going to respond you can still be surprised by mean your own brain can be to you sometimes.

Mid-photo shoot
for costume change

When I freaked out after seeing the photos
I couldn't go on with the next set.

There's nothing actually wrong with any of these pictures. I don't look so different from my usual self that this should have bothered me. But everything about these photos were upsetting to me the first time I saw them and I still can't fully explain why.