Hello everyone, Lauren here. This is a glance into a disorder called body dysmorphia disorder which I live with. Please enjoy the writing, and sorry about any odd spacing as I recorded this, and then AI transcribed it. Trigger warning for eating disorder topics and talk of weight and self hate.
I should be extremely fit by this point. I should be the skinniest person alive. Because I work out 24-7 to keep this serpent of self-hate from coiling tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter around the center of me that is the pillar on which I stand, the pillar on which I was born, and the pillar on which I lean. I have to be the one to make sure it doesn't strangle me. Self-hate, utter horrid, loathing self-hate. It's as if you were looking at yourself through a picture frame, through a mirror, but the mirror makes you gain a hundred pounds. The mirror makes your face distort in ways that it otherwise wouldn't, and the mirror makes you the most unattractive person on the planet physically, intimately, sexually, emotionally. But the worst part is the voice, the voice that issues from the mouth of this creature that you look at is not your lilting hum but something awful And the body, the body that you want to be utterly feminine and perfect, it swells in places it ought not to, and it dips in places it ought to swell. Instead of having wide hips, you have very narrow hips. Instead of having a toned or flat tummy, Your stomach bulges as if you were pregnant. Instead of having nice tits, you have nothing there. There's nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing to look at, nothing to grab, nothing to see. And when you turn around, your back just continues instead of curving out into a feminine shape. And you look at this creature and you say, this is myself. I am this person. I am this ugly thing that I can not, I cannot get out of my head. And then people say, Oh, wow. Lauren, you're so beautiful. You're so gorgeous. You're so pretty. Yeah? Well, I guess you're not seeing the same person as me. And you must be the person seeing the wrong side of me. Or seeing something through rose-tinted glasses. Because what I'm seeing has to be real, right? Because I'm seeing it. It's me. But no. You're the correct one. But I can't believe you. Because to believe you, is to notice that that creature isn't actually real. But I can't. I can't. I can't put it down as if it just were my phone that I just put down. It's as if it were my little tiny baby and I have to carry it in my arms 24-7, or like a book that you're reading and reading, and you don't want to put down until its conclusion. And even at its conclusion, it just keeps going and keeps going and spiraling. So the serpent that gathers around the pillar, winding its way up it until its head rests on mine, is the creature I see in the mirror. The warped, the cracked, the shattered, the bowed out mirror that isn't real. But in my head is real. In my head I look like I think I look. In my head I sound like I think I sound. Every word I say, every breath I take is too loud, too sharp, too much so I must fit myself back in this tiny box. A tiny box that doesn't exist for me to fit in because I do not meet the dimensions of the inside of the tiny box. I am not a little girl anymore. I do not do what my mommy tells me to do. I look for love in my mother's voice but I find none there. She has too many problems of her own to notice me. I'm treading water, and I'm treading water, and they say, oh, Lauren, you're so resilient. How do you get through all that? You don't get through it without scars. Treading water, treading water, but it gets higher. Each year, it grows an inch. It's 28 inches high now. Maybe it's normal for you, normal for people. But for me, every year, it grows two inches instead of 1. Now that I am 28, the water is 54 inches tall. So to keep my head above the water, I have to Exert, exert, exert, exert, exert. Keep exerting all of this effort to push myself back up. Yes, back up. I mustn't fall, I mustn't fall through the cracks. I will not be a statistic, but the serpent inside me and the cracked and warped mirror whispers in my nightmares, you are what you think you are. But then my partner says, hi, beautiful. Or someone says to me a compliment. And my mind goes, rebuttal, rebute. You are not this thing. Learning to accept compliments is like learning how to grow wings and fly. It's impossible. But maybe one day, The cracked and warped mirror will fix itself, radiating into a perfect glass sphere upon which I can gaze into and see myself for what I truly am. But until then, I wait, I watch, I dream, and I hope. And I will never become a statistic. I will never fall through the cracks. And when my mind tells me that I am not what others say I am, I will try to listen to others and not my mind. Until my mind has been cleansed, I will make an effort to hear the others that are speaking to me from outside of it. Because your mind is loudest to you. The loudest voice in your life will be your mind.