Body Dysmorphia is the Ultimate Mindf*ck

Like gazing at a funhouse mirror—minus the fun.

Image by author, created with AI.

We were on the clock and supposed to be finding me a work uniform, but instead, Becca and I were trying on jeans at the Macy’s across the street.

Becca was my beautiful, bubbly coworker who was, among other things, little. As in tall, but skinny. As in someone with a body type to envy.

That's why I assumed she’d lost her mind when she tossed the jeans she had just tried on over the dressing room wall to me and said, “Hey, try these.”

“I am not the same size as you,” I replied, shocked by the suggestion.

“You’re exactly my size,” she said, with a finality that left no room for debate.

So, I figured I’d just show her how wrong she was. I pulled the jeans up my legs and over my hips, held my breath, and zipped. They fit. In fact, they fit perfectly without me even having to suck in my stomach.

Like a record scratch, I was stupefied—disbelieving as I stared silently at my reflection enveloped in the soft denim. It felt like I had awakened in someone else’s body à la Freaky Friday. Because in my reality, I was a size 14 woman.

And Becca was a size four.

At 24, I had never heard of body dysmorphia, probably because social media wasn’t a thing and the term had yet to become a buzzword. Even though I could finally see the psychosis I was suffering from, it would be more than a decade before I’d have a conversation with a friend who would use the term, and I’d finally have language for my experience.

That friend suffered from body dysmorphia, too, which was intriguing because he’s a man. Even though the beauty industry targets women, it seems men are not immune to image-related self-hatred. When this friend looked in the mirror, he saw a skinny-necked, acne-ridden, awkward, lanky kid.

The reality was that he was a gorgeous, well-put-together, muscle-endowed hunk. The disconnect astounded me, and it took that second experience for me to truly see the gaping divide between my self-perception and the truth.

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When I was 11 years old, my mom started going to The Diet Center. Putting me on the same diet was a convenience for her and an unfortunate hell sentence for me. I remember dreaming of a tasty Cup O’ Noodles at lunchtime while I morosely ate my hard-boiled egg and Wasa bread that is really just corrugated cardboard wrapped in a package and sold as crackers. It’s as dry as it sounds and flavorless, but after eating little else for the entirety of 5th grade, I had lost 17 pounds.

At the same time, per The Diet Center’s instructions, I developed the habit of weighing myself daily—to either celebrate that all that calorie counting was getting me the desired results or to abuse myself for the next 24 hours into doing better. I learned all the tricks for manipulating the scale, too: don’t wear clothing or shoes and weigh yourself first thing in the morning AFTER peeing. I remember standing on my tiptoes, convinced that if I was higher in the sky, I was dispersing some of that weight into the ether.

Eventually, I snapped out of it, realized this habit was psychotic and got rid of the scale. Aside from doctor’s offices, I’ve never stepped on one since. I wish the story ended there, but this demon has its claws in deep.

Image by author, created with AI.

In high school, a boy on the water polo team nicknamed me “ghetto booty.” We barely spoke, he and I, but I was the team manager and scorekeeper, and my boyfriend played for the team, so the news trickled back to me somehow. I’m sure I was unnaturally obsessed with that particular body part before I was given the nickname, but that ensured a lasting self-hatred.

In a weird turn of events, I would drive that same boy home more than a decade later, and when he drunkenly tried to flirt with me, I would tell him how that nickname had haunted me my whole life. Of course, he had no memory of calling me that. He became quite lucid as he apologized, though, clearly affected by the idea that he’d so carelessly hurt someone once without meaning to. I appreciated the sentiment, and I feel weird now when we run into each other around town, and he’s overly nice to me. But it didn’t change anything. It didn’t undo the years I spent obsessing. It doesn’t stop some other thoughtless teenager from triggering someone else’s lifetime of self-loathing. It just is.

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I watched a video from an expert on body dysmorphia who said she “couldn’t leave the house for a month” because of her self-hatred. She said she’s tired of influencers self-diagnosing and throwing the word around online. If those parameters are what’s required to be legit, maybe I’m not. Then again, I check several of the following boxes.

Signs you may have body dysmorphia:

• Being preoccupied with minor or imaginary physical flaws, which usually can’t be seen by others

• Having a strong belief that you have a defect in your appearance that makes you ugly or deformed

• Having anxiety and stress about the perceived flaw and spending a lot of time focusing on it

• Comparing your appearance with others to the point that it becomes an obsession

• Constantly seeking reassurance from others about how you look and then not believing them when they compliment you

• Getting cosmetic surgery but not being happy with the outcome—often many times over

I sometimes feel like we’ve taken the Big Dick Contest approach to trauma. Mine’s the biggest in the room . . . yours doesn’t come with a title bestowed upon you by a stranger with a clipboard.

I saw a reflection in the mirror that was patently false for years and moved through the world that entire time with a low level self-hatred. BUT, I was able to leave the house, so maybe it doesn’t count. If there’s a danger that sharing my story will somehow belittle someone else’s experience, I’ll make up a different word for it. Call it body perspective fuckedupness. Call it hallucinatory self-image syndrome. Call it reverse Shallow Hal disorder. But let us name the monster something and thereby take away its power.

It turns out one in every 50 people has body dysmorphia, and what makes it so insidious is that they have no awareness it’s happening. It’s just what normal feels like. For Gen Xers especially, who pride ourselves on being thick-skinned, I worry we may have normalized these hate crimes we’re enacting against ourselves.

The younger generations may come across as delicate, but the upside of this is their unwillingness to stand for bullshit. My favorite example of fighting the patriarchy responsible for this epidemic is this anti-establishment gem.

Jax, the artist behind this anthem, was inspired to write it for the teenager she babysits after a particularly hard day for the teen when some mean girls told her she was “flat and fat in all the wrong places.” The teen is a textbook beanpole, so the use of the word “fat” is absurd on every level. I’m also 100% certain that girls who feel compelled to say such things to other girls hate their own reflections in the mirror.

The song went viral on TikTok and resulted in many well-deserved endorsements, including a reprise with Shania Twain. Jax went on to organize an inclusive flashmob outside of the Victoria’s Secret store on the Santa Monica Promenade, and not once have I been able to watch the video of it without dissolving into sobs. Being moved by this story in such a dramatic way was another defining moment that said I’m still not done with this journey. Perhaps I’ll never be.

In Jax’s own words, inciting self-loathing is how the beauty industry makes money. She writes, “They will use your pain to keep business alive. You will go to war with yourself. War makes rich people richer.”

The message she leaves us with, however, is the same one I have been trying for two decades to internalize. My hope is that it cuts through all the nonsense you might be telling yourself, too, so it can take root in your mind and let acceptance and self-love bloom instead.

You have always been beautiful.

You were never ugly.

Say it with me.

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Why not up your self-love game with something delicious?