Dysmorphia

[breakinglight11]

The degree to which I am body dysmorphic, at least at times, sometimes shocks me. Maybe "dysmorphic" isn't the right word. I don't really dislike my body. In general I'm pretty damn happy with myself, perhaps even to the point of vanity. But I must not have a very realistic picture of myself, because everyone seems to tell me different.

Several times in the last few days a bunch of people have commented on my "tinyness." My trainer at the gym, the receptionist at the garage, my mother. I said to my brother, in regards to a sweater, "Isn't your girlfriend about my size?" and he said I was crazy.

I am a small person, a lean person. I know that, I'm not completely nuts. But I don't feel tiny. I feel... well, regular. Not fat, really, but not particularly small. I work out a lot, at least five hours a week, of either ballet or intense circuit training, and I do it because I prefer myself hard and lean. I don't really like my soft places, under my bellybutton, my upper thighs. I would have thought someone who works out as much as I do would be harder and leaner than I am, but I guess not. I confess it bugs me, if for no other reason than my perspective seems so skewed. I also don't like how broad my bottom ribs are, and they're uneven on top of everything, so my trunk looks coarse and lumpy. I'm so wide there that I'll never really have a narrow waist. If I could change anything about myself physically, that would be it.

I know you don't want to hear a skinny white model bitch about how she feels fat sometimes, or at least fatter than she actually is. It just shocks me how differently I see things about myself than what other people see. It actually makes me feel kind of insane. I know intellectually how poisonous culture is for women's body image. But since I don't really feel negative toward my body (at least not most of the time) I guess I don't always realize just how pervasive it is.