Body image & dating: some raw thoughts

A couple weeks ago I was interviewed by a family friend for his podcast. After I shared my eating disorder story, he asked if I could talk about what it’s been like navigating the dating scene in college while going through an ED. I took a deep breath, preparing myself to lean deeper into vulnerability than I normally feel comfortable. This is the experience I shared:

I was laying in bed on a Saturday morning. I had a date in 2 hours. I was ready to write out affirmations like I do before dates (or exams) when I’m nervous. Sometimes nervous means a loose butterflies, excited, anticipating kind of nervous. Other times, like this one, it was a I think I'm actually going to throw up kind of nervous. Writing out affirmations has a way of calming me down and grounding me during moments like that. My list usually includes things like:

You can do this
Take deep breaths
Focus on being present
Be yourself
Everything will work out how it’s meant to
etc.

I usually write and write until I take up the whole page. But not that morning. As I lay there in bed, I realized something. At the end of the day, all of my pre-date stresses and worries could be boiled down to one. single. affirmation.

If he doesn’t like me because of my body, I don’t want to be with him anyways.

That was it.

Here’s some context leading up to this groundbreaking moment for me:
When I was in the trenches of my eating disorder, even sicker than my physical health was my mental health. Any ED behavior I engaged in was fueled by this one belief that my brain simply could not shake: You will never be good enough until you change your body. That was it. From age 16, that one belief sabotaged my relationship with food and my body and subtly bled into every aspect of my life, at its worst convincing me that any chance I had at finding love would be hopeless until I lost weight.

Let me illustrate with a few stories.

A month or two after getting back from my mission I was going on dates with a guy I really liked. On Valentine's Day he surprised me with roses and told me he wanted to date me but in that exact moment, reality set in. I could fake it on dates but on the inside I was miserable. I was “failing” at the pursuit of weight loss and feeling completely out of control with food, my body, and my life. I knew I wasn't capable of being in a relationship and even if I were capable, I figured it was just a matter of time until he realized our bodies didn’t “go together.” So instead of telling him what was really going on, I pulled an easier excuse: I’m just not feeling it. And we broke up.

You will never be ready for a relationship until you fix your body.

One summer, a year and a half later, my roommate planned an outing to go tubing down the Provo River. What I thought was going to be a big group ended up just being 5 of us, including a cute guy from our ward. That night after tubing my friend decided she couldn’t keep the secret any longer: the real story was that cute-guy-in-the-ward had asked my roommate about me and if I was single so my roommate had orchestrated the whole tubing trip to indirectly set us up. I instantly felt sick to my stomach. I buried myself in the couch and moaned “no, no, no, no, no,” spiraling into an anxious mess.

It will absolutely never work. You’re too big for him and he’ll never like you.

Six months later, I matched with a guy on mutual before Christmas break and we ended up FaceTiming for hours over the course of a couple weeks. He seemed like exactly the person I had been looking for and I couldn’t stop thinking about him. But as the break drew to a close, the excitement of meeting up in person was quickly overtaken by an intense sense of dread. I lost my appetite for days. I remember breaking down in tears on the futon bed of our home office, trying not to wake up my family as I mourned the loss of something I was sure wouldn't last once he met me in-person.

Your body still isn’t good enough yet.

A few months later, for the first time ever, I had overcome all the mental hurdles my ED threw at me in the early dating phase enough to commit to a relationship. A month into dating we were at a wedding reception when a slow dance came on. I went to put my left hand on his shoulder and my right hand in his, but he put both of his hands on my waist. I tried to stay calm but everything in me wanted to run out the door and never come back. I don’t remember anything about our conversation or what song was playing or how the bride and groom looked or the decorations at the venue, nothing. All I remember is that feeling of crippling anxiety; not because of him... because of my waist.

You will never be good enough until you change your body.

Year after year, no matter how much progress I made in recovery, my brain kept defaulting to the same relentless, defeating rhetoric yet it made perfect, logical sense to me. How could it not be true? The evidence was all around me. Thin girls got more attention and more dates. In every relationship I observed, the girl was smaller than the guy. Thin was beautiful, worthy, happy, enough. Society preached it, social media preached it, and every couple in Utah County seemed to be a living, breathing example. The pattern was just too undeviatingly consistent to my ill, eating disorder-stricken mind. Clearly there was only one way out: change my body and then I’ll be good enough.

It was a long road fighting to eradicate that belief system that had consumed me since I was 16. A really long road. But it gets better.

Fast forward to that earth-shattering Saturday morning conversation with myself just recently: “Christine, at the end of the day, all of your pre-date stresses and worries can be boiled down to one. single. affirmation: If he doesn’t like me because of my body, I don’t want to be with him anyways.”

Earth-shattering, let me tell you. For the first time in my life, I was standing up for myself. Instead of worrying about what he was going to think of me and my body, I realized that if my body is the reason he walks away, then I don’t want to be with him. I can say that (now) and stand up for myself (now) because I’ve finally rebuilt the relationship that should’ve come first the whole time: the one between my body & I.

One of the quotes my therapist shared with me that changed my life was this:
"And I said to my body softly: I want to be your friend. It took a long breath and replied: I’ve been waiting my whole life for this."

Three years ago, my body and I were not friends, We were so far from friends. But I wanted to be its friend. And eventually I started to believe that we could get there.

Here’s a look into how that process went:

It started with respect.
Hey body, I don’t like you and you’ve caused unimaginable heartache in my life, but I think I can respect you.

Then focusing on its function over its form.
*On a hike* Hey body, this is uncomfortable and I really wish I had [insert thin friend]’s body right now, but thank you for helping me up this mountain. I appreciate the miracle of my legs lifting one after the other.

Then honoring it and its basic needs.
Hey body, I still would give pretty much anything to change you. But I also know you deserve food today and you need it as fuel. So I’m going to feed you.

Then observing the slew of critical thoughts that would come in every day and just observing.
Ahhh, here we go again with the comparison and the belittling and the criticism. We’ve been here before. It’s okay, let’s just take a moment and sit with this.

Then, over time, upgrading from observing the thoughts to challenging them.
Ok so you believe no one will ever love you until you lose weight. Wait... who says? Where did that belief come from?

Then from observing and challenging to exercising gentleness and compassion.
Hey, it is okay to feel this. You are worthy and you are enough. You are so much more than a body.

Then from gentleness and compassion to considering the possibility that maybe, just maybe, my body is enough exactly the way it is. And starting to feel at home...

And then to the level I reached only recently on that Saturday morning, when the familiar wave of pre-date crippling body image came crashing down and I said:
Hold up. I did not come this far, put in this much work, show up to therapy for that many months, shed that many tears on my bedroom floor, take leaps of faith dating [ex-boyfriends], heal my relationship with food, and stand up for myself a thousand times against my ED voice-- I did not do all of that just to make it to this moment, about to go on a date, and recoil into my all-too-familiar fetal position of body shame. Nope. Not gonna do it. Not gonna happen. I am going to fight for myself and I am going to defend this body.

And that, my friends, is a summary of months and years of tough, painful body image work.

It was awkward, it was unfamiliar, it was messy and at times so unbelievably hard (and still is), but it has also become the most empowering and healing work of my life.

I went from believing that my body would hold me back from everything I wanted in life, including love, to fighting for and defending this miracle that enables me to do everything I want in life, including to love.

Dating is a rollercoaster. It’s all over the place. Guys may come and go and relationships may begin and end but at the end of the day there is one, constant, forever relationship that is depending on me. Breaking up is not an option. We’re in this for the long haul.

My body & I.