Getting Along is a column about taking care of yourself, setting boundaries, and having difficult conversations, for people who struggle with all three.
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Clearly, re-entry—for those of us who have been inside for most of the past year, and who are now getting vaccinated—can be fraught. The excitement of being able to safely see people again is marred by the reality of being seen in bodies that perhaps don’t look exactly the same as they did a year ago… bodies that are bigger, or smaller, or less muscular, or grayer, or balder, or less glowy (or aren’t even! but that we believe are). According to Pei-Han Cheng, a New York–based therapist who specializes in body image concerns, it’s completely understandable to have anxiety about your appearance in this moment. First, the pandemic has been incredibly stressful, and took away our everyday routines as well as many of the activities that typically make us feel good about ourselves, including spending time with loved ones. “When we don't have access to our typical coping or self-care practice, it can really increase our vulnerability to anxiety, negative body image, and self talk,” Cheng told VICE. It’s also been a year filled with ups and downs; we’re currently at a point where good things are coming, but the future still feels very unknown. “When our lives change, our bodies change,” Michelle Elman, the author of Am I Ugly? One Woman’s Journey to Body Positivity and The Joy of Being Selfish: Why you need boundaries and how to set them, told VICE. “And it doesn't matter what change, or in which direction—humans, in general, are not very good at dealing with change.”
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We also spent way more time looking at our phones and watching TV this year (and may still be, as we wait to be fully vaccinated), which doesn’t help. “We are looking at more images and stories that really glorify thinness, athleticism, youthfulness, and fatphobia,” Cheng said. And not having anything new or exciting going on in your life—no desire to read or be creative, no gossip, no hangouts to pull you away from TikTok and The Circle—can exacerbate the problem. “We've had more time to think, so if you've not been using that time to think productively, you have been using it to analyze insecurities, flaws,” Elman said. And, of course, we’ve been subject to ridiculous messages about hustling, grinding, writing King Lear, etc. during this pandemic, which means the return to something resembling normal life can bring up fears about being judged by other people for how we’ve spent our time. Cheng said that right now, a lot of folks might be wondering, “Will people look at me and judge me for being quote-unquote ‘lazy,’ or not taking care of myself? There's a lot of insecurity around judgments from other people, and potentially from themselves too.” If any of this rings true for you—if you’ve been excited to see friends and family but also feel a nagging sense of dread about re-entering the world in your pandemic body, and then also feel guilt about that dread—here are some things to keep in mind.
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Know that how you’re feeling right now might not actually have all that much to do with how you look.
Avoid seeking out more “evidence” that you look bad; instead, work on a counter-narrative.
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Elman said if you’re trying to unlearn a particular belief (e.g., “I’m ugly”), it’s important to regularly counter it with a new, opposing belief. And if you’ve had the negative belief for a while—for the past year, let’s say, or even since you were a teenager—it’s going to take real effort to counteract it. To do that, she suggested writing down three reasons you’re beautiful every single night, completing the sentence “I am beautiful because _______.” And it doesn't have to be physical things, Elman said; it could be “I’m beautiful because I am a compassionate person.” What this exercise does, she continued, is shift where your mind goes throughout the day. “When you go through the world, your brain will be focusing on that, because you'll know you have to write those things at the end of the day,” she said. Elman said she believes thinking way less about your body is the key to feeling more confident. When you find yourself ruminating on, say, your skin or your hair, make a point to pivot to something—anything!!—else. “You can literally say to yourself, ‘We don't have time for this. We're gonna find a better thing to do right now,’” Elman said, adding that it’s worth making an actual list of alternative activities you can turn to when you find yourself obsessing about your appearance. “Put it on your phone so it’s accessible,” she said. “You can pick up a book, watch a TV show, do your laundry, put your bills away… like literally practical things you can do which are a better use of your time.” “When you are insecure,” she continued, “you actually physically spend time on it. I mean, the hours I used to spend changing my outfit. So put the first outfit on and be like, I don't have time to change. I could cook something or have lunch, go for a walk—go do something that is more productive than changing your outfit when your first outfit was OK.”
Do what you can to think about things other than your appearance.
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Elman said this isn’t about trying to “fix” your negative thoughts—which gives them more energy, and can make you feel ashamed of your shame. It’s about gently redirecting, maybe via a go-to phrase like “stop commenting on my body” that you repeat in your head whenever self-hating thoughts pop up. She said it’s similar to being in a conversation with a real person and setting a boundary with them by giving them the same response over and over again until they start to get it. Over time, she said, “your thought almost learns, Oh, I'm not getting the reaction I want when I say this. OK, well, this conversation goes nowhere. So let's try a different thought.” Getting dressed can be a big point of stress if your body has changed, as can shopping for new items. But that hesitation will likely turn to relief once you’re moving through the world in newly comfortable clothes. “When you look different and you feel bad about yourself, you almost dress in a way that reflects that,” Elman said. “You reinforce your belief that you look bad. So, let's say you have gained weight. If you squeeze yourself into your old jeans, you feel uncomfortable because you have a button pushing into your stomach. The whole lunch, you'll be thinking about what you look like because you literally have a physical sensation pushing on your stomach—rather than treating your body as if it is equally as beautiful as it was [when] smaller.”
If your clothes no longer fit, get new clothes.
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Spend less time on Instagram or other apps that make you feel worse about how you look.
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