Body Shame Triggers Mental Illness, Body Love Heals

I have a great TEDx talk to share with you all today: "Change Your World, Not Your Body," given by Jes Baker at TEXx Tucson. It is a fantastic talk about how embracing body love is not just good for us personally, but it can have a global positive social impact. One thing I love about the talk is that Jes addresses something that few people talk about in relation to body love- how our culture of body hatred contributes to mental illness.

Mental illness is a two part illness having both chemical and environmental factors that can cause, trigger, and/or exacerbate it. All of the body hatred we learn in our society contributes to the increasing rates of mental illness, and not just of eating disorders. Depression is hugely effected by the relationship we have with our bodies. If you are prone to depression, you do not need the body hatred messages that say you are not good enough, no one loves you because of what you look like, and you do not deserve to have relationships with other people. That increases the depression, loneliness, and isolation.

My cocktail of mental illnesses are highly tied in to my view of my body. In the beginning, I thought that I was depressed and unable to do anything because I was disgusting and lazy, because I was taught by our society that overweight people are lazy and unsuccessful. That contributed to me spending more time trying to loose weight, and less time actually finding the right professional help for my mental illness. My treatment was put on hold due to my body hatred. Jes talks about this in her TED talk, that "We put our life on hold, we stunt it, because of our bodies." This is a huge problem for everyone, but a serious problem for people with mental illness who forgo focusing on mental health treatment because we are taught that the real problem is just that we are fat or ugly. If we just lost the weight or got rid of our acne, we would be happy and successful. In fact, our whole beauty industry revolves around this message, that a happy and balanced life can be obtained by being beautiful.

My husband can tell you that when I have a "bad body" day, a day when I hate my body, my rapid cycling bipolar disorder cycles even faster. Body shame, which teaches us "I am bad, because of my body," is a very dysfunctional message to send to your mind. If we walk around in a state of shame, of believing we are bad, then we are reinforcing negative pathways in our brain. If we keep those pathways going, neuroplasticity says that we will make shameful beliefs about ourselves a pattern, and a reality for us.

If we believe we are bad, our mental health is harmed in many ways.

If we are bad, there is no hope for recovery. If we are bad, there is no hope for a better life. If we are bad, we have no choice and no agency in our lives. If we are bad, neuroplasticity is a lie, treatment is a lie, and we will be sick forever. If we are bad, we deserve to be punished, which leads to body harm for many of us, as it did for me.

Jes Baker and me at her Readers Dinner in San Francisco.

Body shame and hatred also significantly contribute to, or can cause anxiety. If we believe that our bodies are disgusting, need to be hidden, and we do not deserve to be in the world, we will become anxious. Some people become obsessive over choosing what to wear to leave the house in order to be sure that they encounter the least amount of name calling or shaming from others as possible. Many people live in a state of fear of physical violence when they are out in public, because of what they look like. People have been abused to do being thin, fat, for the color of their skin, their acne, rosacea, hair, clothes, and more.

I have a panic disorder that actually was triggered due to body shaming. I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Lactose Intolerance. When I was just a child, six years old, people used to make fun of me for not being able to go out because I was sick. They mocked my lactose intolerance and said I was making it up. People were relentless in saying that what my body was doing was not real and that I was only trying to get attention. That is body shame of another kind- shaming someone for how their body works. Some professionals have told me that the way to "get over" my anxiety was to learn that no one will make fun of me and most people are genuinely nice. That is not really a world that we live in, when we have a culture that constantly makes fun of bodies that do not work "correctly." I have talked to many people with Celiac Disease who are constantly made fun of. I don't trust that people will be kind if I get sick in public, so I live every day, every moment when I am with others and often even when I am alone, deathly afraid of getting sick.

Embracing body love is essential to good mental health. Body love does not mean only accepting your weight, but everything about your body- how it ages, what it looks like, and how it works. Embracing body love and using that philosophy with the treatments my therapist provides, like Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), has been very important in the treatment of my mental illnesses and my ability to get well. Plus, I had to accept that my body works differently than most peoples in order to accept my mental illness. I also had to accept my body in my treatment plan, because I was very upset that medications kept making me sick and I could not take them. I was very upset that I had to change the way I ate, slept, and functioned every day because my body (which includes my mind), is "different." If I don't love my whole body the way it is, then I don't follow through on treatment and I get worse.

This is definitely something we need to be talking about more and we need to start changing our world.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

Corseting: Respecting How My Body Works

This post was originally written for The Body is Not an Apology, where I am a Content Writer.

I have had a binge eating disorder since I was in grade school. Sitting down to eat a family-sized bag of Skittles on my own in one sitting was not unusual for me. Now I know that binging on food, especially sugary food, was the only way I knew at that age to medicate my mental illnesses of panic and bipolar disorder. Sugar does a lot to the brain, especially increasing serotonin, just as antidepressants do - except that sugar is unregulated, and you need more and more of it to get the same effect.

Due to binge eating, I gained weight and started dieting - mostly starvation diets and low-fat diets that made me feel horrible and actually did make me crazy. My anxiety and bipolar disorder went through the roof every time I dieted, but I didn’t care, because at least I was skinny and people treated me better. This is what everyone told me to do, even doctors.

With all of the dieting, I lost all sense of hunger cues, I ate processed foods with no nutrition because they were low in “points,” and I rarely ate fruits (too high in calories) or vegetables because you couldn’t eat them with anything that tasted any good. Sandwich Thins and fat free bologna comprised every meal, while I binged on Skinny Cow ice cream bars in between. As long as I lost weight, the doctors were happy - and the weight loss company I was paying was really happy. I would go for half a day without eating to save up my calories for a meal I wanted if I was going out with friends.

Then, two years later, I could not handle the dieting and I would gain the weight all back. I swung to the other side, still eating processed foods, but not the low-fat ones anymore. Whether I was dieting or not, I had constant stomach issues; rarely did food stay in my body for very long. I was allergic to some of what I was eating and had terrible skin problems as well. Basically, I learned to destroy my body - to never listen to it and what it needed. I was told my stomach issues were all Irritable Bowel Syndrome and it was normal for me to be sick all the time. No doctor ever recommended to me that I should listen to what my body was telling me.

This cycle of binging and dieting slowly started to change when I started wearing a corset daily. First of all, as I mentioned in my previous post, due to wearing a corset, I don’t hate my body anymore, so I rarely feel like I have to diet or look different. Second, wearing a corset requires you to know your body. You have to respect your body.

Rev. Katie with her son. Corset by Dark Garden. 

When you get a new corset, the steel bones are stiff. It needs time to be seasoned and to mold to your body. You have to learn to listen to your body and to never wear a corset too tight, too long, or if it is applying pressure anywhere that makes you hurt.

I also find that I can’t starve myself in a corset. Whenever I under-eat (such as with dieting), I get light headed, tired, angry, and tend to have faster bipolar swings. In a corset, I become aware of when I am hungry faster, and I have to eat small meals throughout the day, which for me is better for my brain. (Some people do great on intermittent fasting and other patterns of eating.) I think since the corset helps you learn to honor your body and listen to it, corset wearers learn what pattern of eating is best for their bodies and helps them function well.

Previously, I had been able to put up with the extreme stomach pain and other daily issues from eating things that did not work well with my body. Now in a corset, when I eat something that bothers my stomach, I notice right away; the extreme cramps caused by allergenic foods are apparent while corseted. Many people while corseted cannot drink carbonated drinks or foods that ferment in the stomach, such as pasta. When corseted, I don’t eat things my body does not like because I know it will be uncomfortable, and because becoming more aware of my body has made me respect it more. Before I could just get away with ignoring my body and abusing it. The corset makes me very aware of everything my body feels and, for me, this change has resulted in being pretty amazed at how my body works.

My experience with corsets is not unique, and it is also not universal. I am sure some people continue to abuse their bodies while corseted. Different things work for different people. But there is so much negative stigma out there about people who wear corsets that it’s important to shed light on the ways in which corsets help many of us. Society sees corsets as oppressive garments that women only wear for attention, but many of us who wear them have found them to be extremely helpful on our journey to radical self-love.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

Corseting: Embrace Your Own Beauty Standards

This post was originally written for The Body is Not an Apology, where I am a Content Writer.

When I went to my first corset booth at a Steampunk convention, I was very embarrassed. I had only seen corsets in the media on very thin models, so I was sure that no one would make a corset big enough to fit me. The artistry of these handmade, steel-boned garments was amazing, though, and I had to inquire about them. 

Wearing my "Dollymop" corset from Dark Garden.

At the booth were men and women, of all shapes, assisting customers with trying on corsets. The corsetier had many plus sizes available and was happy to make a corset in any size you needed. This was the first shopping experience I had had where I did not feel out of place and as though everyone were wondering why I was there.

Last month, I was able to stop at Dark Garden Corsetry & Couture, where I was also pretty nervous because they make corsets for Dita Von Teese. I felt like I did not belong in a shop that creates garments for beautiful people. The woman who helped me never batted an eye, never questioned my size, and never treated me as though I were not good enough to belong in a place that clothed models and performers. She treated me with such respect that I felt safe and accepted, which is rare in my life.

I have come to find that the corseting community is extremely body positive. Most tightlacing groups and blogs all have a “body/corset snark free zone” label on their pages. They do not allow body shaming or shaming of how you choose to wear your corset. I had never really been in a community like that. People of every gender, ability, shape, size, ethnicity, culture, and country all come together around this one topic where we all support each other in being body positive and practicing radical self love.

Being part of this community has taught me to be snark free when talking about my own body and the bodies of others. It has also allowed me to learn to not care what other people think about what I look like.

At first, I was scared to wear a corset in public, especially since I like to wear them over my clothes because it is easier to adjust them if I need more pressure when I am anxious. The first few times I wore a corset in public, I did have people comment on it: “Can you breathe?” “Is that safe?” “That’s inappropriate.” As I spent more time in the corset community and saw so many people supporting each other and the concept that no one gets to tell you how to look or judge your character based on how you dress, I started not listening to other people and their beliefs on how I should dress. I am learning to say “Eff Your Beauty Standards.”

Plus-sized model Tess Munster started the “Eff Your Beauty Standards” campaign. She says, “For everyone that says we can’t show our tummies, wear a pencil/form fitting skirt, wear a bikini, wear sleeveless tops... YOU can! I want YOU to join me in wearing "daring" fashions & stop hiding your body because society tells you to.” (Tess looks great in her corsets.)

As I have learned to feel less ashamed of myself and follow my own beauty standards, I notice that people don’t really comment on my corset anymore. At least, not negatively. If I go into a room with my head down and my arms crossed to cover the corset, people feel the need to say negative things to me. When I go into a room confident and I don’t focus on my corset, I get no negative comments. In fact, my confidence seems to make other people more comfortable in telling me that they like the corset, especially older women who tell me all the time how pretty the corset is.

I still wear the corset under my clothes or under a jacket when I am in places that I know are unsafe. Usually, those are places where people want to try and exert their power and seek to shame me. One day, I will not hide it in these places, but emotionally, I am still building up to being ready to handle a verbal attack. I don’t think I would have ever gotten to the point where I was actually confident in what I wear- not the “fake it ‘till you make it” confident I had been practicing my whole life had I not started wearing a corset and participating in such a supportive community.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie