I’ve struggled with negative body image and self-scrutiny for the majority of my life. At this point, age 25, I’m fairly comfortable saying that I’ve just about overcome it. Writing TD and analyzing my mental and physical tendencies has allowed me to truly see how much hating my physical form really affected my life. Things that I thought were part of my personality were discovered to be no more than a product of my hate for myself -  a symptom of being extremely self-conscious and negative about the way I look. Pieces of my brain and my personality had acclimated to accommodate this behavior, and changing my perspective to that of a positive one was like facing two north sides of a magnet – What am I doing? Why have I done this for so long? It doesn’t make sense!

Once I’d regained control over my self-image, aspects of “myself” that I’d grown so used to faded away, and I was able to really see the control that this negative perspective had over me. That’s not to say, though, that all of the deeply engrained tendencies are gone – some of them are definitely still lingering.

I was thinking about this last night, and I was reminded of a line delivered by a great man, in a great song, in a great movie:

I’ll remove the cause… but not the symptom. - “Sweet Transvestite”, Rocky Horror Picture Show

I still have many habits that surround my accommodation of negative body image. One noteworthy one: retaining the interest of men. It’s true. I’ve recently had to inform a few previous suitors that I’m in an exclusive relationship and will no longer be dating. Most have taken it like, well, adults… But there was a situation recently wherein the recipient of this information chose “persistence” as a reaction as opposed to well wishes and/or support. When I resisted, he eventually played the “have a nice life” card, and was clearly bitter. I was shocked at how I reacted to this.

In the back of my head, there was a part of me that said “don’t lose this! You need people to be attracted to you.” I was immediately reminded of the years of my life that were indirectly dedicated to utilizing male attention as self-approval. If men thought I was attractive, then I wouldn’t have to appreciate me – other people could do it instead. It was also a form of sick validation that prevented me from having to actually love myself. Other people will do it.

The cause might be nearly eliminated, but the symptoms still linger. They’re like little tiny soldiers that are creeping around your mental castle – each needing to be killed, even though you’ve already found and burned the Trojan Horse.

Recognizing that I still had a deeply-rooted need to retain attention for men was a big eye opener for me. As we all know, negative body image isn’t something that you can just “turn off”, as some people might suggest. “You’re fine! Quit worrying about it” isn’t quite all that’s required to kill off the symptoms. If you’ve grown up hating your body and having no appreciation for yourself, chances are good that you’ve also acquired reactions, actions, and tendencies to accommodate that self-perception. We can’t forget about these symptoms, even though we’re trying to kill the cause.

What are your symptoms? Do you have tendencies that may have been formed by your negative self-image?