I liked my body before and I resent the assumption I did not

My experience is that other people's attention was the destabilising thing, more than anything about my own body.

Clothes were the practical version of this for me. Nothing fitting the way it used to, and the daily reminder of that was wearing.

Photographs are difficult for me and I have stopped apologising for stepping out of them.

This is the post I wish had existed when I was looking for it.

My therapist pointed out that I was describing my body in the third person, and I had genuinely not noticed I was doing it.

Somebody in this circle wrote that a body is a place to live rather than a thing to display, and I have thought about that most weeks since.

The changing room was where it caught up with me. Nothing had changed in that room except that I was looking, and the looking was the problem.

The mirror thing comes and goes. Some months I barely notice and some months it is the first thing I think about, and I have stopped trying to control which.

I read this twice. The second time was for the last paragraph.

Something that helped was reducing how much I looked. Not as a punishment. Just less often, and it made the looking less loaded.

What I would say is that this is harder than the physical side and gets a fraction of the discussion. I am glad this circle exists for it.

I had assumed this would resolve itself and it did not. It needed actual attention, and in my case some therapy, and I resisted both for a year.

I would gently say that if this has become the main thing you think about, that is worth mentioning to somebody rather than managing alone.