Do you have body dysmorphia, IST?
I'm self-conscious about taking my shirt off in front of others despite being one of the fittest guys in the group. How do I get over this?
Do you have body dysmorphia?
Do you have body dysmorphia, IST?
I'm self-conscious about taking my shirt off in front of others despite being one of the fittest guys in the group. How do I get over this?
Yes, I think to an extent most bodybuilders experience some form of body dysmorphia at one point. I am super self conscious about my body and I won't get in photos anymore because I look too small. For reference, I'm 6'3 215lb
I used to and still do to an extent.
I was 25 years old, 6’4, 212lbs, lean, shredded, tanned as frick with mt2. Went on vacation with the boys and barely took my shirt off through being so self conscious even though there was literally thousands of shirtless people at the beach and objectively my physique was top 1%. I used to make excuses to go back to the room to do push-ups to try and get a pump and spend an hour in the mirror making sure my mid section was tight and my posture was good.
It was torture, while everyone else enjoyed themselves with their shirts off just not caring about it…
Pic I posted to IST around that time trying to look confident
Start doing martial arts (boxing,muay thai,kickboxing). It will give you ton of confidence
Always wanted to, that was over 10 years ago now. Im still in very good shape for my age but I still won’t go shirtless, but I know I look good even in a T-shirt. But like they say.. give a man body dysmorphia and he will lift for a lifetime.
I wanna do bjj tho
I would start the day feeling so good especially after a good push day and feeling fricking massive.
Then I'll watch a video of some huge roided out dudes and put on a sweatshirt and baggy pants and instantly feel like fricking shit.
>It was torture, while everyone else enjoyed themselves with their shirts off just not caring about it…
I feel this. I'll sit there by the pool at some family function silently judging other people for feeling comfortable enough taking off their shirts, wearing bathing suits, etc., despite them being obviously flabby. They don't give a shit, they're just having fun and enjoying themselves, meanwhile I'm making excuses not to get in the goddamn pool.
Yep, literally did that yesterday.
Family was at the pool with their fat guts out on display and I kept my shirt on and drank a few beers by the pool instead of swimming. Fit is really the only place that sees my physique, and that’s not really a healthy relationship either!
>go to beach
>fat dudes everywhere
>some slimmer dudes with average physiques and shit faces
>me nervously taking my shirt off looking like picrel and a 10 face
At least the people that see you at the beach or hotel pool are unlikely to ever see you again.
Imagine being such a pussy wimp like this, lmao loser
A body composition test is very helpful for this. I thought I was 12-14% bodyfat, turns out I was 5.5% when I got hydrostatic weighing done. Turns out I'm actually shredded. Talk about a reality check.
Right now I'm slowly getting more used to going shirtless when I hike. Started with a shorter one, helped my confidence, gonna do a longer and busier one saturday.
Yeah, I got body dysmorphia, but I can't imagine being such a pathetic gay as to be self-conscious without a shirt.
What does body dysmorphia mean to you, anon?
I notice every little thing wrong with me. I'm always too fat because at one point I was more vascular and striated, and at the same time, I'm always too small. I also compare myself to everyone, and will hyperfocus and be envious of specific attributes of them, thinking they look better than me; e.g. a guy who weighs 60 lbs less than me but has extremely well-defined arms or immense vascularity looks better than me in my opinion, but also I'll want to be bigger because I see a guy who's got 10% higher bodyfat than me but is bigger than me.
pic rel.
It sounds like you're pretty self-conscious about your body.
>Wanting to be better means you're self-conscious
What that anon described wasn't merely "wanting to be better," son.
You don't understand what body dysmorphia is at all. You think you have it because you've seen the term thrown around a lot, but the reality is that you just look like shit.
I'm a licensed therapist and I do know what body dysmorphia is.
started as a 6'4 175 lanklet, now I am a 6'4 195 lb slender ottermode bod that multiple girls have told me they love. I still see myself as the lanklet, especially since I can barely do lmao1pl8 for reps on bench, and my shoulders aren't super broad. The only thing to do is keep lifting and eating a lot of chicken
post body
and WAGMI btw
no im just a soft bodied natty at “17” percent bodyfat. i put 17 in quotes because everyone always underestimates their bodyfat. i’m 84kg at 5”11 and im the fittest of my alcoholic friendgroup lel. oh well, at least i wont be “generic fat white guy” like everyone else when i reach my 30s.
I do have body dysmorphia but I also love showing off my body, lol.
Bodybuilding culture in general promotes low self confidence and inward narcissism. It's a good thing too.
How do you figure?
The entire part of competitive bodybuilding it's is about trying to reach peak genetic appearance, and heavily critiquing and judging any muscle imbalances. Even if you're not going for a competition, 9 out of 10 times someone starts out in the gym because they're insecure about their body. It's very rare to get to a point where you care about lifts and strength alone and not how your body looks
That doesn't address why it's a good thing for bodybuilding culture to continue promoting low self-confidence. Presumably bodybuilding is approached as an intervention to remedy low self-esteem, not exacerbate it.
It's good because we wouldn't have any sick c**ts if everyone just settled for I look okay or "in shape"
The logical ineptitude of "bodybuilders" is astounding. Someone skilled or elite at any other discipline would be confident while still doing everything in their power to be better. But you bodybuilding homosexuals have to warp everything into some neurotic fantasy, pretending you're better than everyone because nobody hates themself as much as you.
The fact that you think this tells me you either don't have any proficiency in any skill or you don't interact with other people proficient in the same skills you are.
The fact that you think this tells me you're an ugly DYEL who won't post body.
>Someone skilled or elite at any other discipline would be confident while still doing everything in their power to be better. But you bodybuilding homosexuals have to warp everything into some neurotic fantasy, pretending you're better than everyone because nobody hates themself as much as you.
I never said bodybuilders thought they were better than everyone else, its the opposite, most are too self absorbed to notice what others are doing. But to your point everything in life is competitive if you wanna reach it far. Not just bodybuilding. In other sports too you have people not thinking they're good enough and need to keep pushing. That's not inherent to bodybuilding.
>not thinking they're good enough
They're not typically insecure though. There's a difference.
>thinking you're a woman when you have a dick: perfectly normal
>wanted to get bigger muscles: mental illness
Honk honk
Join a CrossFit gym. You will be too sweaty at the end of most WODs to not take off your shirt. As you start doing so for literal heat radiation reasons, you will become more confident in doing it.
Plus you’ll actually be doing a workout worth doing rather than just vanity lifting so you’ll feel good about yourself and have a huge endorphin dump
holy shit a real life crossfitter
Yep. I just got officially diagnosed with it. I think that I'm hideously ugly despite never really having too many problems with getting a girlfriend (when I tried, that is - which was many, many years ago), I feel like a pathetic manlet despite being 6 foot and 200 pounds with a decent amount of muscle mass, I've always felt like my dick is pathetically small despite being over 8 inches, et cetera. It's so bad that I've been a recluse for years because I'm so self-conscious about the way I look. I feel like a disgusting sewer creature that creeps everyone out even from 100 yards away. And so I can't bear to let other people see me. I'm also too self-conscious to use dating apps because I'm already suicidally depressed, and I'm scared that not getting any matches or women saying mean things to me will push me over the edge. And I try my hardest to not even look at women in public because I don't want to freak them out. And so I'd say that I'm right up there with transgender people and people who starve themselves until they look like Holodomor victims because they think they're fat. It's actually really bad and has completely destroyed my life.
Given that you got an official diagnosis, it sounds like you're seeing a mental health professional. That's great, anon. I'm glad you're taking steps toward your mental and behavioral progress.
I'm not actually. Trying to find someone that's willing to see me has been way harder than I was expecting. I had to call around to about 100 different psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, and counselors until I finally found a couple of groups that were willing to help me. One was a counseling group near me, but they cancelled on me at the last minute after I filled out my paperwork online and described some of my symptoms. And so I legit think that the female counselor that was supposed to see me was scared of being in the same room with me. The other one was an online mental health org called Thrive Works. After briefly asking me what's wrong with me, they set me up to do virtual appointments with a woman in Texas that specializes in trauma. I did like 4 sessions with her about 10 months ago, and it was a complete waste of time. The first session I basically just went over my insanely fricked up family history - to which she sounded shocked. She told me that I was in the top 3 most fricked up people that she's ever had to work with and she used to work at an inner city school for kids with behavioral issues where parents would inject their toddlers with heroin and shit. In the next 2 sessions, she had me doing stupid bullshit like closing my eyes, putting my hand on my stomach, and imagining a healing blue beam shining down upon me. And then in our last session, she asked me what I liked about myself, and I told her absolutely nothing. I told her that I hate every single inch of my body. She then said that I had sexy arms and that she could tell that I work out. And while I am desperate for mires, I just wasn't in the mood for that sort of comment because I wasn't trying to show off at all (I was wearing a baggy dress shirt). I also don't like receiving complements or being sexualized in any way for super fricked up reasons from my childhood that I don't want to go into - which she knew by the way because I told her everything.
She then went on to tell me that she hated being a MILF because younger men were constantly hitting on her - including her 26-year-old boss. I'm not kidding by the way. She randomly blurted that out for no reason. As soon as she said that, I had enough and ended the call and canceled all of my future appointments with her. I then decided that I want to actually know what's wrong with me, and so I sought out psychologists that did full battery psychological exams. And I wasn't happy with that process at all. It took forever. I had to wait like 6 months to get tested by a psychologist. When my appointment date finally came, it was another virtual appointment where she basically just told me that she was going to send me a bunch of questionnaires to fill out via email. And so I had to fill out like 5 questionnaires online, one of which was over 400 questions long and came back as invalid because I didn't match up with any of my peer groups, and then I had to wait like another 6 weeks for my in-person appointment. I was expecting to basically lay on a couch and have her peer into my mind and life history so that she could figure out what's wrong with me and give me useful advice, instead she spammed me with IQ tests for hours, even though I told her that I didn't want to take them and had like 4 mini breakdowns during all of the tests (I scored 131 by the way). She then told me that I had to wait 2 or 3 months for the results. A few weeks later, she sent me an email asking me to come into her office again to get tested for autism by one of her colleagues. And that process pissed me off the most. I had to sit in a little kid's chair surrounded by toys. And rather than doing some sort of in-depth autism test like I was expecting, she instead just put a children's picture book in front of me and told me to create a story based on what I was seeing.
She then asked me about my life for a little bit. That was it by the way. That was the test I was given to figure out if I have something super serious like autism - which I didn't feel was very scientific at all. Another thing that pissed me off about getting tested by her is the fact that she was wearing ridiculously inappropriate clothing. I don't want to sound like a coomer brained pervert, but she legit had ginormous boobs. But whatever, it's not her fault that she has huge breasts. But it was what she was wearing that made me angry. She was wearing a super revealing and skimpy summer dress with a solid 5-ish inches of cleavage showing + long slits along the thighs. And so not only were her boobs practically hanging out of her dress like 4 feet away from my face, but her thighs were fully exposed as well when she sat down. It was like something that a prostitute or Instagram thot would wear. And keep in mind that she mostly works with little autistic kids all day. And so imagine an elementary school teacher dressing like that. And I won't lie; I was distracted during my testing because I'm still a warm blooded straight male. And so that just made me even angrier with myself because it made me feel like a creep for sneaking peaks at her.
Anywho... They then tried to set me up with their only male psychologist at their facility, and I did 3 sessions with him. He started crying as I told him my life story during our first appointment and said that I had the saddest life story that he's ever heard in 15 years as a psychologist, and he used to work with prison gang members in LA. So that made me feel great. He has ADHD like me and even plays League of Legends regularly like me, and so I thought he was pretty cool. But I still ended up ghosting him after my 3rd appointment because I'm fricked in the head and always ghost people when they try to be nice to me and befriend me, even online, probably because I have really bad trust issues.
I don't know what to do anymore besides seeing a psychiatrist next and getting psych meds - which I don't want to do because I don't trust big pharma at all. What I really need to do is simply fix my own shit and stop being such a pathetic loser since that's the only thing that will actually work.
You're doing the legwork you feel is necessary to give the appearance that you're seeking change, but you aren't doing the emotional or behavioral legwork to realize that change. Your avoidant behavior, in this case, is manifesting as embellishing the facts and sensationalizing your personal experience to suit your narrative (i.e., that the mental healthcare system has failed you so egregiously and that you're beyond saving).
>tfw feel this way too but I'm actually unironically a sewer creature in looks
does it count as body dysmorphia if you're actually a 3/10 and not some Clayton Chapman lookin ass dude
There should be some sort of test to determine if you actually have body dysmorphia or not. If you create a profile on dating apps and get zero matches, then no, it isn't just in your head.
I don't care how other people perceive me when it comes to trying to get better psychologically so that I can get my life on track. I'm not putting on a performance to convince people to believe me when I say that I want to get better. I get no benefit from doing that since I'm not seeking government gibs or sympathy from other people. I don't even have other people to garner sympathy from anyway since I'm a total loner with no friends and almost no family. The only person who knows that I'm still alive is my dad, and he hates me and is the main reason why my life is so fricked up. And while I was diagnosed as being avoidant, it's not some sort of tactic that I'm using to maintain my current unhealthy and destructive lifestyle. I really can't change for reasons that I don't understand. That weird self-proclaimed MILF therapist from Texas (I didn't find her attractive) told me that it's because I'm so severely traumatized that I seek comfort in my current routines. Granted, she views everything through the lens of trauma because she's a trauma specialist. But I definitely am severely traumatized - as proven by my PTSD diagnosis and both my therapist and psychologist telling me that I'm one of the most fricked up people that they've ever had to deal with. All sorts of genuinely awful things have happened in my life. For example, my own mother lost her mind and tried to convince my dad to help her kill me, my severely handicapped younger brothers, and then each other. I then had to cut her down when she hung herself a couple of days later. If you don't think that seriously fricks with a kid's head and gives them massive trust issues, then I don't know what to tell you. Not everyone is a hypochondriac who exaggerates how terrible their life has been.
Speaking of which, where exactly do you think I'm embellishing and sensationalizing? Everything that I said is accurate. If anything, I'm holding back because people won't believe me if I tell them how nightmarish my entire life has been. And I haven't given up completely on America's mental health system, although I'm super fricking close. Like I said, I might resort to going to a psychiatrist next to get psych meds since I can't take living like this anymore. And I'm sure that there's a therapist or psychologist out there somewhere who could help me, but frick all of this "imagine a healing blue light" nonsense. I've simply come to the realization that professional mental health experts can't help me based on my (mostly) terrible experiences with them, and knowing myself how screwed up I am psychologically. The only person who's going to save me is myself because nobody else gives a shit about me, or knows how to help me even if they did care because I'm such a uniquely screwed up case.
Stop fricking taking adderall
Holy histrionic and narcissistic personality disorder. For the other anons who don't want to read this sperg's fanfiction
>6 foot decent muscle
>over 8 inch penis
>100's of psychologists have "cancelled" because anon's lifestory was "too tragic"
>Subtly alludes to "hot milf psychologist" hitting on him, and his sexy arms
>Brags about 131 iq
>Literally brough male psychiatrist to tears from his tragic life
You are genuinely unhinged, please seek actual psychiatric attention instead of writing 4 page fanfictions on IST to try and impress other anons.
Everything that I wrote is true, and so thanks for the unintentional complement I guess? The only correction is that hundreds of psychologists didn't reject me because my life history is too tragic. I first went to my primary care physician asking for referrals to mental health experts, but the long list that they emailed me was garbage because he's incompetent. Half the numbers didn't even freaking work. And a couple of the therapy groups flat out rejected me after they asked me to briefly describe what's wrong with me.
>Uhhh. We can't help people like you. Go find a psychologist. Click.
I then tried getting a list of mental health experts from my health insurance, and 99% of the people on there within a 1 hour radius weren't accepting new clients, didn't respond to my voicemails, told me that they weren't set up to help people like me and referred me to other orgs that told me the same thing, or their phone numbers simply didn't work. I then went to the Psychology Today website and found a ginormous list of mental health professionals. I went like 2 pages deep without finding anyone willing to help me, and so I gave up in frustration. And keep in mind that I don't live in the middle of nowhere. I live in the Washington, D.C., area. And I have really good health insurance too, and so it wasn't a financial issue.
Finding people willing to help me was legit way, way harder than I thought it was going to be. And when I finally found a psychology group that was willing to assess me, like I said, I had to wait 6 fricking months. And when I tried to find a clinical psychologist through them to help me with all of the shit that I just got diagnosed with, they told me I'd probably have to wait a year. It was only because that jumbo boobed psychologist who conducted my bullshit ADOS-2 autism test took pity on me and went out of her way to ask her male colleague to see me that he agreed after she told him how fricked up I was. And yeah, I should have stuck with him since I was lucky to finally find a clinical psychologist who I actually sorta liked. But like I said, my brain is broken and I always ghost people when they try to be nice to me and help me, and I'm still not entirely sure why. I could get into some of the gory details of what happened to me when I was little kid, which is probably a big part of why I'm afraid of people getting close to me, but I really don't want to because it's beyond fricked. You're just going to have to trust me that it was bad enough to disturb all of the therapists and psychologists who heard it.
I don't think you're faking and can relate, I have similar issues. Meds won't help ime and most therapists are not good.
The basic reason you're ghosting people is because you had good memories from being a kid but they were always followed by traumatic ones so now you assume every nice thing comes with a hand grenade that will go off at the worst time. Also you're hypervigilant so that makes it very hard to enjoy carefree shit like most people do - you're legit paranoid and a lot of normies are incredibly empty headed and stupid, even if they're nice.
Obviously I can't just give you The Answer but a few things come to mind.
You need to be your own therapist but in a way of learning to read your own feelings and figure out what is actually going on under the surface, instead of deconstructing it logically. Western therapies are not good at this in my opinion. Try Buddhism, specifically get into Alan Watts. The basic ideas of Buddhism are very simple, there isn't a lot of doctrine, and it's not the sort of religion you have to take literally, it's more a way of dealing with the world. Zen Buddhism is great for neurotic fricks and will help you develop the skills to chill the frick out instead of being addicted to rage and anxiety. It won't cure you, but it'll help you manage your problems.
You hate your body, you said. So you need some positive touch. Start getting massage therapy. Instead of a psychologist pay to have someone give you long intense massages to help you relax and enjoy being in your body. You don't need an emotional bond with them, you just need them to understand muscle tension and have good massage skills. You need positive non threatening physical contact so that you can take a vacation from your brain. And you need to do it regularly to prove to yourself on a physical level that you can feel good and roof won't automatically fall in. So pay to have someone poke and prod your body every 2 weeks.
Also, if you have money consider just moving somewhere else, like outside the US. Get away from the shit society that made you what you are today, and try a different one with different values. It won't be perfect but it will be different. When people ask you why you went to (wherever) you just explain you had a bad childhood and you felt lonely all the time so you decided to look for something better.
But you commit to learning the social rules in the new place and put up with doing their normie shit out of prints to your hosts. Unironically if you are in an alien environment then you will relate to yourself differently and you'll be able to abstain from or modify your digital behaviors because the alien environment will create psychological distance around you, and you'll be able to see your relationships with others more clearly. If there's also a language barrier to overcome that will help you b to focus on fundamentals of good social behavior and leave less mental energy for your own neuroses. You'll still be a loner but it won't be as strange because you'll literally be a visibly foreign person and people will understand you're different. You'll get both more and less slack at the same time. As long as you are not an butthole and don't start comparing everything to the USA USA USA then you'll likely get on fine. You'll be a freak, but a nice freak that people like and you'll be able to repair your massively broken social skills by starting from scratch.
*out of politeness
This is... actually really good advice. Who are you?
Jelly of your 8" no homo
Ive always thought my dick was fine but my ex cheated on me with some guy that was apparently the size of a monster can amd ive given myself a complex about it
If it makes you feel any better, it barely works because I suffered seemingly permanent and severe sexual side effects from Finasteride.
Im sorry to hear that man, at least youve got some killer hair right?
It doesnt make me feel better. I dont want other people to be worse, I want us all to be better. Its just a bit sad knowing il never be a 6'4 chadthunderwiener.
Its 100% a problem in my head, ive never had a women or girlfriend complain about my size, at least not to my face.
Nope. Norwood 3. Just got a hair transplant about 2 months ago. I'm also on oral Minoxidil. Here's hoping that it looks decent in 10 more months and doesn't continue to shed like crazy.
Good luck pal. Do you need to take minoxidil and fin even with hair transplants? Its a shitty feeling running your hand through your hair and seeing a few more fall out.
I'm not an expert, but most of the comments that I saw on hair transplant forums said that you might as well not even get a transplant if you're not on Finasteride because the rest of your hair will eventually go. And a lot of the hair transplant surgeons that I did consultations with strongly suggest all of their patients to get on Finasteride. Oral Minoxidil is considered to be inferior and experimental, but better than nothing, but also possibly dangerous. I'm hoping the oral Minoxidil helps me to keep the rest of my hair, but if it doesn't, then I'll probably get a 2nd transplant down the line - which is pretty common anyway regardless if you're on Finasteride or not.
Yep.
Had gyno since puberty. Apparently it's a genetic thing inherited from my dad's side of the family.
>How do I get over this?
Plastic surgery.
Is it body dysmorphia if people think others aren't a healthy size?
Something is wrong when people view a normal BMI is seen as skinny and unhealthy but they think the average sized American is healthy.
People on fit have often said I have reverse body dysmorphia
Doesn't exist. The same authorities who feed you these lies tell you that eating good food consistently is a disorder. Some men want to be bigger because it's possible to be bigger and they know exactly how big they are because we have the means to measure it. Even if they're too stupid for that they can see someone else at their height being bigger and thus know that they could be bigger.
When I used to go to the gym I had, I would feel so skinny compared to others
Now I no longer go and train at home and it's better, I've started to wear t shirts outside (which I haven't done previously for 5+ years)
>I've started to wear t shirts outside (which I haven't done previously for 5+ years)
That's a huge win, anon. Good for you!
everyone on IST has body dysmorphia
if a normie thinks you're buff, you're as buff as you need to be, even if you're DYEL by IST standards
Sure I don't need to be able to move an incorrectly parked car with my hands. I don't need to never get tired at work. I don't need every single thing I do to be easier. Really I don't need anything other than 1000 calories a day and netflix.
You're free to do as you like, but make sure it's YOU that's making the decision and not your mental illness or a bunch of strangers on the internet
>mental illness
>makes you stronger
Up is down. Black is white.
Physical health and mental health are two different things
If you reach a point where you can jog 5km at a steady pace without resting and you can pull yourself up a cliff, you're fit enough in my book
Had it while I was a fatty fattass. Would try to shrink my belly when I was at the beach at all times because I was ashamed of myself.
Now I love being observed, lmao.
I do. I was a fat kid/teenager, only got slim at around 18. All I see in the mirror is whatever body-fat there is
The heart surgery and shoulder surgery scars make me never want to take my shirt off. I feel like an inhuman freak, and seeing natural unstained bodies makes me jealous.