The Body Imperfect

How do you overcome crippling self-image problems? I've asked myself this question for a long, long time. Undoubtedly it is 1 of the founding pieces of my depression. Ever since puberty hit I've been a chubby person. And I loathe it, among other things I can't really stand about myself. But weight is a "relatively" easy thing to overcome. You just have to want it badly enough and work hard enough at it. When I was around 17 or so I dieted and exercised and lost 25 lbs. and for a short period of time was probably the happiest I've been in my adult body (with my body in any event since happiness depends on so many other factors). But unless you make a complete lifestyle change you will always gain the weight back. And I did. It is a complicated issue with lots of different factors weighing in (pun intended) but without dissecting every facet of it lets just say I've never been happy with my body and I doubt I ever will be. The problem with never being good enough for yourself is that even if I worked really hard and dieted and exercised again and made a lifestyle change and lost enough weight to get down to something that I could live with, I'd still be me. All the weight loss in the world will never change that. I'd still be looking at myself in the mirror and thinking "Man, I'm just not happy with this person." Part of going to therapy every time I've been has been to try and make peace with myself. My last therapist even said  to me "Who are these people you're looking at and comparing yourself to who make you so uncomfortable in your own body? Have you been to Motor Vehicles lately?" Looking back it seems ludicrous that she even said that seeing as she was a very pretty and very skinny girl who always seemed on top of things. But I digress. As an example of how duplicitous this whole body image loathing issue is for me, I've made countless friends on Twitter, Tumblr, and Skype who all have seen my pics and/or vids and haven't vomited in disgust but have in fact said that they love it and want to cam with me. Yet every time I find myself not believing them or still not wanting to show my body on cam out of fear. Essentially I have what I believe only a skinny body would get me, which is someone hot who is saying they're into me just the way I am and wants to cam with me and possibly more but I always find excuses not to appear on cam and then they lose interest and its like some sort of mental roller coaster that I can't get off but that keeps bucking off people who are trying to save me. That is probably a good analogy though, because in truth I know for a fact that nobody else can save me. I have to save myself. That is the only way I will ever beat this problem. Every little step is a major victory for me. Just a few years ago I would never have dreamed of taking a naked picture of myself and showing it to someone (I still preferably only ever show my cock cuz fuck the rest of my body see there I go again), but I've done that now. I have cammed, though it usually takes a LOT of smooth talking from the other person and a LOT of build up so most people who don't appreciate a challenge give up easily but it HAS happened. And perhaps, maybe one day, I'll be able to look in a full length mirror no matter what my weight is or how my body looks and think "I really love this person." I am not there yet, but I consider it a work in progress. Wish me luck.