Previous article: Body Love Part 4: University
Disclaimer: Those who have had issues with body dysmorphia or are currently experiencing issues with body dysmorphia should be advised as the following article may contain sensitive topics.
After ‘completing’ my transition from high school to university through first year, I was hoping that once second year started, everything would finally click into place. I hadn’t lost any of the weight I had gained in first year over the summer, which made me anxious about coming back to university in the fall. I had it in my head that I should have ‘glowed up’ over the summer months and return a better version of myself. I thought the social pressure I felt in first year would have faded by the time second year hit, but instead it felt worse. Instead, I felt more out of control that I ever had, and the prominent hookup culture made me question my appearance constantly. During frosh week, I got into the habit of not eating before going out with my friends to make myself feel thinner and drinking way too much to compensate for the fact that I felt so uncomfortable in my own skin.
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Everyone always says that confidence is what’s attractive, so I thought that if I dressed and acted like I was pretty and confident, people would like me more. But dressing and acting confident is hard to do when you are the furthest thing from it. I constantly wished I could disappear, and liquid courage didn’t seem to help much. I got into a cycle of drinking more than I should to distract myself from the social anxiety I was feeling which usually had me doing or saying things I wouldn’t normally do. I would always feel embarrassed about my behavior in the morning and feel the need to drink more the next time I went out to cope with the embarrassment I felt from the last time. As I’m sure you can imagine, this is not a healthy cycle to be in. After a few weeks back at school, this cycle had me feeling conflicted every time I went out. Part of me wished I stayed home because I felt uncomfortable in my own skin, and I didn’t want to socialize with others and risk embarrassing myself. I didn’t want to feel left out of experiences with my friends, so I usually dealt with feeling uncomfortable and settled for feeling included. Some days I would spend hours in front of the mirror while getting ready, trying to find something cute that I felt good in. This process usually ended with me breaking down in my room before resorting to one of the three outfits I always wore.
After a few more weeks into the semester, I started having this problem daily. I wore leggings and sweatshirts almost exclusively as a way to hide my body. Other days, I felt so uncomfortable in my own skin I didn’t want to leave my house. As school stress started to take control of my life, I was also finding it increasingly harder to sleep. My mind refused to shut off at night and sleeping only three to four hours a night became my new normal. By week six of the semester, I was tired all the time. I was lucky in the sense that most of my morning classes posted lecture captures, so I started to let myself sleep through them on days when I didn’t want to leave my house. This way, when I finally left for my afternoon classes, I hopefully had a few more hours of sleep in me. This also gave me the time to shower and do my hair and makeup before leaving, so I felt somewhat more put together. Before long, I found myself missing most of my morning classes as I was consistently finding it hard to fall asleep before about four o’clock in the morning. As a result, coffee was my drink of choice and I began drinking multiple cups of it daily.
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About eight weeks into the semester, I really started to fall apart. Not only was I tired all the time, but my messed up sleep schedule combined with school stress had completely thrown off my eating schedule. I had begun to avoid eating throughout the day, either because I felt overwhelmed and I forgot, or because I woke up with worse body dysmorphia than usual and simply didn’t want to. Because of this, I found myself eating most of my meals late at night or snacking right up until I went to bed. This usually left me bloated in the mornings, which in turn made me feel even worse about my body and push this cycle of unhealthy eating even more. On top of this, I found it hard to keep a regular exercise routine because I was tired all the time. I felt an enormous amount of academic pressure which pushed me to dedicate all my time either to school, trying to sleep or trying to maintain my social life. I lived about 15 minutes from campus, and although staying on campus to study probably would have been a better use of my time, I came home after all my classes. I hated studying on campus because I found it harder to hide myself from those around me, so I convinced myself that walking to and from classes four to six times a day was good enough exercise to rationalize skipping the gym. This pushed me to increase my caffeine intake even more, not only for the needed boost, but caffeine supposedly helps boost metabolism and I needed all the help I could get. While habits like this may be manageable for a short period of time, they are definitely not manageable long term. Unsurprisingly, I started gaining weight again which skyrocketed the social pressure I put on myself.
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I found it hardest to cope throughout the exam season. I felt so anxious before most of my exams that I couldn’t sleep. I was heavily caffeinated before my exams which made my mind race during them even more. Sometimes while in the midst of writing exams, I found it hard to get my mind off of other, unimportant things. I felt like the other students in the room were silently judging me for what I wore, or how slowly I seemed to work through the exam. I knew in my head that this probably wasn’t the case, but I couldn’t seem to shake these feelings. Throughout the exam season, my sleep schedule got consistently worse. When I finally got home for the break, I completely crashed. I remember sleeping at least 12 hours a night, which is pretty unusual for me. The semester had been rough, but I thought the school stress and lack of sleep I felt was something everyone went through, so I didn’t think much of it. I decided it was just a tough semester and tried to plan for a more successful one following the break. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t ‘just stress’ I was dealing with, and that my issues with body dysmorphia may have been rooted into something deeper. Because I was only treating the symptoms and not the cause, it took a long time for things to improve both mentally and academically.