Tis the Season for Comparing
“Holiday” and “reflection” go hand-in-hand for me. Actually, I think the equation is more like this:
holidays + remembering to be thankful + being at home + the annual family Christmas card photo = reflection.
Reflection might not be such a bad thing… but reflection leads to comparing. There is still the day-to-day comparing myself to others in my surrounding (although I think I’m getting better about this), but this time of year leads me to compare myself to former versions of myself.
I blame a lot of this on the family Christmas card (a convenient scapegoat). There’s nothing like being able to physically line up images of myself over the years and make harsh judgments. I treat my picture each year almost as if I were a different person. Somehow I am not the same person as I was before… maybe before I was happier, or thinner, or smarter, or more considerate–who knows what it could be. I’m looking for an indication that I am a worse person now.
I know how disordered this all sounds, but there is something about self vs. self comparison that is much more significant than comparing myself to the person standing in front of me in the check-out line. Somehow these images say something about me as a person.
I know that comparing is a big problem for most people with eating disorders, but I wonder how many people beat themselves up over not measuring up to their former selves? I may possibly be my biggest trigger.
Oh, I hear you on this one! I compare myself a lot with who I was, or who I might have been, or who I should be. But really, without the hell of an ED, I might not have been on the path I am today. Then there’s the physical comparison, which also sucks.
At least I never had a family Christmas photo though…
Raise my hand to this one! Although I find the whole reflection process worst at New Year, I definitely compare my present self to my former self. It’s not so much the physical characteristics but the emotional. Then, I had uber self confidence and was fearless, life was just all before me, and I was headed in all the right directions. I’m still trying to find some concept of that even knowing that it will never be the same, just different.
Definitely identify with this too! I always used to be looking back and comparing when that really doesn’t help. Like trying to fix things in the past in order to make ourselves happier in the present might need doing in order to move on, but often we should actually be doing vice versa.
I think the happier (note the word happier and not more successful/thinner/richer) that you are in the present, the easier it is to look back more fondly and with less regret. If I think back on a day when I am smiling and laughing in the present, then my mistakes in my history, are humorous stories and important learning exercises, and my successes are a reflection of the person I have become. If i am looking back from a place of sadness, then I see a past littered with things i should have done better, or more successful versions of myself. Peace in the present aids peace in the past.
I love your final statement! “I may possibly be my biggest trigger.” Sometimes, when I do surveys on ED for others, there are a lot of questions that imply that it’s societal pressure that keeps the ED going. But as you mentioned, self comparison was really the source of my body image issues than any comparisons with other people as the ED manifested into another form.