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1 post tagged tw: body image
tw: eating disorders, body image, weight, BDD
When I was little, my God-fearing Gramma Shaw always told me “the sin is in the secret.” This gentle reminder usually pertained to me picking my nose behind the weird little partition in their living room or spilling Barbacide while playing beautician in her in-home salon. It wasn’t a reprimand, really. Despite my mother’s cries to the contrary, Gramma has always been a pretty reasonable broad. At least for as long as I’ve been alive. She didn’t want to punish me or hold my misdeed over my head. She wanted me to stop acting guilty and weird, walking around like a puppy that just shat on the rug, so we could acknowledge the situation, wipe up the mess, and get on with our busy day of causing trouble in the garden and making salmon cakes for Grandpa.
I’ve not been a Christian for at least 10 years, and have generally embraced all manner of sins with arms wide-fucking-open, but that quip is something that has stuck with me. It works. It makes sense. A sin, one against whatever God(s) you believe in or- much more simply- one against your own values, always feels more poisonous when kept secret, echoing in your head. You can convince yourself of stuff that’s just not true, escalating the seriousness or impact, without a third party reality check. Before you come clean you overcompensate to throw people off the trail and to distract yourself from this false feeling of shame that comes along with not the act, but the pitiful attempt at self deception. And that overcompensation inevitably feels disingenuous which makes more shame, more secret sin, that requires more overcompensation until you’re consumed.
These days I’m finding myself feeling pretty consumed.
