Scarleteen

So, I have dealt with being bullied and excluded in grade school for having a disability and developed mental health issues like schizoaffective disorder, and binge eating disorder as a teen and young adult. The accumulation of this grief is when two people from middle and high school said to me that...

"When you die, the only person who will remember you will be your mother. It hurts but it's true".

That really hurt me and caused me to be pushy and needy so that someone besides my mom will remember me when I die. It also made me feel worthless and felt the need to get attention in order to have high self-worth.

Eventually, I started creeping people out and rubbing them the wrong way. People started blocking me on Facebook then lie to me about blocking me, presumably to avoid drama or conflict. The only friend I had in high school was this girl named Sydney T., and even with her it was complicated. While she was very nice to me at school, she never invited me to hang out with her female friends outside of school, and sometimes she tried to push her evangelical non-denominational Protestant Christian religion onto me unsolicited. Shortly after graduation, we almost never talked, and we only saw each other at a diner once while I was a college student.

When I went to college and had no friends, despite having friendly roommates, I felt even more lonely. Due to a combination of psychiatric medications and binge eating as a result of trying to cope with loneliness, depression, and psychosis, I gained 60 to 80 pounds, developed strechmarks than won't go away for the rest of my life, even if I lose the weight, and developed other side effects like gynecomastia (development of large breasts for a man), erectile dysfunction, prediabetes, low testosterone, irregular sleep patterns at night, fatigue, and daytime drowsiness. Look, I'm not trying to promote a pity party, but this has been really getting to me.

I know that some of these issues are medical and warrant a consult with a medical practitioner, or therapist, but this has been really getting to me. I don't like being shirtless because by belly is flabby and has no six pack, while other men my age have six packs and frequently go shirtless to exude confidence. Seeing them shirtless and have no old skin indents marks, surgical marks, and a six pack abdomen made me insecure about my own body. Also, I have strechmarks, fold marks where flabby body fat made indents on my skin that still show despite some weight loss, and I have excess skin around my breasts that the reduction mammoplasty (gynecomastia treatment) surgery that persists.

I still don't like my body and I'm hesitant of going down the "diet and exercise journal" and "the body positivity movement" routes. For the former, it's because I'm afraid I would change my unhealthy relationship with food from binge eating to anorexia. Plus I don't want to feel like I'm being punished or held in contempt for eating, a natural and essential human behavior.

As for the body positivity movement, I heard of some controversies about reasonable doctors being allegedly "fatphobic" and "fat shaming" toward their patients when all they are doing in my view is informing the patients of the risks associated with obesity or being overweight. Now I want to make it clear that I do not condone threats, intimidation, harassment, violence, or other kinds of abuse done because of someone's weight or appearance of weight.

That said, science makes it clear that obese and overweight people are at greater risks of health complications that warrant treatment. The body positivity movement kinda went overboard in my view as to celebrate and even encourage people to become obese as it's some kind of civil rights issue. I understand this is a polarizing topic and that people frequently on the Scarleteen Forum tend to be left-leaning, the same type of demographic that supports the "fat acceptance movement ".

I have more personal and emotional issues than these, but I want to focus on the self worth and body image issues on this post for the sake of simplicity.

Hi dazzlerazzle,

I want to start by saying I'm so sorry that your experiences with bullying as a kid were so intense and misery-inducing. You didn't deserve that--no one does--and it's clear those experiences echoed down into your adulthood in some really rough ways. You mention you know that some of how you're feeling about all this, including the depression linked to your body and self image, needs ton be addressed with a professional, and I agree. Have you been able to access that kind of help?

I actually want to address one of your last points first, which is that the fat positive/fat acceptance movement wouldn't be a useful space for you because it went "overboard" in some ways. A lot of fat acceptance is not just about helping fat folks empower themselves in a world that still generally treats them like garbage; it's about revealing all the ways in which we've culturally been sold some really, really inaccurate messages about weight and health, to everyone's detriment and basically no ones benefit who isn't making money off it. Too, science around weight and health is actually far more complicated than it's presented, and in my experience it's often fat activists who are doing the work to actually dig into the data. I don't want to get too into the weeds on it, but I do recommend reading "What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat" and "You Just Need to Lose Weight: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People" by Aubrey Gordon, and this article by Michael Hobbs: https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/art ... -is-wrong/ . They also do a podcast called "Maintenance Phase" that digs into the wellness industry. I suggest them because both of them do mountains of research, and also present the ideas in really accessible ways.

I'm addressing your concerns about fat acceptance because I agree with you that veering the other direction towards monitoring your health and exercise is a great way to tip yourself into disordered eating again, which is both a problem in and of itself and isn't going to solve the issues you're having with body image.

I also think that, regardless of which set of ideas you choose to engage with, that you're also suffering from some pretty serious confirmation bias that's kind of skewing how you perceive your body. Do some guys your age have six packs? Sure. But those guys are the anomaly, in no small part because having a six pack is something that takes a lot of work to the point that most of the people who have them have a job where maintaining them is part of that work. Heck, LOTS of physically in shape men don't have defined abs, period. But, more importantly, having or not having defined muscles isn't the be all end all of attractiveness, let alone of morality or what makes you a good person.

I think another, potentially helpful starting place for you is to start looking for images of men who look like you acting or feeling confident in their bodies (or other people expressing appreciation for those men). Athletes can be a great source of that, as there are plenty of fat men in sports like rugby, football, baseball, shotput, etc. You could also take a peek at how the gay bear community talks about their bodies. But I think doing what you can to start breaking the connection in your brain that associates bodies like yours with undesirability is going to be helpful.

That was a lot all at once, so I want to pause there and see how you're feeling so far.

Thanks, Sam, for responding to my post. Sorry for the somewhat long delay. In terms of having a healthy body image, I prefer body neutrality than body positivity. Body neutrality is exactly as it sounds; I accept things about my body that I do not like but cannot change due to time, physical limitations, and monetary cost, without going overboard and engaging in some of the things I find controversial in the body positivity movement. Not trying to shame other people's health journeys, but I have actually seen four to six therapists in the past ten years (from 2014 to 2024, the time of this comment) and I have learned some helpful strategies. One therapist (Dr. Goldblatt) taught me a strategy called “countering” where one tries to dismiss any irrational and distorted ideas and thoughts in their mind. He also gave me a card that says “I dare you to love yourself”, and that I should accept what I cannot change without allowing it to make me feel less about myself. Easier said than done, but it is certainly helpful advice.

I still struggle with being shirtless at a public beach due to my excess skin, belly fat, and stretchmarks. I met some women in college who dismissed me and looked the other way once they saw that I was “out of shape” and ridden with silvery stretchmarks. Also, I felt absolutely hurt by being rejected by women due to the consequences of past weight gain from the past that I cannot undo. I understand that this is getting into another controversial issue, and that is whether it is discriminatory to not want to date or find attractive members of a certain group because of their race, sexual orientation (being bisexual/pansexual), age (i.e, a young man in his 20s not wanting to date any woman 35 and older regardless of their physical attractiveness), disability, gender identity, weight, or any other form of protected characteristic.

This is very sensitive because there are some who argue that these alleged 'preferences' are somehow not innate and often the result of implicit biases (i.e., prejudices or preconceived notions that an individual is not even aware of having) influenced by prejudicial societal attitudes instilled to people through subliminal messages in media, culture, education, law, and family. Then there are those who counterargue that regardless of whether 'dating preferences' are implicit biases influenced by societal/cultural messages, consenting people should have the freedom to decide for themselves what they should value and who they want to associate with, even if those 'preferences' can be viewed as hurtful and discriminatory by some. These people also argue that even if the existence of 'implicit bias' is falsifiable and verifiable through scientific studies, it would be unfair to shame or hold someone in contempt of malice, just because they may have a prejudice they are not even aware of.

I mean, as a Black man on the autism spectrum, while I would be hurt to hear attractive women saying they would never date a man if he is Black and or has a disability nor find my attractive, someone can make two counterarguments to this. One, consenting people should never be coerced, guilt-tripped, or judged into dating anyone, even if the intent is to promote diversity and inclusion in dating. Second, I could argue myself as a member of two marginalized groups, that if a woman doesn't want to date me for my race or my disability, then I honestly would not bother with her given that she is not worth my time.

There was actually this YouTuber named Riley J. Dennis, an intersectional feminist who made political commentary videos from 2016 to 2018. One of her most controversial videos was titled “Your Dating Preferences Are Discriminatory” (https://archive.org/details/videoplayback_20170611) where she argues...

1. We all have implicit biases (preconceived notions that we are not even aware of holding) that can instilled by societal norms that be hurtful to marginalized groups.
2. She claims that she is "surprised" on how many people would say that they wouldn't date a Black person, a fat person, a person with a disability, a transgender person, or a bisexual person.
3. She then states along the lines of "well if you say that would never want to date a transgender person, then sorry but, that's pretty discriminatory".
4. She then states that one can find a transgender person as sexually/romantically attractive, regardless if they "pass" or if they had "gender-affirming bottom surgery".
5. She then argues that arguing that if someone would only find a transgender person attractive only if they pass is a “poor argument” because if "clockable sex characteristics" would turn someone off, Riley argues that it's not because of how the viewer's brain is wired or some other innate trait, but because of what Riley calls "societal norms of attractiveness and beauty that many transgender people struggle with, that are conditioned into a person's mind".
6. Riley then says that if someone is a cisgender heterosexual man or a cisgender lesbian, and they are not interested in dating a trans woman because of the possibility of being intimate with a person with genitals the someone is not attracted to, that that lack of attraction or repulsion to penises for straight men and lesbian women are not innate, but conditioned by society".
7. Riley argues that not finding a person with a disability attractive because of their disability is not "hard-wired by evolutionary process" but "instilled by hurtful ableist ideas of people with disabilities that somehow make them 'unworthy' or 'burdensome' to be a romantic partner".

Now, these are most of the arguments Riley claimed in that video I provided a link to, but the part about “genital preferences” really concerns me on behalf of my friends and acquaintances who happen to be cisgender lesbians. Many lesbians online repeatedly stated something along the lines of "not being into penis”, that they are not transphobic for being attracted to vagina instead of penises, and that it is allegedly homophobic to call “genital preferences” as a result of societal conditioning because it implies that sexuality is allegedly a "choice".

I know that video touches on a heated topic about dating preferences and many people across the Internet made response videos and rebuttal blog posts, dissertations, and rebuttal speeches for blogs, podcasts, research papers, and forum posts accusing Riley J. Dennis of trying to “coerce cisgender lesbians and cis-het men into liking penis out of the fear of being labeled a bigot”. Riley sadly got a lot of harassment from people who watched the response/reaction videos to her original video, and this came to the point of becoming a hot button topic when it comes to dating. It seems like everything these days is being politicized and proselytized, even seemingly tame topics like dating and parenting. Not trying to start drama, but it exists, but I digress. Let's get back to the dating preferences issue. While I personally understand where Riley is coming from, I honestly think her original video was not well-thought-out, mainly because she talks about how “discriminatory dating preferences” are harmful to society and marginalized groups, but says near the end of the video that she “doesn't have a how-to guide on unlearning unconscious prejudices” even though she took the initiative to bring this topic up to discussion in a YouTube video.

In my view, giving Riley the benefit of the doubt, if her intent is to help people become “less closed-minded when it comes to dating”, she should have provided or at least referenced a source on how to “unlearn” or “deprogram” questionable “dating preferences” and other “implicit biases”. I don't hate Riley, but I honestly think she should have been more careful when discussing this topic.

Anywho, back to me. As I stated previously, "if a woman doesn't want to date me due to my race or my disability, then she is not worth my time, and I should seek out women who don't have those kinds of 'preferences'”. Again, I want to reiterate that I am not advocating for pressuring, judging, or coercing anyone into dating anyone, but I do concede that this topic is a complex and sensitive matter.

Hi dazzlerazzle,

I'm glad you've had at least some positive help from therapists around self-worth and body image! Are you still seeing the one who gave you that advice you found useful? Or someone who you find similarly beneficial to work with.

I'm not going to engage with a lot of the conversation around the video, because I actually think that's a distraction from the issues you're dealing with, rather than a direction that it's helpful to pursue. I say that because, when there's something that makes us feel insecure or anxious, one of the ways to cope with that is by getting into these hypothetical or theory-based rabbit holes or ways of talking about it, rather than actually looking at the concrete ways you address how you're feeling vis a vis your body.

(I will say that, in my experience, most people who say "hey, you might want to examine WHY you'd never date a trans woman/disabled person/ black person/fat person" aren't "forcing" anyone to date anyone else, they just pointing out social messages, and I tend to recoil from people presenting that argument as such because I associate it very strongly with TERFS reducing trans people down to their genitals).

Too, I think trying to make a unified theory of "does preference=bias in dating 100% of the time" is one of those ultimately unanswerable questions that's a great way to start arguments on the internet but doesn't do all that much to help people actually examine when a preference might be the result of bias and when it's the result of "human desire is vast and varied and what we are or are not attracted to is influenced a wide variety of factors, including the factor known as 'I don't know why I like this, I just do." Cultural messages about what categories of people are/are not attractive can influence our attraction as individuals because of how they introduce bias or tell us certain people are "deserving" of desire. But we also know that those cultural messages utterly fail to capture how diverse desire actually is.

Which brings me back to your feelings about your body and the reactions of other people to it. Look, the women who reacted to you that way shirtless were being jerks about it. But also, I'm guessing you don't want to be with people who find your body unattractive. Part of why I recommended looking for instances where men whose bodies are similar to yours are presented as desirable is because right now, it sounds like your brain needs some counter-examples to the times you've been rejected. Do you think you could take some time this week to look for those examples?

Too, I also think that some of those feelings of low self worth could be addressed by looking at ways to build a positive sense of self outside of your physical appearance, rather than putting so much weight onto it as a means of valuing or liking yourself. If that sounds like a direction you want to go, we can certainly talk about some ways to do that.

Thank you so far. How do I develop a good sense of self-worth outside my physical appearance and sexual function?

The reason I said those last two words before the question mark is because one notable side effect of my mental health medications is sexual dysfunction, which makes me feel insecure and worry about the prospects that a woman would either never want to date me, might break up, or even divorce me because I may not be able to satisfy her in the bedroom as a result of side effects of my psychiatric medications. Now again, I have learned to accept that some women have “sexual compatibility” as a dealbreaker, and that it is best to ask questions about sexual compatibility as early as appropriate to avoid wasting time being with someone who values sexual gratification over companionship. Not judging people who value sex very much, but I personally want to avoid that scenario.

Now, I have talked to various treating psychiatrists, and physician assistants in the past about this, and they told me that many people with the mental health issue I face (persistent/episodic psychosis, anxiety, and depression) may have to be on some form of medication for the rest of their life to be stable. I also asked about alternatives, and they told me that all antipsychotic medications (medication to suppress hallucinations, delusions, and other forms of disconnect from reality), including the one that I am currently on can cause sexual problems, and lowering the dose could result in breakthrough symptoms (experiencing symptoms of illness despite being treated), and even a relapse. They also said that it is unlikely that changing medication would solve my complaint of sexual dysfunction.

I mean, I understand why many women value sexual intimacy, but life happens. Depression, cancer, diabetes, injury, trauma, grief, aging, etc., can all affect sexual function in a relationship, and while it is not my place to dictate what should be a dealbreaker in someone else's relationship, unintended events can occur that can cause a mismatch in libido that should cause a person to be more flexible when it comes to sexual compatibility in my view. I know some may disagree, but that's what I am trying to say.

If I have to be on psychiatric medications indefinitely, I seem like I have to find a way to cope with these sexual issues and find a woman who is understanding. Not being able to enjoy sex and masturbation because of medications one must have to take, cannot lower the dose on, nor change medications feels like a somewhat bleak situation. But anywho, onto your quote...

What things can I do to boost self-worth besides physical appearance, sexual function, and being popular and remembered after I pass away of old age?

Oof, it can really be frustrating to feel like you're having to choose between an unwanted side effect of a medication and the risks of going off the medication or lowering the dose.

With those fears about sexual function in the relationship, I think you actually already have you answer to that in your post. When you're looking for partners, being open about the ways in which illness or medication affects your sex life, and about important sex is or is not to you in the relationship is a way to find people whose wants and needs in a relationship are compatible with your own. There are plenty of people out there for whom sex isn't the main thing that keeps them interested in a partner (or who may not be interested in it at all). Too, if part of your concern is about erection how medication might influence that, it may help to know that when we look at actual research about pleasure, things like hands, mouths, and sex toys play as big, if not a bigger, role in that.

All that being said, one of the things we have to learn to accept--even if it's grudgingly--is that a partner could leave us for ANY reason. That could be sexual incompatibility, or other incompatibility, that could be realizing the relationship is no longer what we want or what makes us happy, that could be a life change that means the relationship is no longer workable, and so on. Being sexual compatible with a partner is no guarantee against heartbreak, because ultimately that's just not something we can fully prevent if we have relationships with other people.

I also think that it might help you to stop thinking or talking about women in such broad, generalized terms. What women want or value in a relationship or a partner is so varied that trying to make life decisions based on what some nebulous concept of Women want is an exercise in frustration.

As to your questions, I'm actually going to answer them with some more questions of my own. The first is: what traits and skills do you admire in others?

The second question is: what kind of person do you want to be? I hear you mentioning that popularity is something you want, but popularity isn't in and of itself a trait we can cultivate. Do you want to be adventurous? A good friend? Someone who contributes to your community? Someone who makes art? In other words, what do you value in yourself, and in others, that you could work toward or focus on (if it's already present in you)?

I like to see politeness, rationality, friendliness, and compassion in others.

I just want to live my life and be comfortable. I kinda don't care if most people do not remember me after I die, for whatever reason, because to me what should matter is if I enjoyed my life and made a good impact overall. However, in my OP I did say that some student at the end of 8th grade in middle school told me along the lines of “nobody but your mom will remember you when you die”. Obviously from retrospect, that was a blatant example of bullying, the specific kind that sadly causes tweens and teens to harm themselves or even attempt suicide.

But what that kid said to me all those years ago constantly taunts me. I worry that my life would hold no value if I don't become some kind of famous person like a social media influencer, politician, musician, artist, or actor. But then again, I apply what Dr. Goldblatt taught me for countering by realizing that there are many cases of famous people who lived unpleasant lives or got remembered for negative reasons. I then rationalize that just because most people might won't remember me when I die, doesn't mean that becoming popular would suddenly mean that my life has value.

As for the predicament about the sexual side effects, and limited options with medication adjustments in my case, any non-medical advice suggestions can you say to me? I know that sexual side effects can be very disheartening, and I feel like my sex life could be over because of having to be on medications for the rest of my life.

With being remembered after we die, I do think you're onto something in terms of thinking about it as a matter of why we're remembered and by who, rather than being widely remembered. I'd say the vast majority of us aren't remembered beyond the people who knew us and the communities we're a part of. Too, at a certain point, a lot of being remembered comes down to whether or not the things we leave behind even survive, or the records of us, whatever those may be, are preserved.

That being said, if that comment about being remembered is still sticking with you, what if you thought about it as being more about the ways you could leave a mark or influence on the people and places that matter to you? When you think about the kind of person you want to be in your community (however you define it), what does that person do? Who are they to the people around them? And in that same vein, when you think about yourself, what things in your life make you happy or help you feel fulfilled?

When it comes to managing those sexual side effects, right now that's a situation where a lot of the information I could give you would be pretty broad and hypothetical, since you don't currently have a partner. Really, when we're thinking about managing anything that impedes on how we'd like our partnered sex life to be--physical (dis)ability, our schedule, our mental health, etc--what it comes down to is having the skills to talk about that with our partner and, through communication and honesty, try to build a sexual dynamic that works for us. I do think one area you could explore is reading the work of disabled sex writers, because those authors provide examples of what it looks like to navigate sexual encounters with a body, brain, or both that doesn't act in the "expected" ways. We have a lot of that in the "Disability" section of the site if you're looking for a starting place.