To tell DD to be careful talking about her body issues

[year12clueless]

I really don't know how to handle this. DD 17 is an objectively extremely attractive girl. 5'4, size 4, curves, blonde hair, green eyes. Skin good, very sporty. I'm not just saying she's attractive because I'm her mum- she's also done some petite size modelling so fits conventional beauty standards.

She's had a difficult few years. A late ADHD diagnosis and trials with medicating left her at one stage very thin (6.5 stone) and anxious and there was a self harm incident so I treat her mental health very carefully. We got her to talk to a therapist whilst all this was happening and the therapist also flagged she had moderate body dysmorphia- what other people see when they look at her isn't what she sees.

She can list (exhaustively) a list of "flaws" that no one else can see- chubby cheeks, weirdly shaped teeth, short torso, stubby fingers etc etc. The thing is, she complains to her friends about this, and posts pics of her (in the group chat they have to discuss what they're wearing) dissecting how rubbish she looks- when objectively she's looking lovely.

This has begun to annoy her friends and I absolutely understand why. It's very hard to feel sympathetic when a size 4 is telling you she feels chunky. They don't really understand the body dysmorphia and it just seems like she's fishing for compliments. They don't see her hysterical after trying on 15 prom dresses that make her look "awful" in all of them- they just see someone complaining unnecessarily.

One of her friends recently asked her to stop criticising how she looks as it was upsetting her. DD was really upset as she thinks she can't now be herself with her friends, but I've told her that whilst what she has is real, its incredibly hard for people who aren't her mum to feel sympathetic towards her, and perhaps a collection of other teen girls aren't the best support for this. I suggested she tone it down, stop talking to her friends about what she's wearing/ looking like, talk to me about her worries if she needs to but to also try to accept that objectively she's very pretty and to try to understand what people see.

She's a bit upset with me as she says it sounds like I'm telling her to pull herself together and get over it. Which I think I am in a way but I've tried to be kind. Honestly I sympathise with her friends a bit- it's hard listening to someone fretting about non existent body flaws.

Anyone with any experience in this who can help? Should I have kept quiet and let her carry on sharing with her friends?

Does your daughter understand that continuing this behaviour with her friends will likely mean the end of the friendships? Or that one of her friends, out of frustration & exasperation, might lash out and say something hurtful? Does she want to feel this way all her life and have the same problem in her adult friendships?
If she realises this, it might give her the impetus to make changes herself.

Wish I could ban the phrase “fishing for compliments” in the context of someone with body dysmorphia.

Imagine if you were hallucinating a gremlin on the ceiling. You’d feel the need to ask people if they could see it too, all the while
feeling hugely ashamed, frightened, embarrassed. It’s asking for a reality check rather than a compliment.

The fact that she is a conventionally pretty 17 year old girl who might make other people feel insecure doesn’t make her less worthy of sympathy.

You’ve had lots of great advice OP, primarily to do with the body dysmorphia- but I wanted to focus a bit on the ADHD.

ADHD is an absolute fucker. People have no idea what it’s like. Yes, meds help but it’s still a battle.

The big thing with ADHD is that’s it’s very easy to develop a huge, all-consuming passion which feels impossible to ignore. It’s hard to explain just how intense it can be.

While your DD has dysmorphia I also think it has become one of her “special interests” which is another reason she’s upset at being told to stop talking about it.

If I was told I couldn’t think/speak/share my special interest I would feel very upset. Obviously as I’m an adult I try to rein things in anyway because I’m very aware I can be “too much”! But it’s like an itch you just want to keep scratching - and it can be very annoying when people try to change the subject.

I think a possible solution is for your DD to develop a new special interest. I know this won’t magically cure the dysmorphia but it might allow it to fade into the background somewhat because a new, shiny passion will be more attractive. Is there anything different you can encourage her with or introduce her to? Ideally something totally unconnected with fashion/beauty/appearance. What else does she enjoy? Anything that she’s been interested in the past?

She may well need more counselling but I don’t know if it would be counterproductive right now. When you have a special interest, being able to talk about it provides a dopamine hit. Counselling could perpetuate that and stop DD from being able to focus on something else.

Just for clarity, I’m autistic and have ADHD.

Sorry I meant to add that @SauronsArsehole makes some excellent points re ADHD - and I really do think that it’s the ADHD which is a very large contributory factor at play.

Why don’t you ask her to respond to her friend and say, you’re right, I’m sorry, why don’t we make this a positive chat, let’s focus on what we like about ourselves. See if she can switch it from critiquing to positivity

You have my sympathy OP. She sounds like me at that age.

am 😳😳 about moaning on about being fat to overweight friends while I looked like a twig! No self awareness!! But the feelings were genuine.

I think you are offering brilliant advice- I wish I had someone in my life who had said the same. just wanted to let you know that you are being very wise and it’s up to her now to take it on board.

If it doesn’t sink in, how about getting her to think how her friends might feel if they are heavier/spottier than her? I’m sure she’d say they look gorgeous. Let her know that her criticism of herself is 1) actually insulting to bigger friends, and 2) really, really boring.

I get what you are saying.

However, the Ops dd has body dysmorphia and ADHD. People with ADHD chase a dopamine hit, usually. And if she is getting it from them telling her how great she looks, she will keep doing it and doing because she craves the dopamine. Fishing for compliments is a fairly regular behaviour.

The adhd is hugely significant and could actually be fuelling her hate for her body. She hates her body, voices it, people shower her with compliments and she gets her dopamine. It’s addictive. The answer isn’t to just ignore her and refuse to compliment. But to say it is (or could be) fishing for compliments isn’t entirely wrong. But continuing this cycle is likely along the problem worse. Because the more negative things she says, the more she believes these awful things are true.

No one said she is less worth of sympathy because she is pretty. However, she also needs to be taught how to think of other and how her behaviours are negatively impacting others around her

Imo, the correct response to a slim woman complaining that she's fat is
"Are you? 🤨"
Yes, I've got lardy knees [or whatever]
"If you say so 😐"
I can't seem to get rid of it
"Does it matter?"

I'm not sure how this plays out with self-judging teenagers, though.

I’m shocked you let a child with an eating disorder and body dismorphia do modeling. A job where you are rewarded for being very thin and looking a certain way.

Reminds me of the posters on here who say things like, “I feel like an absolute whale if my BMI goes above 18.1!” on threads where posters are happy with their perfectly healthy 20-25 BMIs. It’s very tedious for those who have to read it but at least the online pro-ana individuals can be ignored. Your daughter’s friends don’t have that option - or rather, they do, but they haven’t exercised it yet. Their patience will run out though.

I wouldn’t be happy if I were the parent of a healthy size-8 girl who was being made to feel overweight by her size-4 mate tbh and I would be advising my kid to distance herself from yours.

Hopefully, the thought of her friends creating some space from her will be enough to make her change her thoughtless behaviour.

But you try telling a teenager that they can't be a model. Plus it's petite size so being thin isn't so stressed.

I worked with a young lady like your daughter OP. She drained everyone and especially annoyed the other women as she was very attractive, slim, had a great job at an early age. I didn't think she could possibly really believe she thought she was fat and ugly and I thought she was just fishing for compliments.

This thread has opened my eyes to the fact that even the people you may envy looks wise sony see what you see

This is so helpful. I don't actually think she realises it's a mental illness. She just thinks people are t seeing her properly.
That will be a tough conversation to face and I don't know if I'm capable

She plays a lot of netball- school and club. I love seeing her all sweaty and disheveled and outside of her own head just having fun. She plays a lot though so I might have to think of some other things as well.

Have you explained to her that while complimenting her friends while she relentlessly criticises herself, her friends will either come to the conclusion that either:

She criticises everything about everyone and secretly thinks her friends are fat / ugly / look awful and her compliments are insincere

Or

She has issues with how she perceives herself that they feel completely powerless to navigate? It can be completely wearing to have to continually reassure someone about something that's a non issue in their eyes especially when this reassurance has no discernible affect

It's also telling that she says she 'cant be herself' with her friends. Her whole self isnt about how she feels about her looks (though I understand its important at that age). But ultimately its simply an annoying habit that they've asked her to stop doing, as much for her own sake probably as theirs, and it's because they actually like the rest of her that they've been up front and asked this rather than gone behind her back and cut her out.

Thank you.
Honestly people have been so nice and helpful.

Does she know/accept that she has body dysmorphia? It must be a hard thing to get your head around, but if she understands it then she must be able to begin to understand how it looks to her friends.

That's so interesting. I was basing my experience off my last CAHMS interaction when I called about a non eating anxious depressed self harming child and heard back 14 months later that we were still in the waiting list.

The truth is that it's irritating if someone keeps harping on about something that either isn't true, or that they refuse to do anything about. you can be sympathetic and have empathy for a long time, but in the end he just gets wearing and she needs to know that not just about this, but about everything in life.

Only you will know if this'll work with DD, @year12clueless, but here's what the therapist brought in by my school did with me:

We talked about how people automatically know what size we are. Cats use their whiskers, for instance, to tell whether their body will go through a given space. People can tell by looking, we aren't constantly crashing into doorways & furniture. We can even tell whether we'll fit through a narrow gap sideways. We agreed that this is an amazing human capacity, yet so normal that we never even think to notice it!

Then he asked me to place two chairs back to back, at just the right distance for me to walk between them - as close as they'd go without me hitting them.

I did that. Then he asked me to walk back and stop between the chairs. We took a look. There was a few inches of space either side.

That was all it took for me to understand my dysmorphia. It took much longer to get rid of it, but that day was the start - and so simple!

So much excellent advice here but wanted to add: if you can, when the time is right, have a chat with her about social media. Although insta & Pinterest have tried to cut back on it, there are still a lot of Thinspo threads on Reddit etc. so if she’s looking at those, it will be making her journey harder.

I’m sorry you’re all going through this, but it’s great that she feels safe enough to talk to you about it. I’ve struggled with dysmorphia and EDs since childhood but have only recently been able to talk about it (I’m 40 this year!)

I work in teen mental health hence the SM advice.

all the best for you and your daughter x

So happy for you now!

Thank you. I do try but in fairness I haven't always got it right. I once told her that a skirt wasn't the nicest out of the ones she'd tried on m, as it cut her off at the wrong part of her legs, and now she worries about any skirt that length. I just meant it was a dreadful skirt poorly cut and build for someone of a different shape but needed to choose my words more carefully.
The thing is DH and DS are terrified of saying the wrong thing so don't comment at all ever which is a shame as sometimes saying "you look lovely" wound be nice. DS said she looked really "smart" on her way to prom. To be fair she laughed a lot at that!

Really helpful. Her style and that of her friends is entirely based on being considered attractive / sexy by others and that's where their self worth comes from. As people gave mentioned upthread social media plays a massive part in this. She was saying recently how wonderful a friend was looking in a picture- the friend did look amazing- just nothing like her! I'd picked them up from netball the evening before and the pic of her after makeup and contour and filters wasn't even the same girl. I think their perception of reality becomes skewed.

Thank you - i need to remind myself of this sometimes as well when I'm reassuring her that her eyebrows don't have a "weird purple tinge" or some other thing that feels frustrating to rebut.

@SeemsPointless and @SauronsArsehole thank you. I forget the ADHD piece of the puzzle. Not much about dopamine was mentioned really - the help was very much on getting her on medication that she could still eat on and solving the self esteem issues caused by school failures

I'm doing reading now....