Saw this on Facebook this morning and want everyone who is camera shy because of body image issues to read and be inspired. Enjoy 🙂
http://myfriendteresablog.com/so-youre-feeling-too-fat-to-be-photographed/
Great Blog Post on Feeling Too Fat to Be Photographed
04 Saturday May 2013
Posted in Resilience, The Power to Do
Barbara Scoville, LCSW 
That was a great message in that blog. And wow, the number of comments. I am one of the many or maybe majority who are overweight. Although I don’t have a problem being photographed, I do have a fear of how my husband and family see me. I may be dressed amazingly as my husband and I attend one of several very important meetings or dinners with many very important people, but despite how amazing I may feel I look as a whole, I am still always afraid of what my husband is thinking about how fat I am as we socialize with his extremely important and sometimes very wealthy associates and friends. This fear extends into the bedroom as well. You know what I mean. I am also always afraid when I eat something that is not nutritional, fat free, fruit or vegetable, that I will be looked at and judged with, “That’s why she’s so fat and not losing weight. It’s her choice” that and exercise.
As good as that blog is, those of us who suffer with depression, anxiety and panic, or other mental illnesses deal with issues akin to those mentioned in the blog, but totally different as well. I’m talking about even being able to leave our homes. I’m talking about going to work. I’m talking about getting together with family and friends. It takes an extreme amount of energy to do any of these and keep up the facade that we may be wearing to hide what is really beneath the look of enjoyment, laughing, or smile that we keep plastered on our faces, or as we try speaking with those around us. It’s physically and emotionally exhausting to keep this up in social settings. It becomes worse if the facade can’t be dropped once we are at home because we have to keep it up for our spouses or others that may live with us. I have a t-shirt that I wear that says, “You read my t-shirt. That’s enough social interaction for one day.” Each time I wear it, I get a number of laughs and comments. These people don’t realize that this is not just a cute quote to me. It’s pretty much a reality. Do you ever feel like that?
I would guess that most, if not all of us, has been told that we need to get out and take a walk, or go to work, or do something with our family or friends. And, I do know what at least some of the rest of you are thinking, “Are you kidding? I can’t do that” but, we have also all been told that if we don’t do at least some of these things, we are not helping ourselves work toward our final goal, whatever it is. Although I keep wearing my t-shirt and keep the picture I have of a beautiful sunset over a large blue stream edged by green foliage and trees that is captioned, “DESPAIR-It’s always darkest just before it goes pitch black,” I do know, I may not act, but I do know that what we are told is true. No one is going to just lift us out of that darkness, despair, dark hole, or whatever we may call the place where we are. For me, it’s a very dark hole with slick sides and is so deep that I cannot see the light that I think is up there somewhere or see or hear the people that I hope are up there trying with everything they have to reach down and HELP me get out.
I am not saying in all of this that I am doing it all or any of it. Most of the time, I’m not. I am saying that each of us, whether it be a fear of being photographed because we are fat, or afraid of leaving the house, or have a problem with social anxiety, or a myriad of other possibilities, does have at least one person who is at the top of the hole pulling or more likely with us in the cold and dark of the hole who is with us all to help and comfort us. I know that with all my heart. We also have our mental health professionals and so many others that are there to help us if we will just ASK and then DO OUR PART as hard as that may be.
But whatever our personal challenges are, WE have to do most of the work, follow the plan, do what we have been told over and over and over again. I say again, I am NOT there yet, not even close, but I do know this to be true. So collectively let’s commit to trying at least one thing each coming week to do something that will help US make just one baby step toward the top of that deep, dark hole that keeps us trapped from enjoying the life that God created for us to live.
So true SO true………It really makes you think…..They/people will only remember you and your good qualities….not the way you looked….