Dear Shoob:

“I wish I could stop thinking about these thoughts”– is your current obsession with the topic of your height- your first obsession, or were you obsessed in the past with other topics, such as.. your health, someone else’s health, being rejected by people, etc.?

anita

Dear Shoob:

You are welcome.

“I just feel less.. deserving of respect and love.. like I am lesser“- if you went back in time, as far back as you can.. to the time before you went to school (before working hard at “fixing/ improving.. studies, sports.. h0bbies”)- what was it that made you feel less-than, and undeserving of respect and love?

anita

Dear Shoob:

I would like to return to your thread and answer at length when I am more focused. It could be as long as in 14 hours from now.

anita

How are you, Snoob?

anita

Dear Shoob:

You are welcome and good to read back from you! I am glad to read that your thoughts about your height are “a little bit less frequent“. I think that it’s excellent that you read “Buddhism/ stoic teachings“, and aiming at the following: “I’m trying to reduce my desire of wanting respect/love from others“.

Paraphrased, the First Noble Truth identifies the presence of suffering in our lives, physical and mental, and the Second  identifies Desire (which cannot be satisfied),  and Ignorance to be at the root of mental suffering. Clearly at 26, your desire to be taller cannot be satisfied, neither can the desire to be respected and loved by everyone (and often, not even the desire to be respected and loved by a single person who does not… can be satisfied).

Ignorance means to not see people and situations as they truly are. I think that what you may not see is in this sentence from your original post: “How can I start to love myself unconditionally..?”-

Most likely, if your parents were the major figures in your life as a child, they loved you conditionally (as most parents do), fueling your current obsession with your height. It’s your brain reasoning something like this: oh, it must be my height the reason why I wasn’t loved unconditionally… or is it? (and to answer the latter you google celebs’ heights, measure yourself and compare).

* Although your identification of  “height dysmorphia/OCD)” being what you suffer from read true to me (a non-professional), from having experienced body dysmorphia and OCD myself, for many years,  I know that these labels, although true and useful to me, do not identify the root cause of my personal lifetime suffering. I imagine that this is true to you too, and that the root cause of your suffering is likely to be .. conditional love early on and onward (?)

“How are you Anita and how is your mental health at the moment? Any highlights/lowlights you would like to share or goals you are striving for? Also out of curiosity, do you meditate“- (1) I am fine, thank you, continuing to engage in my own mental/ emotional healing. It’s been extremely slow on tiny buddha where I’ve done much of my healing, so this takes some adjustment on my part,  (2) I am currently getting to feel more of how I felt as a child and a teenager, and this makes me less afraid. I am feeling more alive, more of a part of life itself rather than an exception, (3)  I no longer listen to guided meditations nor do meditate as part of any established practice,

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by .

Dear Shoob:

You are welcome, good to read from you again. As you pay more and more attention to the ways in which you do not love yourself unconditionally (the ways you criticize and reject yourself  in a variety of contexts during the say), as you then correct your thoughts and offer yourself unconditional acceptance, and as you engage in  positive interactions/ relationships with people who offer you the acceptance that you need-  you will learn to accept and love yourself unconditionally.. more and more so, over time.

“I would love to hear more about your experiences with body dysmorphia and OCD as well (or was it also related to your tall height which you mentioned previously?)-

Regarding my experience with OCD: it started in  my first decade of life, I think, it was very pronounced in my teenage years, went on to my 20s and 30s (diagnosed in  my 20s, got on an SSRI medication for OCD in my late 30s, got off SSRIs 17 years later), and I no longer suffer from it since a few years ago as a result of what I refer to as my healing process. My OCD included lots of Obsessive thinking and many Compulsions: rituals that I performed to relieve the distress that accompanied obsessive thinking.

Regarding my experience with body dysmorphia: I was bothered by being too tall to my liking, but I was also bothered by lots of other things about my looks when I was a teenager and onward. After I started to gain weight for the first time in my life, when getting close to 40, I went on diets and over-exercised so to lose weight.. and at one point on I viewed myself as overweight when I was of normal weight, and went on to lose more weight until I was underweight. This has been going on long enough for me to receive the diagnosis of anorexia. The idea of being overweight still distresses me, but I am not anorexic.

“Ah, when you say healing on tiny buddha,  is that providing help and guidance to others”? (i.e. giving to others helps your own mental health)“- no, my healing on tiny buddha is about learning about myself and about others. The more I learn about others, the more I understand myself, and .. the more I understand myself, the more I understand others.. due to the fact that as humans we have a whole lot in common. For me, learning is synonymous with mental/ emotional healing.

anita