I feel very strongly about body acceptance, and I reject body dysmorphia.
Drag wants to take a crack at explaining this.
The mind is a machine. We have free will, but that free will has limits. If you try to hold your breath until you pass out, you’ll probably fail. Your subconscious will demand air and you’ll give in. The human jaw is capable of producing enough force to bite off a finger. But you can’t chew off your own finger unless you’re on drugs. Your brain won’t let you. We can do a lot of things with our brains, but some are hard, and under normal circumstances some are impossible.
Accepting your body when you’re five pounds heavier than you’d like is something our brains can do without that much trouble. Accepting your body when you’re a hundred pounds heavier than you’d like is hard. Some people never manage to summon enough willpower to do it. Accepting your body when you’re the wrong sex is, for most people, impossible. It doesn’t work. The brain has limits, and those limits kick in.
Drag wants to take a crack at explaining this.
The mind is a machine. We have free will, but that free will has limits. If you try to hold your breath until you pass out, you’ll probably fail. Your subconscious will demand air and you’ll give in. The human jaw is capable of producing enough force to bite off a finger. But you can’t chew off your own finger unless you’re on drugs. Your brain won’t let you. We can do a lot of things with our brains, but some are hard, and under normal circumstances some are impossible.
Accepting your body when you’re five pounds heavier than you’d like is something our brains can do without that much trouble. Accepting your body when you’re a hundred pounds heavier than you’d like is hard. Some people never manage to summon enough willpower to do it. Accepting your body when you’re the wrong sex is, for most people, impossible. It doesn’t work. The brain has limits, and those limits kick in.