The ONE universal truth about living with a human body
Having a human body myself while also living, working, commuting, socializing, and squaring up with other people with human bodies, I’ve learned one universal truth.
We ALL feel like foreigners in our body at some point in our lives. For some, it’s from birth to burial and for others its a matter of only a couple of weeks. At some point in our lives, something will happen that makes us feel like our body “isn’t right” or “isn’t how it used to be” or even “how I want it to be.” Some things will be changeable, and some things won’t.
There is such strong value to understanding your own inherent worth and value that is not attached to how you look. But having worked with so many people that feel like foreigners in their own skin for a many, many different reasons, I feel resistance to the idea that you “just need to be ok with how you are now” and “wanting to change something about yourself is a form of self-hatred.”
To be very clear: your body shape, size, composition, ability is non of my business unless you make it my business. I’ve worked with clients who had performance and strength goals who, as soon as they felt they could trust me, shared that they wanted to try to make some form of physical transformation. I die a little on the inside for my clients who go through life in larger bodies hearing the conflicting messaging of a society that heavily values thinness while also hearing whispers of “if you try to change yourself physically that’s x-phobic.” This is not assumption on my end, this is an amalgamation of many conversations over many years.
As common as it is in the fitness industry to hear people talking about how they want to look, more often I hear people talking about how they way to feel or preform. They may have new pain from an accident or natural aging. They may notice that putting their luggage into the overhead bin feels harder than it used to — or suddenly bending over to empty the dishwasher makes their back feel like shit.
In my case, I’ve lived in a relatively thin body most of my adult life (within about a 30lb range). I’m also tall, so visible changes is body shape and composition take a little longer to become obvious to the outside observer.
My “foreigner at home” experiences
In 2018 I lost a relative and I did not cope well. Things along the lines of small-to-medium anxiety attacks, unstable appetite, trouble focusing that lead to issues at my previous sales job. My life and metal capacity changed and in 2019 I had a major, EMS-called, derealization-inducing (out of body experience), panic attack—though I didn’t know it at the time that was what was happening. After the most expensive ride across the street I’ve ever taken (my workplace was literally 1.5 blocks from a major hospital’s ambulance drop off zone) and a few hours in the ER making sure I didn’t have a clot or any other major thing wrong with my physical body, I was released under the assumption that it was a pretty major panic attack.
Through a series of small miracles, I found a fantastic therapist… and together we mutually agreed that medication was not the right path for me in the short term. Because I was a little bit impressionable, when I went to see my primary care doctor that year, she recommended a tiny dose of an SSRI to help squash my low-grade anxiety that was getting in the way of studying for a large professional exam. Two doses in, 36 hours after my first dose, I could feel panic lathering. I had a series of small panic attacks and stopped taking the medication after the third dose. I had a difficult time doing anything other than lying down and had become extremely agoraphobic (I had an emergency session with my therapist on day 4 who was usually an 8 minute walk but it took me 15 minutes because I kept panicking… and cried the entire way).
For months—actually, almost a full year—I felt like I had no control of my body and brain. I took a medication that was well-tolerated in many, many people, but had an adverse reaction (very, very rare, not well known, unpredictable interaction with another uncommon medication I take. I did report the experience to the FDA).
I would have small panic attacks and eventually, with the help of my amazing therapist, learned how to catch the pre-panic warning signs so I could employ my (multitude of) coping strategies, but also advocate for myself (like, telling someone what was happening and asking them to check on me in 10 minutes). And, if I caught it early enough…. I could take a cheeky little dose of Ativan 😏💪
The point of sharing all that is (a) to show that I do understand that “body foreigner” feeling and (b) to show that the things that elicit that feeling of feeling “not right” or that “our body is wrong” come in so many more packages than the more outward issues with physical body.
But, I have had my moments in that realm, too…
About a year ago, I started noticing that I was getting pilling on the inside portion of the legs on my leggings. I also noticed that my thighs seemed to be a little better acquainted with one another when standing in the shower or wearing shorts. All of this is morally neutral, but they were new experiences of my own body. I’m an elder millennial so I know that my body may start to make some changes soon, and I suspect I’ve started to experience those changes. My setpoint for weight is about 10-12lbs higher than it was even 2 years ago. It’s a change.
Over the past 3 or so years, I’ve noticed that my forehead wrinkles stick around a little longer and than my hairline has changed a tiny bit.
I’m hypermobile and the body pain that can be associated with that has started to creep in in low-to-moderate amounts.
My hip has been hurting off and on for the past 8 months, I now get a searing pinch at my ankle from time to time, and I have a knot in my lower lat (mid-back) that will not seem to go away.
Not all of these things cause the same level of physical or emotional discomfort, but they all do exist on the same spectrum. My relative discomfort may be less than another person’s, but it doesn’t change the fact that I (and we all) have some familiarity with feeling like a foreigner in our own body.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of things that could pop up that may cause that “foreigner-in-body” feeling:
Amputation
Chronic injury or illness; congenital abnormalities—(1) that has been present since birth and you can’t do things your peers do. (2) That came on slowly and you went from being able to do certain hobbies to being unable to do them either the way you used to… or at all. (3) Something that hit you like a sack of bricks and very quickly disabled your access to things you used to enjoy.
AGING
IVF, pregnancy, post-partum
Parenthood, in general
Acute injury—tearing your ACL skiing, car accident, fractured wrist
Hearing loss
Hair loss
Vision loss
Anxiety, depression, ADHD, bipolar disorder, the onset of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder
Traumatic events and PTSD
The experience of being a trans person or closeted queer person
Muscle atrophy (especially after a period of being fairly muscular)
Body dysmorphia
Domestic abuse (there can be loads of gaslighting that come along with this and I’ve worked with a couple people who had distorted view of their physical body because of the constant incorrect and negative rhetoric coming from their partner)
Weight gain
Weight loss
A tragic hair cut
Cut or burn scarring
Let’s wrap this up
I think the point I want to make is twofold.
(1) The universal experience of feeling like a foreigner in your own body can come from many places and experiences. No one is more or less valid than the other, and it can present differently in everyone. The weight and challenges faced with each potential presentation is, of course, different.
(2) Whether people do or do not choose to manage these changes or feelings is their choice. Period. And if they choose to let things stay the same…. we let them and support them. And if they choose to change… we let them and support them. And if they choose to stay the same and then later change their mind (or their circumstances change and it finally becomes safe or financially viable or whatever it may be— for them to change… we support them.
