BREAKING STIGMAS
ON MIND AND BODY
Feel safe. Feel supported
Never feel alone.
ON MIND AND BODY
Feel safe. Feel supported
Never feel alone.
Body Talk is an online platform that breaks stigmas on Mental Health and redefines Body Image by spreading awareness through open conversations, shared experiences, education, resources, support, creativity and collaboration.
By choosing healthy over skinny, you are choosing self love over self- judgment. By doing so you are choosing yourself, you're mental and physical health, and your confidence over the world’s preconceived ideals and pressures. When you’re healthy, your skin glows, your hair is healthier, your mind is more positive, you think more clearly, and your self-esteem is much higher. Choose you, not society’s/media’s opinions on what’s beautiful. Healthy is what’s beautiful and wanted, always.
Sometimes self harm comes from numbness. Instead of thinking the person is crazy, getting angry or saying words that can cause more harm than comfort, the most important thing is to understand the reason behind it, to make the person feel understood (even if you don’t understand it yourself). That’s what empathy is and it should be applied even more in situations that seem extreme.
© Body Talk
All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved
(anxiety, depression, eating disorders, panic attacks, body dysmorphia)
You are never alone. I hope this page makes you realise that and helps others understand the struggles we face inside our minds.
This is merely a fraction of it.
︎︎︎ back
I’m not sure if I could classify it as depression but every now and then I’d go through phases where it just felt like my life was in a rut. And at many points I didn’t feel the need to make an effort to change the situation because I genuinely lost all hope. Like I didn’t even have it in me to fight that horrible feeling, which obviously made me feel even more pathetic. And in about 90% of these cases I’ve always had the people around me, snap me out of it. Really making an effort over a period of time. There are always going to be ups and downs in life and I’ve experienced those but sometimes it was more than just “oh things aren’t really going my way, let me continue trying and see where it gets me”. These situations just felt inescapable. You feel lonely in situations where you really don’t have to, which is why I can really appreciate the people who went out of their way to literally fight my ‘off switch’. I also went through a phase as a kid - all my siblings were Super thin and fit and I was more on the chubby side ( even though I ate the same amount/ even lesser than them. Yes, I actually used to keep track) so I tried throwing up after every meal because I couldn’t not eat the bare minimum that I was but I wanted to lose weight. Within two weeks I started experiencing acidity burns and then I just stopped because I got scared.
Having anxiety and depression is like being scared and tired at the same time. It’s the fear of failure but no urge to be productive. It’s wanting friends but hating socialising. It’s wanting to be alone but not wanting to be lonely. It’s caring about everything and then caring about nothing. It’s like feeling everything at once then feeling paralysingly numb. That’s why I think it’s hard to explain it to people because you fear that they’ll think you’re crazy.
My head’s been pretty cloudy lately which detaches me from my environment. My thoughts and emotions have been layered and muddled and i don’t know if they’re exaggerated or normal or even real. Feels like life’s just happening and I’m just floating, existing.
Sometimes I just dissolve into my surroundings. I’m so absorbed by being still and lost that it feels like I’m part of the furniture and life is just happening around me. The depression is just melting away everything that makes me me. All that it’s leaving behind is this feeling of detachment and exhaustion.
I also went through a phase as a kid - all my siblings were Super thin and fit and I was more on the chubby side ( even though I ate the same amount/ even lesser than them. Yes, I actually used to keep track) so I tried throwing up after every meal because I couldn’t not eat the bare minimum that I was but I wanted to lose weight. Within two weeks I started experiencing acidity burns and then I just stopped because I got scared.
Last year I decided to change my body but I did it in the wrnog way.I started eating very little food parallel to going to the gym which resulted in my losing 8 kg in two months which was extremely unhealthy for my height(1,66) since I weighted 46 kg.Generally my period stopped,my relationship with food was unhealthy,I was constantly cold,I grew more body hair and I looked really sick,which was something that everyone told me,and I still thought that I needed to lose more weight.Fortunately a doctor talked to me and I understood what was happening so I started eating based on plan to gain weight bust still I was afraid of eating and putting on more weight and I felt really insecure which led to obsessive exercising and many hours of crying and feeling awful about myself.After approximately 6 months I started understanding how I need to eat and exercise in order to be healthy and also that our bodies change so much and there is no perfect body only a healthy one.Now I am finally better and I am comfortable in talking about my Ed and want to help other people.I still have some crises and feel insecure but eventually I'll be fine.Finally my goal is to become fitter and stronger and have a healthy body and mindset and I'm working towards that.
Unless you are going through it, you can't really understand it. Not even if you are a professional at times.. you can only find symptoms or give solutions. But it's such a complex internal issue only the person experiencing can know what it's like and hopefully find a space which can help them to best describe it. This I learnt over time in my mid 20s which is altogether so late, o wish they taught us more in school (properly professionally scientifically, not confuse it with teenage angst type negligence)
Having anxiety and depression is like being scared and tired at the same time. It’s the fear of failure but no urge to be productive. It’s wanting friends but hating socialising. It’s wanting to be alone but not wanting to be lonely. It’s caring about everything and then caring about nothing. It’s like feeling everything at once then feeling paralysingly numb. That’s why I think it’s hard to explain it to people because you fear that they’ll think you’re crazy.
My head’s been pretty cloudy lately which detaches me from my environment. My thoughts and emotions have been layered and muddled and i don’t know if they’re exaggerated or normal or even real. Feels like life’s just happening and I’m just floating, existing.
Sometimes I just dissolve into my surroundings. I’m so absorbed by being still and lost that it feels like I’m part of the furniture and life is just happening around me. The depression is just melting away everything that makes me me. All that it’s leaving behind is this feeling of detachment and exhaustion.
I also went through a phase as a kid - all my siblings were Super thin and fit and I was more on the chubby side ( even though I ate the same amount/ even lesser than them. Yes, I actually used to keep track) so I tried throwing up after every meal because I couldn’t not eat the bare minimum that I was but I wanted to lose weight. Within two weeks I started experiencing acidity burns and then I just stopped because I got scared.
Last year I decided to change my body but I did it in the wrnog way.I started eating very little food parallel to going to the gym which resulted in my losing 8 kg in two months which was extremely unhealthy for my height(1,66) since I weighted 46 kg.Generally my period stopped,my relationship with food was unhealthy,I was constantly cold,I grew more body hair and I looked really sick,which was something that everyone told me,and I still thought that I needed to lose more weight.Fortunately a doctor talked to me and I understood what was happening so I started eating based on plan to gain weight bust still I was afraid of eating and putting on more weight and I felt really insecure which led to obsessive exercising and many hours of crying and feeling awful about myself.After approximately 6 months I started understanding how I need to eat and exercise in order to be healthy and also that our bodies change so much and there is no perfect body only a healthy one.Now I am finally better and I am comfortable in talking about my Ed and want to help other people.I still have some crises and feel insecure but eventually I'll be fine.Finally my goal is to become fitter and stronger and have a healthy body and mindset and I'm working towards that.
Unless you are going through it, you can't really understand it. Not even if you are a professional at times.. you can only find symptoms or give solutions. But it's such a complex internal issue only the person experiencing can know what it's like and hopefully find a space which can help them to best describe it. This I learnt over time in my mid 20s which is altogether so late, o wish they taught us more in school (properly professionally scientifically, not confuse it with teenage angst type negligence)
Dealing with anxiety was a wake up call into finding and working on triggers. It's still a work in progress, but I feel I've grown a bit stronger since the second panic attack.
One of the things about your journey with mental health is the people you subconsciously cut out of your life. You don’t do it on purpose ; but you stop picking up those calls, going to those chilling scenes and they don’t even understand why. One of the hard parts is to accept the social life you are forced to leave behind because you’re trying to breathe, not get an anxiety attack or feel drained. Meeting those friends seems useless as you’re so detached, lost in your own world, that being around them just makes you feel guilty. As the months and years go by and you lose out on all the friends who didn’t know or didn’t understand, you have to keep telling yourself that it wasn’t your fault. Then when you’re better, you find yourself not knowing how to get back to that social self, back to the friends you lost, and back to all the “efforts” you have to make in keeping up with them. I have forgotten how..
It’s nothing. Nothing to think or feel, just and unexplainable heavy feeling in your chest and stomach that makes you feel like you’re going crazy. You can’t care about anything, no matter how much you want to. So you eat less to fill an emptiness inside of you. To have something to care about and work towards. But it never helps you feel better.
I sat there in the darkness and let the thoughts take over me. I say ‘let’ because there was nothing I could do to stop them. They would pile up and soon transformed into a tornado of chaos.
I have dealt with depression for years, since high school (or maybe earlier but I didn't really notice properly till late high school). A lot of the depression stemmed from feeling like I did not fit in with the world. Family problems triggered me a lot as well. I always felt like the problems in the world were mine to fix, but really I think that the real problems were with how I saw myself and how I was unable to accept myself for who I am.
I used to cut myself to feel something. I got so sick of feeling numb; no matter what happened it felt like my body forgot to produce emotions. I didn’t feel happy or sad, no tears came when I felt my gut tighten up. I’m so embarrassed of it but yeah that’s what I did.
So after a couple of months of numbness and a heavy chest I finally cried. I don’t know how it started, but I just broke down and after a while my brain started thinking of reasons why this would happen. It felt so weird because usually something is supposed to happen that makes a person cry but I couldn’t think of anything. I’ve noticed there are times when my body starts to bloat up n I feel sick for weeks but when suddenly the tears come, I feel lighter. It’s like I’ve finally burst and like today, it’ll be during random moments which don’t make sense. People laugh at this, but sometimes crying really helps. Especially if you’ve been numb for really long.
Luckily I didn't have any mental health problems (but had a childhood trauma related to my mum). I had other issues to deal with such as being a career for my mum's own depression, that took away the focus of my body image as being so important.
I have definitely developed anxiety over the years because I feel like I would be judged or disliked specially infront of a huge crowd. I didn’t feel confident about my work and didn’t know how to present because I believed I was never good. In order to believe I was good and to over come the anxiety of presenting i worked a little harder on my presenting skills and my work. But anxiety is something that can kicks in and out and I always end up taking out on the people close to me which I’m guilty of. And in terms of eating habits I have tried numerous diets and probably could’ve easily developed an eating disorder in order to look thinner. I have starved myself and adopted unhealthy habits to look slim.
I've dealt with depression for most of my life. I have since had the time to seek professional help and have finally seemed to find some motivation in life.
One of the things about your journey with mental health is the people you subconsciously cut out of your life. You don’t do it on purpose ; but you stop picking up those calls, going to those chilling scenes and they don’t even understand why. One of the hard parts is to accept the social life you are forced to leave behind because you’re trying to breathe, not get an anxiety attack or feel drained. Meeting those friends seems useless as you’re so detached, lost in your own world, that being around them just makes you feel guilty. As the months and years go by and you lose out on all the friends who didn’t know or didn’t understand, you have to keep telling yourself that it wasn’t your fault. Then when you’re better, you find yourself not knowing how to get back to that social self, back to the friends you lost, and back to all the “efforts” you have to make in keeping up with them. I have forgotten how..
It’s nothing. Nothing to think or feel, just and unexplainable heavy feeling in your chest and stomach that makes you feel like you’re going crazy. You can’t care about anything, no matter how much you want to. So you eat less to fill an emptiness inside of you. To have something to care about and work towards. But it never helps you feel better.
I sat there in the darkness and let the thoughts take over me. I say ‘let’ because there was nothing I could do to stop them. They would pile up and soon transformed into a tornado of chaos.
I have dealt with depression for years, since high school (or maybe earlier but I didn't really notice properly till late high school). A lot of the depression stemmed from feeling like I did not fit in with the world. Family problems triggered me a lot as well. I always felt like the problems in the world were mine to fix, but really I think that the real problems were with how I saw myself and how I was unable to accept myself for who I am.
I used to cut myself to feel something. I got so sick of feeling numb; no matter what happened it felt like my body forgot to produce emotions. I didn’t feel happy or sad, no tears came when I felt my gut tighten up. I’m so embarrassed of it but yeah that’s what I did.
So after a couple of months of numbness and a heavy chest I finally cried. I don’t know how it started, but I just broke down and after a while my brain started thinking of reasons why this would happen. It felt so weird because usually something is supposed to happen that makes a person cry but I couldn’t think of anything. I’ve noticed there are times when my body starts to bloat up n I feel sick for weeks but when suddenly the tears come, I feel lighter. It’s like I’ve finally burst and like today, it’ll be during random moments which don’t make sense. People laugh at this, but sometimes crying really helps. Especially if you’ve been numb for really long.
Luckily I didn't have any mental health problems (but had a childhood trauma related to my mum). I had other issues to deal with such as being a career for my mum's own depression, that took away the focus of my body image as being so important.
I have definitely developed anxiety over the years because I feel like I would be judged or disliked specially infront of a huge crowd. I didn’t feel confident about my work and didn’t know how to present because I believed I was never good. In order to believe I was good and to over come the anxiety of presenting i worked a little harder on my presenting skills and my work. But anxiety is something that can kicks in and out and I always end up taking out on the people close to me which I’m guilty of. And in terms of eating habits I have tried numerous diets and probably could’ve easily developed an eating disorder in order to look thinner. I have starved myself and adopted unhealthy habits to look slim.
I've dealt with depression for most of my life. I have since had the time to seek professional help and have finally seemed to find some motivation in life.