Body Image and Liberation

Transcript

Ellie Pike: 
Finding your way through disordered eating can feel like recovery is nothing more than a mirage hovering with an eyesight, yet perpetually out of reach. Today's guest understands that reality. She has also pushed through to find stability and vitality on the other side. Meet Carly.

Carly Compton: 
Hi everyone, my name is Carly Compton. I am an eating disorder survivor turned eating disorder therapist.

Ellie Pike: 
Carly's lived experience has led her to the work she does today, partnering with individuals all over the world to help give up dieting, recover from disordered eating, and find genuine happiness and acceptance within themselves, no matter their size, race, gender, sexuality, or socioeconomic status. On top of that, Carly is also a model, host of the Recover with Carly podcast, and creator of a curriculum for adolescents that offers eating disorder education and awareness.

Carly Compton: 
I basically strive to be someone that I wish I would've had when I was younger.

Ellie Pike: 
She sits down with us today for two reasons, to explore the steps that took her on such a liberating journey, and also to speak with you directly about the relationship you have with your body. Carly is an expert at encouraging us towards vulnerability, and I'm excited to share her interview with you. You are listening to a special collaborative episode of Mental Note podcast and Recover with Carly. I'm your host, Ellie Pike.

Thank you so much, Carly. I'm so thrilled to share this episode with you and just get to know you a little bit better. So first, I am just going to go ahead and dive in and we're really going to talk primarily about body image today, and that's an area that you're really passionate about. So, just when you think back on your own life, when was the first time that you actually noticed your body?

Carly Compton: 
I would say the first time I noticed my body was probably around fourth or fifth grade. I was raised in a pretty diet heavy household, so my mom was always doing the next big diet. She was doing Slim Fast, she was doing ... Whatever diet was popular at that time, my mom was more than likely doing it. I also grew up with my grandma, who was also very heavily involved in commenting on other people's bodies. So, I became aware of my body or noticed my body at a pretty young age. I also grew up a little bit chubbier, I was a little bit chunkier than the rest of my friends and my family. I had a cousin who was really close in age to me who was a fit model for The Limited, and I remember going to the sessions with her and just watching as they measured her body, and critiqued her body, and she was in a smaller body than I was.

And I just remember that having an impact on the way that I viewed my body. I think that's really where I started to really hone in on critiquing, and pointing out, and pinpointing things about my body that I didn't like. And also, like I said, just hearing my mom talk about her body really impacted the way that I viewed my body. My mom never said anything about my body or my sister's bodies, it was always her own and how she talked about herself really impacted the way that I talked about my body. And so I would say, yeah, noticed my body around fourth or fifth grade, and noticed it basically for the rest of my life until that point.

Ellie Pike: 
Well absolutely, those are really impactful moments, and thank you so much for sharing. Aside from just your family, what body ideals were you aware of as a kid more societally or culturally?

Carly Compton: 
Yeah, so I was born in 1994, so I was raised in prime early 2000s, like Cosmopolitan, Teen Vogue magazine time. I mean, this still happens today, but this was when you would be purchasing magazines, you'd be in line at the grocery store and you would see, "Oh, the new Teen Vogue is out. Oh, the new Cosmopolitan is out." And I would say those really impacted the way that I viewed bodies, but specifically my body. And I would say a lot of my body ideals stemmed from these things that I saw in magazines or that I saw on television. This was also the height of America's Next Top Model, and as I got older and I was really watching those shows, we look back and we watch those things now and we're like, "Holy cow, how was that even allowed? Why was this ever aired on television?"

But those were definitely the kind of things that shifted, and created, and shaped the way that I viewed bodies and the way that I believed everyone else viewed bodies. And so, that definitely had an impact on what I felt my role or my responsibility was when it came to how my body looked and what I needed to do to make sure my body looked that way, which spoiler alert, my body never looked like the "beauty standard," but I made sure I did everything I possibly could to try to get there. And those magazines and TV shows definitely are what impacted that, along with friends talking about their bodies, mom talking about her body, those were the things that really shaped my body ideals and impacted the way that I viewed my body.

Ellie Pike: 
So, it sounds like the message you were getting was like thinner is better.

Carly Compton: 
100%.

Ellie Pike: 
I am not that. So, how did you interpret that, and how did that impact your actions and your thoughts?

Carly Compton: 
So, I interpreted that and basically tried every diet that you could imagine. Whatever diet my mom was doing, I was wanting to also try out. I remember specifically drinking Slim Fast before school in middle school and high school, I remember wanting to understand how Weight Watchers worked. And I was an athlete my entire life, I played volleyball, basketball, and softball. I was very active, but that never seemed to really be enough for me. And so, unfortunately around my junior year of high school I developed an eating disorder, and I had that eating disorder for about five years. And that was the point in my life, my junior year of high school where I was like, "I think I found the solution. I think I really figured out what's going to get me to where I want to be." And that really started because I overheard some classmates talking about someone else in our school who had lost a significant amount of weight over the summer, and everyone was talking about how great she looked, and how did she do it.

And someone had said she developed an eating disorder, and they shared specifically, trigger warning, they shared specifically that she was bulimic. And I didn't know what that meant at all. That was a word that was so new to me, I didn't have the education around eating disorders. And I went home and I looked it up, and unfortunately my first thought was, "This is so doable. I can still eat, no one's really going to notice." And that really just shows how desperate I was to be thin, to basically meet the standard that society had set for me and everyone else, that I was willing to put my body through five years of trauma to try to achieve this physical look. Thankfully I reached a point where I realized that was not sustainable and it was also not healthy. And that's definitely what the effects of the standards, the magazines, the TV shows, the conversations, that's where it pushed me at one point because nothing else seemed to be "working."

Ellie Pike: 
One thing that stands out to me about your introduction was when you talked about how you want to be the person that you wish you had had when you were younger. So even just pulling from that, I'm wondering what do you wish you had had when you were going through that struggle with your body ideal and trying to reach this unreachable goal? What do you wish someone had shared with you?

Carly Compton: 
I wish someone would've told me that the standards that I was trying to achieve were unrealistic, that they were unattainable. I wish someone would've told me that I was worthy, and beautiful, and strong, and amazing at the size that I was at. And I'm sure if I would've expressed how I was feeling with my mom, or my dad, or someone close to me, I would have gotten that response from them. But there was so much shame that I was feeling, and there was so much normalization that had happened, that I didn't even think that that was really an option. I remember thinking, "I wish I didn't have to do this. I wish it was just as easy as it is for my friends, and I didn't have to think about this all the time," so I thought it was something I was doing. And so, just having someone who would've told me, "Hey, you don't need to lose weight, you're beautiful just the way you are. This ideal that you're striving for is unrealistic, it's not worth it." I wish I would've just had someone tell me that.

Ellie Pike: 
Digging in just a tad more to those really challenging high school years, what did you think would be the outcome if you had reached this "ideal size"?

Carly Compton: 
So, the outcome that I had in mind was honestly just validation. Validation from other people that the hard work that I had put in was really working, that I was super dedicated, that I was "healthy," validation within myself essentially too, of this feeling of, wow, you can accomplish this. Okay, this is something you've been trying to do for so many years and look, you finally achieved it. And it's so interesting, because now I'd have these conversations with my mom and with friends from high school, and they would always say, "But you were never chubby, you were never overweight. You always appeared in a "healthy body.""

And I think really having conversations with my mom now about the things that she did or the things that she said about her own body, me seeing her as this beautiful, amazing woman who I admired and looked up to, who still was not able to see herself in that same way. So, giving her that comparison she is like, "Oh, that makes sense." It's that body dysmorphia aspect of things. So yeah, I would just say that sense of belonging, that sense of validation, those were really inherently the things that I was hoping to achieve.

Ellie Pike: 
Thank you so much for sharing. And I think that highlighting that your personal experience was so important, even if others didn't see your experience in the same way, is such an important key piece in how you share your story. So, thank you so much. As you went into college, things started to shift for you a little bit. And what I'd like to know is when did you shift some of those expectations for yourself or your perspective on body image for the better?

Carly Compton: 
So, I grew up in Ohio and then I did my undergrad at the University of Hawaii on Oahu. And my partner and I moved from Ohio to Hawaii in about 2013. And if you've ever been to Hawaii you know that the just variety of bodies, the variety of just different cultures and ethnicities is amazing, especially when you're coming from a place like Ohio, where specifically my small town, majority white, not a lot of culture, not a lot of different ethnicity. And so, going to Hawaii I had this new perspective that I had never had before of there are all of these beautiful people, all different shapes, all different sizes who are experiencing, enjoying and living their life to the fullest. They're not thinking about their bodies constantly, they're not talking about losing weight in the way that I had experienced in Ohio. I also just learned a lot more about the culture of native Hawaiians, and really understanding that curves and fat women were celebrated and were seen as these beautiful people.

And so, having that perspective definitely opened my eyes to, "Wait a second, the whole world is not like this, and there are places in which all bodies are accepted and celebrated." So, that was definitely the first big piece for me. And then the second big piece was around my junior year of college I started experiencing physical symptoms of my eating disorder. So, I had my hair falling out, my throat was constantly sore, very low energy, but I was continuing to push myself in terms of exercise. So I was really, really essentially experiencing orthorexia. I was obsessed with exercising, I was obsessed with what I was eating. It was that on top of my eating disorder, and my body was shutting down, and I had reached a point where my body was like, "I don't have a lot left. I'm not getting any energy source." And the physical pieces of that started to come in, and that was really scary.

And I realized I can't sustain this, or something really bad is going to happen if this continues. And so, that was that light bulb moment for me where I had to really reevaluate what was important to me, what was my priorities, and experiencing and living life was my number one priority at that time. I didn't know what healthy was going to look like for me, I didn't know what my relationship with exercise, or food, or anything like that was going to look like, I just knew that I needed to focus in on how do I live life to the absolute fullest and be as happy and as healthy as I can be? And I started finding people on social media who were in recovery or who had recovered, I started really finding people with similar stories to me who had come out on the other end of it and were saying, "Life is so much more fulfilling outside of your eating disorder, outside of your diet." And so, it was those messages and those accounts that really helped me start that momentum to navigate through recovery.

Ellie Pike: 
That's really incredible as the turning point. And of course, we could dive in deep into what your recovery process was like, but my next question for you is just where are you right now in your journey to feeling good in your body?

Carly Compton: 
I started my recovery my junior year of college, so that was 2016. And I would say within the last two years I am just now getting to this point of okay, this feels really good. I've done a lot of the mental work to unlearn that it's okay to gain weight, that it's okay to be in a larger body. That took a lot of work with finding the right doctors, and really being aware of the information that I was taking in. But I would say right now I feel very content, I feel like my body has found its way to communicate with me in the most efficient way possible. And yeah, it's just navigating the typical woman stuff of hormones, and figuring out all of those things. But outside of that, I would say I feel very content and happy with my body.

Ellie Pike: 
Health is really multifaceted, and health is not a body size. We cannot determine anyone's health by just looking at them. And the way you describe yourself as feeling more mentally peaceful really is such a huge piece of health, and so is moving your body in a way that's joyful and not punishing yourself. So, as you share your own experience, I hope that others can also think through what is their definition of health? And there's a lot of layers to that. And there's also size inclusive physicians, and therapists, and dietitians who are happy to work with any of us who would like that perspective. So, in this world, there's a lot of controversy sometimes over language, and one of the conversations around language that I would love to hear from you on your perspective is if you relate to any of the terms like body positivity, or body neutrality, or body acceptance, and if you have any strong reactions to any of them too, I'd love to hear more about it.

Carly Compton: 
So, body positivity was created by fat people of color who wanted a space to really feel accepted and to celebrate their bodies. And I am not that. I am a white woman who exists in a larger body, and that space is not for me, and I never want to take up space in a community that's not created for me. So, I am a huge supporter of body positivity, I have a lot of friends who identify as body positive who are very involved in the body positivity space, but I find it very important to take a step back and really educate people on what this space actually is. I would say body neutrality, body acceptance, those are the two that really hit home for me. The neutrality piece, I would say it started as this body acceptance space almost out of a need for survival of, okay, I really want to just get to a place where I'm accepting of my body.

And then from there I transitioned into that neutral space of like, okay, not everything has to be about my body and I can kind of just exist, and be neutral, and not have to constantly think about my body. So I would say, yeah, of those three, the acceptance and neutral piece are what hit home most for me, and for listeners as well I highly recommend reading up on the body positivity community in that space. The Body Is Not an Apology is a really great book that I recommend reading, just to better understand where that history and where all of that stems from.

Ellie Pike: 
That's really interesting, and I really appreciate getting to know the nuance there because to me, language is complicated and we don't always understand where it is coming from or what it actually means. So, thank you for explaining that. And with that being said, can you define your own definition of what body neutrality means to you?

Carly Compton: 
It's this neutral relationship, so it's not a bad relationship but it's also not this incredible, almost toxic positivity relationship that I think we can oftentimes see being pushed on social media specifically. But it's this neutral middle ground of I recognize my body, I live in my body so I feel my body, I know how my body feels every day, but I don't center everything around my body, or my body has no longer become the center of every thought or every decision that I make, because at one point in my life that was the reality. My body, what I ate, how I looked really indicated what I wore, where I went, who I hung out with. Those pieces were definitely impacted by my body and my perception of my body. And so, body neutrality really is that space where it's like you're just kind of existing.

And I think it's a really important space to be in, because as a clinician it's really important for me to meet clients where they're at, and accepting your body may feel 10 years away. So saying, "I want you to accept your body. How do we get to a point where you accept your body?" That may not be realistic for a client coming to work with me. So, how can we use neutrality to be that space where we're like, "Okay, I don't need you to feel super happy with your body, but I also don't want you to hate your body. So, how can we find that middle ground?" And that's oftentimes a lot easier for individuals to work toward and to imagine, rather than going from a place of, "I've hated my body for 15 years and now you're asking me to accept it."

And that takes a lot of work, that takes a lot of time. And so, neutrality just gives us that space to be able to do the work to unlearn and to reframe these core beliefs, and to really heal our relationship with our body without the pressure to accept or love our body by a certain amount of time.

Ellie Pike: 
Well, and it sounds like even just taking away any judgment, whether it's positive or negative, just noticing, but not judging if it's good or bad, and just allowing your body to be your body. I appreciate that that provides a step-by-step process versus you need to go from A to Z quickly, like hating your body and wanting it to change too. I love my body and body acceptance, because that, you're right, can feel so far away. So, for you and where you are on your journey right now, what are some of the things that you do to respect your body and to continue to practice that body neutrality or acceptance on a daily basis?

Carly Compton: 
I would say the most important piece right now for me is regularly moving my body. I love movement, it's something that it's been a coping mechanism for me for most of my life. Maybe not a super healthy one at one point, and maybe now much healthier than it ever has been, but movement for me is a big one. And I recognize that I don't always recommend movement as being a way to celebrate your body, because not everyone has that ability, not everyone has that privilege. And so, I recognize that I do hold a lot of privilege by being able to move my body in really whatever ways I want to. So, movement is a big one right now for me, whether that's just getting outside and going for a walk, or going to a spin class, or doing a workout at home. Any just movement has allowed me to really celebrate my body.

It's a way that I feel really connected with my body. And I always also like to point out that a big part of my relationship with my body and how I really celebrate my body is done through mental and emotional work as well. So, we can do all the physical things, but if we are not really focusing in on our mental and emotional, spiritual well-being, it's going to be really hard for us to have that really deep-rooted connection with our body. So journaling, educating, really just continuing to allow myself to learn and to evolve. Creating safe spaces for myself to talk about the things that I'm feeling, and any frustrations that I'm having about my body, or anything like that. I feel like that is really one of the biggest pieces right now is just prioritizing that mental and emotional space. Because like you were saying earlier, if we're looking at health, and I always like to say this as well, is it's not my place to tell someone they should be healthy.

That may not be someone's priority at a certain point in their life. If we look at marginalized individuals who are going through trauma every single day, the last thing that they're going to want to hear from me, a white woman, is, "What are you doing to stay healthy?" So, really understanding that it's not my place to put that pressure on someone, just as if it's not a stranger on the Internet's place to tell me that what I'm doing isn't health promoting. So, that's a piece I always like to really hone in on. And also understanding the pillars of health. There's so many different pillars, physical health is just one small proponent of that.

And I think we live in a society that solely focuses on physical as being that determining factor of health. We see that with BMI, we see that with weight stigma. And so, really letting yourself understand the different pillars of health I think also helps us to connect with our body in a different way outside of this connection that maybe we have been told is the right way to connect with your body. So, hopefully that answered. Long-winded response to that question.

Ellie Pike: 
No, I think it's great. And it really led into my next question about what advice do you have for others who are on this journey? And I think one of those being a starting point of recognizing health is beyond just physical, there's mental, emotional, spiritual. And is there anything else that you think are just really helpful pieces to share with others about being on this journey?

Carly Compton: 
Community. Find community, whether that's through support groups online, whether that's through Bumble BFF where you meet people and you meet up in person, whether that's through free courses that organizations are offering, or a local shelter is putting on education resources. Community is really the number one piece in all of this, because doing this work is very isolating and it can feel very lonely. And so, having your people, having your community, having your space is really going to be the most liberating piece. And then once you have community, if you have access to resources like therapy or anything like that, I would highly recommend exploring that route as well. Intuitive eating coaching if you're trying to heal your relationship with food, or really just letting yourself exist in those spaces, again if they are available to you, because therapy, at least in terms of how I structure therapy with clients, a lot of the reframing happens in that therapy space.

So, what happens is that we all have these deep-rooted core beliefs, these automatic thoughts that we've learned throughout our life, and these core beliefs and these automatic thoughts are what make it really difficult for us to see improvement in our relationship with our body. Because at the end of the day, we're going back to this core belief essentially, and I always like to describe it as these roots. So, our core beliefs and our automatic thoughts are like the roots of a tree, they're everything underneath that are impacting the tree as a whole. So, we are the stump of the tree and we have all of these branches, and these branches are experiences, and thoughts, and reactions, and responses that we're having, and those all stem back to those roots or those core beliefs. So, if you're finding it really difficult to heal your relationship with your body, so you're noticing that your emotions are predominantly negative or your thoughts are predominantly negative about your body, those behaviors are going to line up. They're going to align with whatever those thoughts and emotions are.

That's if we're looking at the CBT framework, thoughts create emotions, emotions create actions. And so, in order to really see a difference in those emotions and those behaviors, we have to go in and we have to reframe these thoughts. So, we do that through reframing, getting rid of old thoughts and replacing them with new ones, identifying where those thoughts originally came from, are those our own thoughts or are those someone else's thoughts? Inner child work, what would my younger self have needed to hear instead of what my younger self did here? Or how can I comfort my younger self now in a way that maybe my younger self didn't receive comfort at that age? So, that's really a huge part of this work is going in mentally and emotionally, and clearing out all of that harmful, old, toxic beliefs that are still impacting how we feel about our bodies. Whether we're consciously thinking positive about our body, there's still going to be that subconscious negative thought if those core beliefs are still rooted in the beliefs that we've grew up hearing and thinking.

Ellie Pike: 
Thank you so much for that description, I really like the visual of the tree, and it really does speak to the narrative that we've been told and what is the narrative that we continue to tell ourselves. And it's really helpful to me that we all have the ability to start to shift that language or shift that story that we're telling ourselves. And so Carly, thank you so much. This has been really, really beneficial to hear your story, and then of course the impactful relationship that you're building with your clients so that they can also heal their relationships with their body. And you recently actually contributed to a body image workshop that Eating Recovery Center was hosting. And so, we'll link to that recording in our show notes if anyone would like to see speakers from all six workshops or five workshops, I might've gotten that wrong. And of course, any free support groups that we can offer we will also link to that. So Carly, thank you so much. It's wonderful to get to know you, and I really appreciate you being on the show today.

Carly Compton: 
Of course, thank you so much for having me, and thank you for creating this space to talk about these things. I'll leave everyone with this. The work feels hard before it feels easy, and I always like to remind people of that, because I think that when it starts to feel hard we tend to want to run away, we tend to want to avoid anything that feels a little bit difficult. So find those supports, find those communities, find a therapist that you feel super comfortable with, and let yourself really feel the difficult, feel the hard. Let yourself really embrace that and know that it will be worth it, and find what makes the work feel liberating and necessary.

Ellie Pike: 
That is such great advice. Thank you so, so much, and I look forward to chatting again with you soon.

Carly Compton: 
Of course, thank you so much.

Ellie Pike: 
As we wrap up today's conversation with Carly, I hope her story serves as a reminder that recovery is possible no matter how far off that may seem. Remember that the path to healing isn't about perfection, it's about progress, self-compassion, and finding support from those who understand. You are not alone in this journey. If Carly's words resonate with you, check out more of her work. You can find her podcast, Recover with Carly, on any of the major podcast platforms. Her website, Instagram and TikTok are the same, Recover with Carly. Thank you for tuning in to this collaborative episode of Recover with Carly and Mental Note podcast. Our show is produced and hosted by me, Ellie Pike, edited by Carrie Daniels, and directed by Sam Pike. Till next time.

Presented by

Ellie Pike, MA, LPC

Ellie Pike is the director of alumni, family and community outreach at ERC & Pathlight Behavioral Health Centers. Over the years, she creatively combined her passions for clinical work with…

Presented by

Carly Compton

Carly Compton is an eating disorder survivor turned eating disorder therapist. Her lived experience has led her to the work she does today -- working with individuals all over the world to help give…