[angie_21]

Hey Allison, those comments usually bug me a bit too, mostly because I don't need to "at least" be happy about something. I like my size, the way it is, I don't need excuses. The way people say it, it's like trying to make up for a big deficiency with tiny little positives. No, I'm not deficient, I'm happy, though pissed off because really, clothes are not meant to fit anyone but someone who is 5'5, 120 pounds and 34C. But part of why I'm happy is because I am perky and have tiny cute nipples, I will admit.

[Persephone3]

Just checked back here for the first time in a few months.

To be perfectly honest, I had never heard of BDD before this! And I agree with the previous posts, buttercup. Positive reaffirmations, as corny as they may sound at first, help combat the negative thoughts. If you have faced abuse in the past, take it from some women who know (including me) and consider therapy. But I'm really glad that you (and, well, everyone here) has been able to share their thoughts and support.

To add to the positive affirmations, I'll share 3 stories with you:

1) I recently saw many of my girlfriends at a friend's wedding this summer. I brought up the story of my boyfriend from my first post and how his comment about his ex's "phenomenal tits" caused me to tailspin and seriously consider things like surgery. All of these women are considerably more busty than me, and they looked at me with their jaws dropped to the floor. "Why?? Why would you ever want to have bigger boobs?" they said. Two of my friends (both C's) later told me that they ENVIED my figure, and wished they had my frame in high school. Here I had envied girls with bigger breasts, and they were jealous of ME. (By the way, the bride was small-chested and wore a satiny gown with no bra, no padding, no nothing. Everyone talked all night about how beautiful she looked.)

2) I found this issue of Glamour magazine- I avoid these magazines as a rule- but this headline caught my eye. It's an article that discusses breast health and the truth behind sizes and gadgets to make things bigger. But what caught my attention is that they listed (with photos) beautiful women in Hollywood with A-cups.

3) I asked a guy friend what he thought about the big breasts vs. small breasts debate. He said, "Honestly, there's no such thing as too small. I'd rather have a girl that can fit in my hand."

Hang in there!

Hi Blondenorwegian,
I found your earlier post. I was just wondering if you were still with your boyfriend? It seems from this post that you still are. This is not the first time I have heard of a man letting his preference 'slip out'. How did you deal with that? Is it still an issue? I'm sorry if this is too personal, it's just that this had happened to me as well. The relationship ended for other reasons, but it is still something that bothers me from time to time.

I'm very happy for you that you got such a wonderful response from your friends. They sound like really great people.

I'm also happy that you didn't choose surgery.

[Allison-Shine]

Yeah, for sure! How do you think i feel, being practically the main subject and all? Sure, practically anybody in the world can read all that, but that doesn't really change that i posted that content with the intentions of people in the bust lounge community seeing and responding to it, you know?

Oh yeah, and could they have picked a better photo? I am all about the cool, confident small breasted gal. That girl looks genuinely SHOCKED that she has small breasts... like she woke up in the morning and they were gone all of a sudden. "OMG, what happened to my chest?!?""

Not the fifteen minutes of fame that you were expecting in life I bet, LOL.

The pic in that article is so contrived and even a bit patronizing. If her expression was genuine, her little surprise would have occurred when she was much younger. I wonder who the photographer was who came up with that shot?

The ususal responses from women who are blessed in the chest area (or even over-blessed) and also men with fake sincerity:

• More than a mouthful is a waste (Such a cheesy saying, what you plan on sucking on my breasts all day?? I don't think so!)
• At least your breasts won't sag as much when you get older (It's not as hideous as being disfigured or something)
• Guys will ogle and leer at you less (A little attention, even unwarranted, now and then is not the end of the world)
• No back pain (Oh like C cups are a back-breaker, someone give me a back brace)
• Clothes fit better (Not all clothes fit the same you dummies, some fit worse when you are smaller chested)

I know I hardly added anything with this post but I'm a little jaded and had to vent.

[Allison-Shine]

I'm confused. Are you responding to RandyBrador's comments of Jan 6, 2009?

Link appears to be dead, it was before my time anyways.

[KeraBear]

I'm confused. Are you responding to RandyBrador's comments of Jan 6, 2009?

Let him have it anyways!

[auralpoison]

I'm confused. Are you responding to Randy Brador's comments of Jan 6, 2009?

[lightchested]

WHO KNOWS HOW/WHY, BUT I SAW A POST FROM RANDYSOMETHING AND THOUGHT IT WAS POSTED TODAY...

Oh well. I'll leave this to ward of future man-posters.

Randy-

When you assess yourself, do you do so through "collective womens' eyes", or through your own?

When you try to discern how you feel about something, do you measure it by how YOU feel, or how you assume a bunch of people you don't know feel?

Is there any body part on your that you don't like? If so, is it because YOU don't like it, or because you "think" that women in general don't like it?

We have brains of our own, and that's what we use to think with. We are allowed to have feelings that have nothing to do with men. Our breasts are a body part on us: if men think our breasts "belong to" or "are for" men, then that is unfortunate. We consider our breasts a part of ourselves, and belonging to us, and we are free to have feelings and thoughts about them that have nothing whatsoever to do with what we think some anonymous Collective of Men might feel about them.

If this seems rude, it's because you're not the first man in my life, or on this board, to assume that my (or any of our) feelings towards my (our) breasts has to do with men. If it were so simple as knowing that some men prefer small breasts, I think we'd all have been quite done with all of this a long time ago. It's not a news flash to us. But thanks for trying- you do seem to have meant well. Can you see how it's insulting, though? The insinuation that we didn't know that some men find small breasts attractive? Because it insinuates that it's such a rarity, that we've never actually come across it ourselves. Like we're so freakish that we are supposed to be shocked to hear from someone that "some men really DO like our breasts!" We are women, not thirteen year old girls.

And as it happens, I was a stripper, and though I don't know if I agree that the slight-of-chest "hands down" made more money than the Biggie Sized, I certainly never felt handicapped. I do think the girls who pushed the boundaries farther tended to make more money than the others. I wasn't that type myself: I'd rather make less money & leave with my dignity intact. I'm not judging the others...it's just how I am.

-Lightchested

[KeraBear]

Dudes,

I am in shock

click this but not on an empty or full stomach:
http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-itty-bit...-support-group/

I feel like I am going to be sick.

Yeah, for sure! How do you think i feel, being practically the main subject and all? Sure, practically anybody in the world can read all that, but that doesn't really change that i posted that content with the intentions of people in the bust lounge community seeing and responding to it, you know?

Oh yeah, and could they have picked a better photo? I am all about the cool, confident small breasted gal. That girl looks genuinely SHOCKED that she has small breasts... like she woke up in the morning and they were gone all of a sudden. "OMG, what happened to my chest?!?""

[buttercups]

Hi ladies, I've been a little MIA lately spending a lot of time outside for the last few days of my vacation, but I just skimmed the boards and I have heard about BDD being linked to abuse, I guess I just never quite thought of it as the cause of my BDD. I always just assumed that it was because my breasts are so small that that was the root cause. Guess that may not be the case.. I'm gonna read up and comment more later.

[angie_21]

She looks lovely either way.

She does. As nice as it may be for us to hear that maybe people will stop being obsessed with big boobs for a few months while fashions change and slim figures come back into style, it's still an obsession with breasts. And it's never OK for people to feel they need to have surgery to fit into a dress, not matter what their size or shape. It's sad when something like that is written about as if it's some kind of feminist victory when people are still mutilating their bodies for fashion. (NOT saying that reduction surgery is mutliation, especially when done for comfort or health reasons like back pain and such, but when it's done for fashion or body image to fit some "beauty" stereotype, it's not much different than other types of plastic surgery)

[Aithinne]

What your mom and sis said has been bugging me. It's much more difficult to re-train negative self-talk when you're surrounded by people, especially family, who pass contemptuous judgments like that. So proud that you spoke up that way. It reminded me of this comment from a thread about a completely different topic, but the principle is similar (of communicating that certain comments hurt, and, building on that, that people who are considerate and not selfish or thoughtless will stop making them around you):

get them to stop and think about the consequences.You say to them, "Mom and Dad, when you say things like this, you hurt me." Give them a specific example.They will yesbut you in return. Let them finish.Then you say, "Now that you know this hurts me, if it happens again, we will both know you are doing it on purpose."This speech, plus meaningful eye contact on the next offense, cured a friend's parents of a twenty-year family "joke".

I was bothered by buttercups' family making negative comments as well. They certainly don't help her gain confidence. Family should be the people you turn to for support, not the people who tear you down. That was a very good strategy to tell the family members that what they say really hurts and is not acceptable. Either they don't realize they're stuck in a breast-obsessed thought pattern themselves, or they are doing out of a desire to hurt, which really is horrible.

[auralpoison]

It's kind of misleading the way that article used the pictures of Drew Barrymore, they are photos of her at obvious, drastically different weights. Also, she had a breast reduction when she was sixteen, she's never had implants. There is rumor that post her early thirties weight loss, she had another reduction & a lift to spiffy things up. She looks lovely either way.

[altricial]

There is hope for us yet! http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-is-downs...00:49Z?eref=RSS

[angie_21]

I agree that it was a rude move, and from my training, the author made a bad choice in an ethical grey area. In an academic arena, she technically wouldn't be required to ask for our permission since we are posting publicly knowing that anyone could read what we write. But since she didn't even try to introduce herself to us, or ask what we actually think, she could have a pretty tough time passing an ethics review. I don't know about journalism though. If she's making money off the article or publishing a book, I don't know if she can directly quote us without our permission.

[lightchested]

I felt like the author should have gotten permission to do those copy/pastes. It's one thing to write an opinion on the existence of a support board (which I find rude in the first place, even though she relents in the article that this one isn't a pity party) but to quote people without their permission- even though our names are anonymous- bothers me. Those peoples' feelings were lifted & printed without their consent, and that bothers me. It felt like someone reading our diary and printing it for others' inspection. Sure, anyone could come to this link anyway, but she shoved it in the face of anyone who read the article, so they didn't even have to bother clicking on to here. I don't know. I have always been hyper-sensitive about respecting others' privacy, and it made me feel gross that people who are in no position to judge us or our feelings were basically put on the jury, by reading that article, to judge the validity of this support board. I admit I'm sensitive.

[angie_21]

Yeah lightchested, someone found that when it was originally posted online and it started a bit of a discussion over here. It's not too big a deal, since this is a publicly visible message board, but we were kinda miffed that the author never dropped in to introduce herself or even give us a heads up that she was publishing the article online, which is standard etiquette when it comes to these things.

Someone deleted all of Pip's messages, so I never got to read them! Bummer, I think it would have given me some entertainment for today. Oh well.

It was a different spin than the normal BDD therapist, who does the whole typical cognitive behavior thing. He says those things don't work well with BDD because they reinforce the negative thought patterns. (typical BDD therapy asks you to always give "proof" for your negative feelings, but this guy said that's NOT a good idea because that forces BDD people to then find proof- in their minds anyway- and convince themselves further of the negative thought)

Yikes, that sounds pretty bang-on. The whole problem with BDD, OCD, hypochondria, and all these conditions treated with cognitive behavioural therapy is that part of the problem is how good our brains are at coming up with excuses, proofs, symptoms, and signs that don't really exist. But I think that the good thing about CBT is that it forces you to recognize the negative messages you are telling yourself, and recognize that those things aren't true. The problem with CBT is that it seems to focus too strongly on awareness. I also add the more Buddhist concept of compassion & gratitude. Compassion to understand why other people can be so judgemental and hurtful, and gratitude that I am healthy, intellgent and capable, that I live in a wonderful country and have control and choices in my own life. It's not just being aware of the negative thoughts, it's having a wide range of positive thoughts to replace those negative thoughts with.

[kittenb]

I don't understand. Is there something in the article or comments that offended you or just the article itself?

[lightchested]

Dudes,

I am in shock

click this but not on an empty or full stomach:
http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-itty-bit...-support-group/

I feel like I am going to be sick.

[blondenorwegian]

Just checked back here for the first time in a few months.

To be perfectly honest, I had never heard of BDD before this! And I agree with the previous posts, buttercup. Positive reaffirmations, as corny as they may sound at first, help combat the negative thoughts. If you have faced abuse in the past, take it from some women who know (including me) and consider therapy. But I'm really glad that you (and, well, everyone here) has been able to share their thoughts and support.

To add to the positive affirmations, I'll share 3 stories with you:

1) I recently saw many of my girlfriends at a friend's wedding this summer. I brought up the story of my boyfriend from my first post and how his comment about his ex's "phenomenal tits" caused me to tailspin and seriously consider things like surgery. All of these women are considerably more busty than me, and they looked at me with their jaws dropped to the floor. "Why?? Why would you ever want to have bigger boobs?" they said. Two of my friends (both C's) later told me that they ENVIED my figure, and wished they had my frame in high school. Here I had envied girls with bigger breasts, and they were jealous of ME. (By the way, the bride was small-chested and wore a satiny gown with no bra, no padding, no nothing. Everyone talked all night about how beautiful she looked.)

2) I found this issue of Glamour magazine- I avoid these magazines as a rule- but this headline caught my eye. It's an article that discusses breast health and the truth behind sizes and gadgets to make things bigger. But what caught my attention is that they listed (with photos) beautiful women in Hollywood with A-cups.

3) I asked a guy friend what he thought about the big breasts vs. small breasts debate. He said, "Honestly, there's no such thing as too small. I'd rather have a girl that can fit in my hand."

Hang in there!

[lightchested]

Just curious...Who helped you the most? I would tend to think the first option. It's funny how you can get such conflicting advice. As I think you said previously, you have to sometimes try different therapists. I hope you were able to find the help you needed, you seem very strong.

The guy who helped me the most was the one you indicated...the first one I wrote about.

If I seem strong, it's because I'm not amidst a BDD attack at the moment!!! But I know what you mean...in my un-triggered times, I do feel very strong! I just can't believe how quickly I can fall apart at the sight of some random female or a comment on TV or even a should-be-forgotten memory!!! I don't know how to hold on to the strong in those times. Or even find it at all.