Dear Nick:

There are three issues that I see in your thread:

Issue #1: Poor Body Image

You experience dissatisfaction, embarrassment, distress over perceived faults about your body, some of which are: not tall enough, not muscular enough, too dark, too hairy. It is very common for people to be dissatisfied with their bodies. When you look at men who have what you perceive to be perfect bodies, they themselves may perceive their bodies to be faulty, and therefore have a poor body image. Or if they are satisfied, they may be terrified to lose their perceived perfection,  ad so, they are distressed while possessing that perceived perfection.

Through evolution bodies evolved in different regions of the world to adapt to different environments, different climates, topographies, food supplies. Different skin colors, density of body hair and different heights are different adaptations to different environments through the process of evolution. This means that dark skin is advantageous for an individual in a particular climate, and light skin is advantageous for an individual in a different climate.

One is not superior to the other; they are both of equal biological value in their respective climate. This is not my opinion, this is objective reality.

When you look at your body in the mirror, take deep breaths and form the intent to accept the looks of your body the way it is with peace of mind. This is your body, the result of successful evolution, the result of thousands of amazing processes that make it possible for it to function as well as it does. Take good care of your body so that it serves you well. Do this repeatedly, look at your body, take deep breaths, form the intent. Remind yourself of the objective reality I mentioned above.

Issue #2: Intrusive thoughts

You wrote on this thread: “I have been having some really intrusive thoughts….I have been trying to just let this go for quite some time, but it just isn’t working… these thoughts are incredibly intrusive and can easily take up all of my mental attention at times… how do I let this go completely? It takes up my mental attention when I really have other more important things to focus on… I get upset with myself for having spent so much time over the years thinking about this. I honestly just don’t want to think about this anymore/almost erase it from memory…… I think what I find upsetting in trying to let this go, is the amount of time I have spent thinking about it over the years ”

Issue #3: A False Core Belief

You wrote: “There are times where I basically think “ugh just this one thing that keeps bothering me, no one else has to go through this, things would be just perfect in my life if it wasn’t for these incident(s).”

The false core belief is that life can be perfect. You seem to believe that your life could have been perfect if only those incidents didn’t happen, no concerns, no worries, perfect well-being.

Connecting issue #2 and #3:

When you are not bothered by the teasing incidents you are bothered by other things: “Then there other times where I am personally bothered by the things I did or said to my family in my teens that wasn’t nice (unrelated to the above, not revengeful behavior), and I don’t think about these (teasing) incidents at all.”

I am thinking that anxiety is what is fueling these intrusive thoughts about the teasing incidents. As unfortunate as it is that these incidents happened, I think that your focus on them is fueled by anxiety. If these incidents didn’t happen, your anxiety would focus on something else, as it already does (latter quote).

There will always be something wrong, something imperfect. There is no way to  have life be otherwise. We have, as humans, living our very imperfect lives, to be able to tolerate, to endure the distress that comes with living. The term for tolerating distress is Distress Tolerance. We have to develop this skill.

We have to live our lives as effectively as we can, as congruent with reality as possible, expecting distress as an inevitable part of it, accept what we cannot change, change what we can. Move on.

Let me know of your thoughts/ feelings so far about my input here, will you?

anita