Life Uncut - Talking Body dysmorphic disorder and social media

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

Hey Lifers happy Tuesday!You’ll never believe who Britt ran into this week and what Laura Learnt that really blew her mind.Then we chat all things BDD. That’s Body dysmorphic disorder. BDD is a mental health disorder in which you can't stop thinking about one or more perceived defects or flaws in your appearance.These ‘defects or flaws’ usually appear small, are minor, are often non existent and aren’t noticed by others. But you may feel so embarrassed, ashamed and anxious that it impacts your life. You avoid mirrors, constantly compare yourself, feel depressed or anxious, dislike what you see and you may avoid social situations all together. It can affect so many aspects of our life.We delve into BDD and chat about how we feel media today perpetuates the idea that success equals beauty and in turn contributes to the rise of disorders like BDD.If you love hearing us in your ears each week please hit 5 stars, leave a review and share the love, because, well, we love love xSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany and I'm Laura and we are pumped to be here. I am trying to liven Laura up. She's in her pyjamas. She's got a robe on. Actually, let me talk you through it. She's got like this button up denim country like farmer wants a wife shirt. From Cotton Don.

It's what I wore to work today. But then she's draped like a really old, big, fluffy dressing gown over the top. She then has like Harry High pants, pyjamas on, flannel pyjamas on. And she's tucked the denim into the pajama bottom. I don't know what's going on. Well, I feel fucking betrayed. It's so funny because we used to like really try when we turned up to these podcasts. I used to get dressed.

We used to go to a studio. It used to be really profesh. Make up, wine. Have a glass of wine. It was like going to a job. And now you come over and we record at nighttime and I'm in my pajamas and I'm having a cup of tea. what do you want to talk about the uh new postcode that appeared on my face oh but you want to talk about that you want to talk about your little pimple do you know what

it's like you know when there's something it's like the elephant in the room i just want to bring it up before you bring it up like i know you're gonna call me out on it i'm like how's your day you're like i've got a pimple i've got a pimple all right why are you looking at it all the time what's wrong with you i do have an eruption on my face guys i think it was from my stressful week last week um usually my skin's pretty decent anyway i've got like this huge new island that's appeared on my face usually i'll try and hide it like laura said we used to turn up to these like trying almost like trying to impress each other and be cute and professional and now we've just let ourselves go well one the good thing about podcasts is that no one would

have known that you had a pimple on your face until you just declared that to the world so you're welcome and two it's kind of like dating like when we first started this podcast we didn't really know each other that well and now over the months it's true we've kind of slipped down this slippery slope and now it's the real the honeymoon phase is over this is the real me yeah i used to turn up and like make up really cute clothes at the start and i just have to think like i need her to know that this is still a good idea and i need her to know that like i'm fashion i'm fun i'm cool i'm friendly and now i just like barely if we put on clothes and turn up to the podcast we're really overachieving but we say this guys but we still take this podcast for very

very seriously just not our attire that's all okay so what have you done this week what can you bring to the table not a lot but i can tell you something that i learned oh which i think is gonna blow some people's minds out there oh hit me i'm ready for it this is probably only gonna relate to a very small number of people who actually listen to this podcast if you have a child you will be aware of the tv show bluey which is like an australian cartoon there's two little dogs who you know bluey and bingo bluey is a girl what bluey is a freaking girl no where did you learn that that was your mind being blown bluey bluey's a boy bluey's a boy's name yes they're trying to challenge gender norms and stereotypes so i found out yesterday when we watched about

17 episodes back to back and bluey called her grandma and her grandma was like hey girls nice to see you and I was like but literally my brain exploded and then I found myself googling is Bluey a girl and there you go google that shit I I will take that to the bank because Bluey is a girl do you know what was funny was Matt put on on his story the other day hey I've been watching Bluey for the last 45 minutes before I realized Marley's been asleep for an hour we do it every night I think that most parents do like you end up watching and it's it's bad like I know that we shouldn't put Marley in front of the tv but sometimes it's like the second babysitter that you need in the day just to get stuff done and then you put them down for a nap and you realize

the whole nap time has passed and you're still watching the fucking wiggles hey you know what i want to add something to this you know who i hate who pepper pig look hates a strong word pepper pig is a little bitch she's a little little i was about to say she's a little pig she is a pig you said hate is a strong word but then you went on to call peppa pig like an innocent children's cartoon a little bitch i okay so i don't use the term lightly guys i babysat my niece and nephew and pixie and eddie they're obsessed with peppa pig like every single child and it was the first time i was watching it and i was sitting there gobsmacked i was i had to pick my jaw up off the ground she was a little bitch to her mom the way

she was speaking to her mom she hung up on the phone on her mom she treats her parents like dirt she is really mean to her friends like i don't know i mean i haven't sat down and watched the whole series i've only seen a few episodes i reckon that she's probably just behaving like most children do yeah children just hang up on their mums and like challenge their parents and why do you think they do that because they're watching peppa pig if this is the problem raising our children via tv i turned it off and i was like you can go outside and play you'll never you'll never i just i couldn't believe it like god we grew up watching like bambi and things like that yeah and having barbie dolls that had absolutely no vaginas and really being confused

about our identities and they used to try and have sex and stuff but oh did they did no i didn't try and make my barbie doll have sex whatever me either ah anyway what the hell's been happening in your week that was a weird tangent well i've had a few little uh hiccups this week number one just like to continue britney's moving fiasco and everything that could go wrong went wrong i spent the whole night because it was sunday night last night so i couldn't call anyone in my toilet broke oh i know you facetimed me and i got to watch you live in action with a hand down a dunny brit she only had one glove so she had one glove on up to her elbow and was fishing around a dunny with me on facetime thinking i'm gonna be some sort of help can i just i just want to

clarify that my hand was in the clean part like the cistern at the top it wasn't in the the poo toilet fishing around anyway so call the face i'm laura dear life i've got one hand down the dunny can and i'm like laura i'm talking her through this problem and i'm like this is the problem thinking you know she's been through life she's had experience she's got a family surely she has some advice surely this girl knows her way around a toilet well there's your first mistake britney she literally just looked at me was like i don't know what to do and then proceeded to ignore me the whole time and just be like look how pretty my child is i'm like laura my hand is down the dunny can i'm not looking at how pretty your child is right now but yes she's beautiful

oh my god this is why people don't want to be friends with someone who's got a kid this is why this is why adults who have children end up losing all of their friends who don't have kids because i'm so obsessed with marley it's sick every time brit calls i end up putting marley on facetime brit doesn't want to fucking talk to my kids i actually i'm like look at how beautiful my daughter is it's sick i have a sick problem guys i actually have to say to her all the time I'm like, hey, princess angel face. And I'm like, Laura, focus, get back on the phone. I'm like, I'm just been running around an emergency department.

I've got 10 minutes to talk to Laura. She's like, look at my angel. I'm pretty sure this is how you raise a narcissistic child, just by continuously telling them how beautiful they are and making all your friends affirm that. Other than that, something funny did happen. I went back to boxing this week. I've had a bit of a lull, a bit of downtime.

And I thought I need to get back into gear. Went back to boxing, walked in the door and guess who I saw, Laura. Actually, you're not going to ever guess it. Who? It's someone from my dating story past. Oh, I miss your dating story past. So if you guys.

Meat raffle. No, that would be meaty though. It wasn't meat raffle. It wasn't meat raffle. You get one more guess. Like the funniest OG date story. I can't, I can't even remember. Wait, sit on my face, guys.

Wait, so for anyone who's been listening from the very beginning, you will remember this guy. But for anyone who doesn't know or who's just come on board, Britt was like she met this guy at a party, had like the best time, thought she was in love with him. I didn't feel in love. I thought he was a gentleman. On the walk home to her apartment, he was like,

I really want you to sit on my face. He was a real gentleman, really lovely. He's like, can I carry a bag and walk you home? and I was like, oh my God, my great men do exist. We'd been talking for about three hours. We were almost home and he just, it was silent. And then he just turns to me and says, I just really want you to sit on my face.

That is what he said. Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to hear my reaction, you're going to have to go back to the start and listen. It's a whole story. Anyway, I walked in and smack bang. I haven't seen sit on my face guy since he asked me to sit on his face. He's like, that's a face I remember.

That looks like a good seat. hey should i try again because it's end of financial year sale time maybe i can have her this time what what the fuck that was so bad i might even edit that out that was way better in my head um anyway we just looked at each other and i think we pretended that we didn't look at each other and just like scurried across the room and then scurried out at the end and we never said anything so i think we're both pretending that we haven't seen each other that's a good way to deal with your trauma just pretend like it doesn't exist i would highly recommend well i also had this moment where i was like maybe he doesn't remember me

but he would how do you not remember me also i'm just gonna put it out there i'm so excited that bachelor in paradise starts in two weeks because that means that in four weeks after that i will have the old britney back and you will be able to talk about your life and whether or not you're dating or not dating or what's happening we will be able to have some of the real life substance back in here i'm not gonna lie it has been a long walk in the desert laura it's been a bloody long time hasn't it oh mate not that i'm counting seven months three weeks and two days the lady is dry everyone and moving right along the one thing i have done this weekend which was like a real surprise was no look i'm taking care of myself i'm trying to was okay so no

paps don't care about me anymore like I'm boring I'm old news I'm so far down the d-list ranking of celebrities that it's like they're I walk past paparazzis and they're taking photos of other people now I'm like look there's a pap and then I'm like oh look there's someone actually famous that's where we're at in my life which is great and it makes me so happy that I can leave the house without makeup on or fake tan or have to even worry about my hair I just don't care my life is very normal and I love every single bit of my normal life yesterday I went for a walk down bondi with britney i had no makeup on and looked like shit fully embracing it next to britney who looked immaculate with her full face of makeup and lo and behold who the fuck is there mr paparazzi

taking photos can i just say a you looked great b he was probably photographing you and i got in the way c the whole article was about you he was photographing you britney do not try and play coy in this my favorite part of the whole article was that he said um britney looked fresh-faced with no makeup i was like yeah i was like yeah tell everyone that's my fresh face i had a full face on and laura looks like she's dying from some sort of terminal illness i was like i was like bless your soul mr paparazzi you tell everyone i'm fresh face oh so do you know what happened yesterday on our walk like and this happens from time to time and honestly guys it's the best thing it's just it gives us it fills us with so much joy we were walking and a girl came

up to us and was like oh my god I listen to the podcast not I've seen you on The Bachelor or any of that just like I love your podcast so please if you do see us in public and you think oh god like can I go up and tell them that I listen to their podcast I just want you to know that like we fangirl you way more than you fangirl us because it makes our absolute day yeah we were stoked she really gave us a heart attack she literally like jumped out of nowhere but we were stoked but it's so nice like this is the reason why we make this podcast we love that there are so many of you out there who are listening to it who are getting something from it who feel empowered by the content that we're putting out I guess to be associated with something that women are saying

gets them through hard times and that makes them laugh and makes them feel good and empowered that makes us feel so happy yes so please come tell us we need the confidence boost i need the ego stroking i do want to ask you something so i was at a friend's house this week a guy friend but like literally a friend guys i've told you before i have a lot of male friends i i got given i got sent some like lollies or something a little while ago and i didn't like them so i was like oh i'm going to his house he'll eat them i'll take them over and i was like hey do you want these lollies and he's like oh brilliant i'll put them in my chick drawer opened up this cupboard drawer and there was a drawer full of stuff that i'd never seen and i

was like what's the what do you mean the chick drawing he's like i've got a chick drawer and i'm like what's the chick drawing he's like oh for it's an emergency drawer for like when i bring a chick over i pull out the chick drawer so she thinks i've always got really good stuff on hand and i was like what's in there there was like really high end like all the really good biscuits that are filled with dates there was like um really good wines champagnes lollies crisps it was like an emergency chick drawer this guy sounds like the nicest man to have a chick drawer i feel like most normal guys would have a drawer full of lube and condoms like handcuffs well i think they were at the back of the drawer like behind the clinger arm he's like here's my champagne and

there's my condoms anyway i thought that was funny because i don't have that i wonder if any women have a man drawer like an emergency drawer of when like i have a drawer i have a cupboard that's like in case a friend pops over i've got a bag of crisps but i don't have like that's just called a pantry Brittany oh that was actually funny thanks thanks babe thanks for the affirmation no that was funny yeah okay so I have a pantry where I keep things in case people come around um no but this same guy so we started talking about it and I started talking about who he's been dating and stuff and he told me about a girl that he went on a date with anyway how do you feel about this he takes every single first date ever for years he takes them to the same place the same

restaurant the same table all the waiters know him everyone knows him what do you think about that we actually had a person write in who had this experience I think it's so so weird I think if I was the date and I found out that it would make me feel very unspecial like they put no thought no energy no effort into it at all they've just kind of carbon copied colored by numbers their dates but i guess if he's onto a good thing and he knows that the service is good there's no room for error it's easy yeah this is what he said it's just first date like just the first date he doesn't go there he doesn't like no because i think he has the same second date place as well no yeah because weird because he says because he dates so much he's like i know it's good i know

where it is and how long it takes to get there i know the food what the food's like you know what the service is like I know she's going to enjoy it he's like it's just easy I don't have to think I don't have to do it and I sort of get it I kind of like that he is doing this and it kind of is like a science experiment in school where you have a control so like the the restaurant everything is the control so the only thing that differs is the date so if the date's really great he's like well this is an outlier yeah it's a great date because it couldn't be the like it couldn't be the atmosphere or the environment or anything it just has to be the chick she's the only new variable in this experiment. So at the start when he told me I was laughing and I was

sort of like tearing him a new one I'm like come on dude get some creativity like take him somewhere else or and even for his own sake I was like you're probably going there three times a week like you look a bit like a creep from everyone but then the more he explained it I was like it actually sort of makes sense you know it's good you know what it's going to be like and you know you're probably going to get a home run. So we had someone write in a very similar story basically she had gone out on a date and she'd been talking to this guy through isolation and anyway they finally had their first date and it was at a new bar that she'd never been to before and they had an amazing date and then the next night she was out with her girlfriends and she was like oh I

went to this really cool new bar like let's go there and so she went with her girlfriends to the same bar that she was at the night before with the guy rocks up and he's there on a fucking date with a new chick but he owned it and he came up and was like yeah look your our date was actually better yeah like just so you know all right well how about we get on to some real life accidentally unfiltered i'm down for it you know that this is our favorite part of the episode every single week we bring you your most embarrassing stories and we laugh at you together you want to go first all right guys i'm going to summarize this one because it's been written in and it's kind of long but but anyway it's it's funny it's good it's a goodie uh this

girl she was waiting at the bus stop for the bus to come along and she gets on the bus okay so she gets she gets on a bus is there a bus in this story there's a bus she gets on the bus and she sits down and she's listening to some music and she's just having a nice quiet ride on the bus to work anyway a little bit of time passes and then she realizes that she needs to fart she's like oh my god how am i gonna do this like very urgent a very urgent need to fart she's like oh, it's fine. I'll just let the fart out in time with the music. So with the music covers it. So the music can hide the fart. So she's like, I don't know what song that was, but you get what I'm saying. Anyway, she's like, it was perfect. I managed to get my whole fart out in tune to

the song. No one noticed until I realized I was wearing fucking headphones. so she just said to everyone around her it's silent she's just going she just totally forgot she had headphones in thought she was listening to the music on the bus and farted in time to the music that headphones is so funny it's so bad this is what isolation does to you people you don't know how to function in normal life like oh my god could you imagine i had this feeling i don't know if anybody else has experienced this you're gonna think i'm disgusting brit you're gonna think i'm disgusting too i always do i had this real fear after isolation happened that I was like I'm gonna have to tell myself I can't fart at work

anymore because like when you're at home you just fart all the time no one cares burp here fart here like whatever you do drop some burps we're like we're so deep in our relationship there's like we Matt and I fart all the time in front of each other we don't care okay see I wouldn't I'm not a fighter whatever like we just don't care isn't that funny and we still love each other guys the romance is still alive alive and kicking anyways there sometimes I'm very tired and have a headache but yeah I got to work this one day and I was like oh my god I'm gonna really have to be conscious about this this is four months of like patent behavior that I have to break and you know what they say four months and you've got yourself a habit okay so what can we take from that Laura

has a fighting habit great they're happy for you can't wait for Daily Mail to write an article about it I I'm not a whiz popper in front of my partner you can't even say the word fart because do you know what growing up in my family we weren't allowed to swear we weren't allowed to do anything but fart was classified by my mother as like a no-go zone it was a it was almost like a swear word we weren't allowed to say it so now I think when you spend your whole life being told you can't do something it's I feel like if I say it now like I'll still say it look far far far far you're like my mom's gonna listen to this podcast um but i she my mom and dad have never passed wind i'm sure they have in front of each other no people say this but no they haven't

certainly far in your sleep sometimes oh yeah obviously it's uncontrollable when you're unconscious laura you're so relaxed and i think that that's what i would be like i don't think i'd be mortified if i did a whiz pop on someone all right we don't do it on each other jesus right look I know this is a very polarizing topic I know that some people are extremely comfortable with farting in front of their partners I know that some people are like that is not okay that's bathroom stuff and you keep it in the bathroom or in your pants but or in your butt or in your butt but uh yeah look we're fine with it so okay well I love that story speaking of Daily Mail though guys I know that I make jokes about this every single week

um about how every time we make a joke or we say something in jest it ends up getting picked up by daily mail but if you're following our instagram page which is life uncut podcast how's that go and do it if you're not we did post this week that daily mail had written an article based off our last ask uncut uh where we answered a listener letter which was asking about um whether or not she should have a threesome because when she doesn't want to yeah because her partner wants to, she doesn't want to. And our advice was very much like, no, you don't do anything that you don't want to do in a relationship. But according to Daily Mail, we were giving some great advice on how to have a threesome. So Laura and I haven't had threesomes. The advice was not us. Oh, Laura's

looking at me. I was like, we haven't. Have you? No, never. Never. I'm so boring. Yeah. So Laura and I haven't had threesomes. The advice we were giving was not on advice. Like we had done it and this is how to do it like here are some techniques and that is what take ball one in mouth don't say that because now they're going to take that quote um no it was actually a really disappointing article usually we laugh at them but to put a headline out saying britney and laura give three some advice and that was it's really disappointing and it's really shitty on their behalf because that is completely completely unrelated to the article it had nothing to do with the article or the question all the advice we gave it's just really misleading but like i mean i guess there's

we make jokes about it because it constantly happens and the reason why I wanted to say this is because I think we're all guilty of it sometimes when we see an article and the headline is very clickbait and the headline may say something that's very controversial and we kind of sometimes have the tendency of not reading an actual article and we can we can take headlines as valid truths and so this is just a reminder to check yourself if you ever find yourself reading those sorts of like new ideas or the you know the rag trade media and thinking that what's written there is bible yeah yeah or gospel or bible whichever tomato tomato because yeah you know I mean you listen to this podcast you know what the truth is anyway anyway that's my little side

yeah conversation Brittany give us your accidentally unfiltered so I've been seeing this guy for over a year and things were going really great it was my first real relationship I had made a really conscious decision to be a lady in front of him with no active bodily functions. It was going really well. One night, sitting on the sofa all flirty and cute-like, we started a tickle fight. We were little tickle monsters.

I quickly realised that it needed to stop as I was at risk of a whiz pop. I asked him to stop. He continued. I pleaded. He continued. I begged. He continued. with that i let out the dreaded fart not a cute little puff of air one not one that you can get

away with but the biggest one i have ever done no joke it lasted seven hardcore seconds he flew back from me clearly shocked by the noise that had just erupted from my behind and then i laughed and i laughed and i laughed so hard that i pissed my pants in front of him it was a real moment and i ran away and i didn't know what to do but it solidified our relationship and it confirmed me as my penguin because 11 years later we are married with two kids lol fucking kano oh my god it just gets better and better i love so much about this one i love that we both chose fart topics for today and we didn't even know that we're doing that and secondly it's just i love that she was laughing so much at her own misfortune that she wet her pants

Shit, it was a double whammy. No, secondly, secondly, guys, this is just proof that you have a deeper form of connection with someone if you fart in front of them. Maybe that's where I'm going wrong. All right. On that note, that was all a lot. Let's get into today's topic, which you've listened to about 25 minutes of this podcast and still don't know what we're talking about today.

Surprise. okay that's the third time you've done x-file music no i'm removing it you're in the wrong genre is that better i don't know what you're trying to do that's ncis i listened i watched so much ncis i watch okay my ncis viewing is comparable to my bluey viewing and i know a lot about both of them so why i still don't understand why you're doing ncis music because the suspense this building about what we're going to- It's not a crime podcast, Laura. It's not true crime.

I've always wanted to do a true crime podcast, guys. Here we are. Okay, guys. Today's culture is so obsessed with looking and acting young, and we want to talk about a topic that we think is really important to women and men, but especially our youth, and that is body dysmorphia. Boom. Have you heard of it, Laura?

Yes. That's why we're talking about it. It'd be a real problem if I hadn't. Wow. Sorry, it was a rhetorical question, but bring the goods, Brittany. Give us the intro. So body dysmorphia syndrome or BDS is also known as and it's something that affects a lot of people and that's why we wanted to delve into it and I think it's because we sort of are bombarded daily

with images via magazines and billboards and the TV and the internet and it's all about what the person looks like. It's all about they seem beautiful and they seem perfect and I think that really creates some issues in young people thinking that they think to be successful they need to be beautiful they think to be successful they need to be perfect and they need to look a certain way they need to look like the model and they need to look like the tv presenter and i think that really plants this deep-seated issue in a lot of people so for those of you who don't know what body dysmorphia is it is basically this obsession with the way that you look um which may not actually relate to what's happening in real life so for example people who

have this illness constantly worry about the way they look they believe an inconspicuous or relatively non-existent physical attribute is a serious defect I think a lot of people often have it about their skin for example they can become very obsessive about something that they deem as a flaw that other people might look at and go oh gosh there's literally nothing there it's this obsessive nature that really is what creates this illness and basically I think you know when people are looking at themselves in the mirror all the time constantly checking something constantly comparing the way they look to other people these are all symptoms and signs of a type of body dysmorphia and body dysmorphia itself has many many levels there are there is people who have

very extreme cases and it's debilitating and then there are people who have very mild cases where they may deem a certain thing a flaw about themselves and they have obsessive tendencies over it but doesn't completely overrun their day or their ability to live a normal life yeah absolutely it's the severity can differ from people that know that what they're seeing and what they're thinking and what they're feeling isn't rational and isn't justified so they're looking at themselves and they might for example they might say oh my god i'm so fat but they know that they're putting their size 10 jeans on they know they're not so there's those people but then there are the people that it really really causes emotional distress and it can really affect

their entire life because they completely believe that what they're seeing is real and what they're seeing is actually has no connection to reality it's not them in any means and sometimes sometimes they see things on their face that aren't there they see things on their body that aren't there and it's really concerning because it's led to quite a high level of depression and suicide in teenagers and that's why I think it's so important to highlight now so one of the reasons why we wanted to talk about this on today's episode was because there was a post that went up. Kim Kardashian had posted a video of herself wearing a corset and there was a really interesting conversation that happened on Jameela Jamil's Instagram page. She's a British actress, a radio

presenter, a model, a writer, an activist and a feminist and what she has written on her Instagram is so interesting because she kind of encapsulates and really shows how the changing times in social media how there has been a bit of a revolt basically the photo that kim kardashian has posted it's a video and it's her wearing her corset from the met gala where her waist is incredibly almost like unbelievably tiny if you didn't see the video that she posted if like so i saw the photo and i thought it's got to be photoshopped but then she's obviously realized that too and kim kardashian's posted a video so that she can prove it's not photoshopped and it's it's ridiculous you guys need to go and have a google look it up it's insane it's it's it doesn't

like, it looks so unbelievably not a real person. That's how tiny her waist is. She looks like a Barbie doll in this. We actually received messages to our own Instagram saying like, this is such a good topic for conversation, which is why we wanted to kind of delve into it deeper. I really feel like Jamila Jamil really encapsulated the most perfect response about this post. So what she said in her Instagram, and I would love for you to go and read it because it's just, it's literally the most perfectly worded response to what is happening on social media and what she said there is that there's no point in screaming at Kim herself the smart thing to do is to protect yourself from the images that you see on social media but also if you look at something like that

and you recognize that that's wrong and that that is going to do harm to other people and that that isn't like the image we should be putting out there for a realistic and attainable body then the work's already done you're already woke to what's happening in society where you can already recognize that it's damage and it's unnatural and it's not right and it's causing havoc um i guess what jamila jamila is saying is that if you recognize that that this is that this is toxic and you recognize that it's damaging you're able to kind of disengage with instagram pages or with people or celebrities who don't make you feel good about yourself but i think that that's the first step in recognizing and unpacking this idea of body dysmorphia

but it's funny isn't it because so many people recognize how ridiculous it is and how unattainable it is and how damaging it is but they still follow the pages it's like a train wreck they can't unfollow it they know it makes them feel bad but they can't unfollow it it's like almost this obsession with the unnatural and the unattainable I think that it's almost a little bit easy to say oh just tune out and unsubscribe and unfollow the things that you know make you feel bad because it's everywhere it's not just on the Instagram pages that you elect to follow on Instagram it's in marketing it's in retail it's this total lack and under-representation of diversity in what people look like which is what creates this feeling of not being good enough so

I mean I know like us growing up when I was like what in the 90s the the idea of what was beautiful in the 90s was like heroin chic like think Kate Moss young so fucking underweight like super super skinny if you look like you had a drug a drug addiction like that's what was deemed beautiful and it was literally called heroin chic and it's so ridiculous when you think about it isn't it outrageous right you didn't think of what the name meant when you were young you were like oh heroin chic but you didn't think that oh that we're saying she actually looks like a junkie she looks like a heroin addict unwell and that's and that shit's chic but that was the that was the goal post that we grew up with and I I remember girls in school aspiring to want to look like that and

I remember girls that were young adults in my university wanting to aspire to look like that it changes throughout the years but there's always been this one constant which is this lack of diversity in what represents beauty and we have seen just recently which I think is another amazing point to bring into this chat so for anybody who missed it Calvin Klein has recently released a new billboard in New York City which features a black plus size model an LGBT icon jari jones and i think that this in itself it's a it's a really amazing image go and have a look at that as well but this turn around oh wow can you see yeah that's great so basically on one side they've got a photo of what calvin klein had as their model in the 90s and now what they have in

the 20s and you know in 2020 and that in the 20s the roaring 20s in the wild and outrageous 20s but it shows how far we have come in in now representing different types of beauty but there is still a very long way to go I remember so like you said when we were growing up and heroin chic was a thing I definitely suffered from body dysmorphia I until not that long ago I still sort of do suffer from it to the point where it really really affected my life um I looked at myself like I was the biggest ugliest thing and I'm not just saying I was like having a down day there were times where I couldn't look at myself in a mirror I would not look at myself in a mirror for days on end because I was I was actually disgusted at what I saw I would not take photos

I would not let people take photos of me I would be beside myself and my family used to I stopped eating like developed an eating disorder and my family like you're being like we didn't know what it was then like you're being ridiculous but I genuinely believed that what I saw something different looking back at me in the mirror and over the years it got a lot lot better where I finally got to the point where I had changed from being severe to less severe where I realized that I wasn't making sense and I real I started to tell myself you're being ridiculous because you're putting on size eight pants you're not overweight you're wearing size eight and I really had to start to talk myself out of it and put myself back into reality and and say if you had a weight

problem you wouldn't be putting size eight pants on I still wasn't liking what I saw but it took me a long time to get there and it was a real really really hard time and I still up until a couple years ago was still battling that to an extent and my sister always has to pull me in line she always had to say to me tell me what size you're wearing tell me like you're beautiful Brittany look at this photo like because I would be like I can't even look at myself and um it's really worrying because I don't want anyone to have to go through that I think it's interesting what you say that you used to feel like that because I don't I don't know if it ever fully leaves you like when you have these feelings of I think when you have these insecurities and you

don't feel like you're good enough I don't think it completely completely goes away I think that you just get better at managing it and you and you grow to accept things about yourself but I still think that there's always this level of underlying um insecurity that stays there and maybe it can flare up depending on triggers because obviously you can be triggered by things that people say can be triggered by things that you read. I myself, like we've spoken about this on a past episode, but really briefly. So I think it's nice to kind of delve into a little bit deeper after the show and being on The Bachelor, I became really, really self-conscious about the way that I look. And that's not something that I've ever really worried about so much, not from

a vanity perspective, but just because it never, I never really thought about it. It wasn't until after doing the show where I would see pat photos of myself and I was being scrutinized by people on social media saying whether I was pretty enough or not, that I really, really, really started to get insecure about the way that I look. And particularly for me, it was about my skin because I suffer from pigmentation. I've spoken about a lot in my social media now, but I get pigmentation. I get really bad melasma and, you know, I have done loads of things to my skin to get rid of it I have had a crazy hectic couple thousand dollar peels that left me unable to leave the house for 10 days because I literally burnt my hair my face off like I burnt my face

off because I really wanted to get rid of it and I became obsessed by it to the point where every day I was taking photos of my skin to see how bad it was and every day I was checking it in the mirror and and that has changed now I definitely don't have the same insecurities about it it's still there it's actually worse than ever after pregnancy but for me what kind of shifted my my mentality towards it was having Marley like I think since becoming a mum I have become less self-focused and less worried about the way that I look and there was like a very clear line in the sand when that changed for me and that was Marley it's funny when you say that we never really shake it because if I'm going to be completely honest and I will be I'm going to

be really raw here when I was in the finale of The Bachelor when Nick told me he wasn't going to be with me I remember saying to myself of course he wasn't going to be with you look at you why why would anyone pick you this is why this is my internal monologue I was like of course like if anyone in the whole world Brittany is going to be the first person to not be good enough to win it's you like and I I was really bad to myself I was like you should have known better I can't believe you did this to yourself and I convinced myself that he it wasn't his problem the reason didn't pick anyone was me. It was, he was, he couldn't, he could not fathom to wake up to me every day and to look at me every day. And it was a really, really low point. So you definitely don't

always shake it and you're not going to grow out of it. And I haven't said that before. So there you go. That was me being really raw guys. Different triggers, different things that happen in your life can trigger that feeling of not being good enough and that feeling of insecurity it doesn't ever completely go away and like I know that you know that that's not the case with with like your finale like I know that now you can rationalize it and look back and go well there was 24 other girls in that season and nobody got picked like it wasn't a reflection on you as a person it's a reflection on him but it doesn't mean that that doesn't make you question or look at yourself and try and pick apart why are you not the one that's good enough

yeah it's hard it's tough the thing with with this idea of body dysmorphia is that it is a lot more common than what people realize it only really comes into the limelight when someone has such a severe issue with it that they're having to seek treatment i think that so many women have different varying levels of body dysmorphia that never really get talked about or spoken about because it doesn't affect their every day but they do have this internal monologue where they're thinking okay my skin's not good enough my eyebrows are not this my lips are not this and that that's their that's their internal thought patterns that's what they're telling themselves all the time and I think that that's going to be really relatable to a lot of women

who are listening to this because I mean I know that I've done it so many times in my life I just don't tell people that that's what I'm thinking breaking it down and kind of getting into what constitutes body dysmorphia what are some symptoms where you would be able to identify okay oh my god this is what this is what I'm doing to myself this is what I'm struggling with at the moment yeah so look um in terms of common areas that people struggle with and symptoms according to the victorian government health channel common areas are facial skin so it's funny you said that laura because that's the number one thing that the victorian health government says people with body dysmorphia um suffer from is it's looking at their skin oh my god i was so i cannot explain to

you how fixated i was on it for a while yeah and now like i still don't don't get me wrong guys like I'm not over it I still worry about it it's still something that I feel very insecure about from time to time it was like it was something I thought about all day every day like that was where my head was at in regards to I thought about what my skin looked like I would be having conversations with people and they might look at me in a funny way and I would think oh that they're looking at my melasma that's what they're thinking that my melasma is really bad it's so funny because I don't even notice it on you I'm not even saying that but that just goes to show you how it's this huge thing for you. And I look at you every day and I, I'm not even tooting your horn. I always

walk into Laura and I'm like, you look really great today. It happened this one time. So I went to Mamma Mia for, to, to record a podcast and, um, with Tully Smythe, I was recording podcasts with Tully. And I remember her coming up, it was the first time I'd ever seen her in real life. And she came up and spoke to me and I looked at her and I was like, Oh my God, like your skin's so perfect. And then I, she was talking to me and I thought, Oh, you're looking at my skin you think my skin's bad and that that was what was going through my head before we recorded the podcast and I know I know that she was this probably in retrospect there's no way she was thinking that like she's a lovely girl why on earth would she be thinking that about me

but that's all I was thinking and then the whole time we were recording the podcast I was like I'm so self-conscious about my skin and then the first thing I did is I went and looked in the mirror to see if my concealer was still concealing it like that's how how silly and it's not even that bad guys it's just something that's like been my biggest insecurity your insecurity yeah that's why well it's funny because that's their number one facial skin then they talk about the face in general including the size and the shape of your eyes or your nose or your ears or your lip so that's the other thing that people are really worried about um then of course it's thighs stomach boobs legs breasts and genitals so these are all the things that women worry about and

that's the size and the shape um genitals is a big one people get really worried about if they've got innie or outie labia um what other people's looks like is there's too big is there's too small so that's a really big one and they they go to the extent of having surgery on it but that's a whole nother topic i think this idea of like talking about genitals is really interesting because it's something that we like never speak about even with like our closest friends i don't think i've ever spoken to my closest friends about what my vagina looks like i don't know what your vagina looks like no and I'm definitely not gonna tell y'all on this podcast but I do think that like there becomes this insecurity around it when there is no conversation because

you have no point of comparison so I guess like what in an ideal world if you were gonna hold up a Barbie doll we've been we've been raised with Barbie as like your toy they don't have any genitalia yeah she's smooth yeah she's smooth she's bold but like this idea of it being an an innie is like a perfect little vagina, but like women don't have innies. Like that's like some do sure. Great. Majority of women don't have innies. Yeah. Good for you. Fantastic. Take a photo. But if you've ever been to MoMA in Tasmania, there is this wall of vaginas. And one thing that I found that was so amazing to see, I was like, wow, they are so incredibly different. The vast array of like what a vagina looks like, what constitutes normal is incredible. But because

we don't talk about it it's very private but like we don't know we don't know what normal is yeah I guess for me it's different I work in an industry where there's a big part of my job that I look at vaginas and penises all day it's like what we do and you don't even that's just when she's on lunch break oh yeah no that's before work no um we do it all day like I do things where we used to you know women are having trouble falling pregnant we flush their fallopian tubes um most of our patients are in gowns with no underwear ultrasounds everything so i see them all day every day i don't even register it it's second nature it would be looking at someone's genitals for me it's like looking at their hand it's just it's just part of the job but the point of this is there are so

many different kinds and and they're all normal every single one is normal because there is no normal and that's what i think people need to understand but for you because you get to see it all the time surely there's like some level of reassurance there as well you're like ah oh I know where I sit in the spectrum of life but most people don't have that they don't have a point of comparison with that sort of stuff yeah whereas unlike your face or another part of your body you can actually see and compare that to somebody else whereas like your genitals yeah I ain't got the same sort of well we really really delved into the genital part but let's talk about okay so they're like the main areas that people struggle with and I totally get

that for me it was my weight I had never had a problem with my skin or anything else it was just like I thought I looked like the size of a house when I didn't that was my thing your thing was the skin but let's talk about some other symptoms of BDD body dysmorphic disorder one of them was what I touched on earlier a little bit which is this constantness of looking at yourself in the mirror or taking photos or sometimes it's almost the the opposite of that if you find yourself having to completely avoid mirrors because you don't like what you see in there these are all also symptoms of someone who might be suffering from some level of body dysmorphia yeah so we have like constant dieting and over exercising which i feel like majority of people are going to say

well i've done that before um the grooming to excess so for example a big thing is like brushing the same bit of your hair over and over and over shaving the same patch of your skin over and over and over um putting concealer on the same part of your melasma all day and it's all you think about excessive consumption of your thoughts of this one area of your face repeat cosmetic surgery or procedures so I think like if you get yourself into into a habit of constantly trying to fix something yeah and that's like especially if it's the same body part constantly being improved so like you get your boobs done but then you get them again because you're still like they're not they're not right they're not right you get them again and again so it's like procedures because

make procedures is one thing but then like over and over and over again like there is this obsessive nature and this repetitive nature which is what starts to really uh signify if you've got body dysmorphia yep then there's like obviously the whole comparison you spend a lot of time comparing yourself your weight and your looks to your friends or to models or to people that you know are unattainable like okay well why is kim kardashian's waist like that i need my waist to be like that or i'm not going to be beautiful no one's going to love me so that's a really big one um depression anxiety feeling really down and feeling really low not wanting to go to social events not wanting your friends to see you um excessively trying to cover up your body so it

might be summer and it's really hot and you're like I'm just gonna wear my jumper I think as well like when you get into um like those sorts of of strategies for coping like when you are displaying avoidance behavior or you're trying to cover up like that's when you're really kind of fallen deeply down the rabbit hole of like this actually being a significant issue that affects your life um and I think that that's when you really need to have a look at yourself and go okay, what can I do to better develop the coping mechanisms and the skills to be okay with the way that I look? Because you know what, like every single person is unique. We've all been given vastly different personalities and aesthetics and the difference in us is what makes us all

beautiful and unique. A really, really, really big one, one that happened to me and I experienced when I was young too, it's not even feeling comfortable in front of your partner. You don't want them to see you naked. You don't want them to see you in swimwear because you're just mortified that they'll think you're unattractive. That's a really big one. And that one breaks my heart because this person's with you because they love you. They love every part of you.

If you guys do feel like you've had any of these symptoms and you are listening to this podcast being like, yep, yep, tick, tick, been there, done that, then you do need to go and seek help because it is a serious condition. So you need to go to your GP or go and speak to a therapist. And the number one treatment for body dysmorphia

is cognitive behavioral therapy. And they'll do that, a therapist will do that with you. it's just a short-term therapy technique it does have an end an end time so it's not like something you have to go and do for years they'll often it's part of the therapies they'll put a timeline on it they'll say in three months we'll get there in three months this will be over for example um and basically it's just helps people find a new way to behave it changes their thought processes and this is the number one treatment that they use it's all about like retraining your brain and retraining your thought patterns and also i guess it comes into this idea of

mindfulness like when you know that you're falling down the rabbit hole of thinking these things and thinking these negative thoughts trying to stop yourself and focus on other aspects of your life that bring you joy and make you happy and like I said like I think a massive turning point for me was when I had Marley having a shift in my life having a shift in my focus really made a huge difference in my own vanity I think like I no longer am the only person in my world I'm no longer the most important person in my world and that changed my life incredibly however I don't think going and having a kid is the solution for everyone okay going and having a baby is not on the treatment plan guys Laura it worked for Laura it's not gonna work for everyone else but it's

just another way to deal with stress um it can you can use it for other things too relationship breakdowns grief loss um it's a really really powerful tool and something that everybody should learn and take into that life so I do really really want you to not shy away from this if you do feel like there is any of this that is ringing true to you please go and seek help often like thinking that needing to go to therapy is like the most drastic and like you can only do that when it's at the very very like bleakest moment I do think that there's other things that you can do before having to like seek out that sort of professional help I think if you are struggling with some aspect of body dysmorphia depending on how debilitating it is to your life

things like unfollowing people on social media who make you feel bad things like being really really mindful of what content you're consuming also being um aware of what what you're being marketed because like you know we seek out what we want to know so I think it's very easy to continue to read blogs about how to make your skin better or to um look up like you know different exercise programs or like just constantly consuming content that is feeding this insecurity that you have that's where you have to try and break the cycle as well acknowledge that you're doing it don't beat yourself up for doing it but put the phone down and walk away from the laptop when you are finding yourself constantly consuming information or looking at photos that are

just perpetuating this feeling of not being good enough yeah I recently had a few months ago now I had a social media call where I was looking at people and I'm like they actually just make me feel shit and I went through I called a couple hundred people from my I didn't know them personally there were people that I had obviously just followed once upon a time because I thought they were beautiful or for whatever reason and then I was like you actually don't give me one bit of content that benefits my life well they don't gain anything from them except I look at them and I'm like oh my god they're so hot like why can't I be like that and this and this totally like then all oh my god I love this the symbiosis of this how this just feeds full circle whole new

world. And then this just kind of comes full circle again to what Jamila Jamil was saying in her post and what we touched on at the very start of this, of this chat. And that is that you can be empowered. Like you are the one who dictates the content that you consume. You are the one that dictates the products that you buy. You are the one that dictates what you're being marketed to. So take power, take control, use the tools that you've been given and recognize what makes you feel bad and what adds to that and make empowered choices to live a better life where one where you're not comparing yourself to other people and you're not allowing yourself to feel insecure because of shit like social media yeah and just be kind to yourself i just want to finish

this with a quote from this post where jamila jamil has said you have the power you control every market you choose what and who is trendy unfollow the people who tell you things that hurt your self-esteem don't let the debris of their damage spill onto you unfollow people brands that don't make you feel powerful and happy and grateful for what you have block mute delete repeat boom mic drop i think what a way to finish laura thank you thank you very much please come again all right guys you know that we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet are you gonna kick it off or am i gonna kick it off oh i'll kick it off I've already forgotten what my suck is.

Yeah, that's why I said I'll do it. Oh, shit. What's my suck? My suck for sure, actually it was a tie, is my bloody toilet breaks on a Sunday afternoon. That was my sweet. It was so entertaining. Yesterday.

But you know what I did, guys? Thank you. Fiercely independent. I YouTubed, I Googled it and then I YouTubed it and I fixed it with my one glove. I had one glove. I need no man. Anyway, my hand's on the toilet.

I'm Skyping people. I've got Google and YouTube going. I've got an R&B playing in the background. It was actually a pretty sweet suck. I passionately believe that you can find a YouTube tutorial for anything and you can learn a new skill. You can fix a toilet. You can get a boyfriend.

You can do whatever you want using YouTube. Like that shit is going to change your life. Hang on, let me just have to get a boyfriend. I'm just typing in. No, but I'll have you all know. I know you're on the edge of your seat. Fix my toilet. Thank you.

That was such a suspense. What a gripping part of this podcast it's been since the very beginning. this is my life right now is that your sweet is the toilet being fixed the sweet oh okay right sorry i thought you were riding the highs and the lows there my sweet is um you guys know that we had put our family dog down lily our ridge back um i guess it was two months now i don't know it's gone so fast um but my mom so we have another little rescue dog at home um and she's so lonely without Lily she's she cries all day she howls all day um so they are getting another little dog and they sent me a picture and it's the cutest little thing I've ever seen so she gets it in

like two weeks and that's my sweet just because I can't wait to go up and smother it to death with my love please don't smother it I have a lot of love to give okay I can't I like I can't even imagine I can't even imagine the day the bus does not hear so I'm not going to that's not what we're don't do it what's your suck my suck is that I have been feeling absolutely exhausted this last week like just ruined to the point where I have been taking naps when Marley naps I am just a very tired tired person and I think you deserve that though like you need that yeah it just comes from like burning burning the wick burning the candle at both ends um just like way too much work way too much life way too much everything and I just need to slow down but there's no time

to slow down because there's podcasts to do because she needs to bring this to you guys here we are then i gotta edit this after we finish so my sweet as well my sweet for the week is guys i can't tell you how much i love it when people come up and say they love the podcast it's happened it happened to both of us like when we spoke about the beginning of the episode but it's happened quite a few times this week um to me solo and i know to brit solo as well and honestly it just absolutely makes my week it's the nicest compliment that you guys could give so thank you to everyone who came up this week and said that they love the podcast because I get super embarrassed and I'm like oh my god yeah I fucking put my whole life out there for the I know because

I think Laura I fart in front of my boyfriend you and I forget that we're not just talking to each other I think sometimes we get like deep in a conversation like we're talking to each other but we forget it goes out to this platform yes but you're welcome guys you are absolutely welcome so yeah that absolutely makes my makes my week and um my other sweet is that this weekend is Matt's birthday and we are going away for the weekend we're going down to Mollymook they're gonna go to Cupid's which is a little winery down there and we're just gonna have a cute weekend together with Molly yes she's our third wheel constantly can't leave the kid behind so the three of us are gonna go down and have cute weekend it's Matt's Matt's 29th right oh my god

he is 33 finally so there's like for like three months of the year Matt is two years younger than me you are cougar yes so i'm 34 matt is currently 32 and he turns 33 on the weekend and so for three months of the year he is such an obnoxious little sod and he's like how old are you oh you're so old and i have to listen to that for three months so finally we're gonna be a bit closer in age we'll have a great weekend thank you thank you very much when are we gonna record that shit oh we'll figure that one out or not on the air okay not on air guys that's it thanks so much for tuning in again today we will be back in two days time for our very special episode ask uncut where we answer your deep dark and burning questions so send your questions in i

hate when you do that sound i think people are really aroused by it do you know what the sound turned on do you know what it is you know when punky does the bachelor videos and he oh yeah that's exactly what it is whenever people make out yes it's the kissing sound from the punky videos Guys, I'm just trying to keep like a little bit of Batchy theme running throughout this. Just a little undercurrent. It's still there. I'm literally on the Bachelor reality show. I think we've still got the theme.

All right, guys. So a little bit of housekeeping before we let you run away. If you haven't joined the Facebook group, it's Life Uncut Podcast. And if you haven't followed us on Instagram, then you should because that's where all the chats go down. It is Life Uncut Podcast as well. And so if you want to send through your Ask Uncut questions or your Accidentally Unfiltered then hit us up on either of those two platforms and if you enjoyed the episode and you haven't

told your friend about us yet tell your friend leave a review hit five stars subscribe and share the love because we love love that was so intense We'll be right back.