Fairy Tales

Ah, so I was having a discussion with Dr. B. the other evening and the salience of that discussion really hit home tonight. Therapists have to tell clients fairy tales for "recovery" to happen. I know that in ED treatment they always tell you "it doesn't matter what you look like." or "People don't judge you on your appearance."

That's a fairy tale. It's not just people with ED's who obsess over their weight. People notice what you look like. Too bad, but it's the world we live in. Here's the thing, as I was looking over my ED community discussion board, I saw so many people living under the delusion that their looks don't matter. Make peace with it. You can choose to care a lot and live under the reality that looking really nice and beautiful gives you lots of advantages. There are huge opportunity costs associated with that. For me, high probability of death was the cost. You can choose to ignore the fact that looks matter and go about life however you please. Also has huge opportunity costs. Short people don't make as much money as tall people. Somehow you have to compensate or accept the cost. Or you can choose to do what you can, within the realms of continued survival and enjoyment of life, work to look good.

Here's the thing though, very few people have the psychic courage to chose. Very few people have the freedom necessary to make choices. And when they do, people rarely actually make their own choices. Is my choice to balance between looks matter and highly fatal disease one I made? No. It's one I, Dr. B., Dr. K, Dr. K, Dr H, R, D, M, etc etc made. I just look like the agent. (I know, economic hearsay). Do we even want people to choose? It's hard work and dissonance creating.

I don't know if fairy tales are a good thing, but they definitely are a real thing. I wonder which ones I subscribe to. Probably ones about my worth.