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TIFU by working out for the wrong reasons (TW: BDD)

I (21M), had grown up rather skinny and had a love-hate relationship with working out due to Bigorexia; something not often talked about in the fitness community. I go to the gym everyday of the week and have for the past few months. I finally had motivation to continue working out when I realized I only want to go to improve my health and not to get bigger to satisfy others. I go to 2 gyms; gym 1 (private gym) if I want to be able to be loud and not disturb others, and gym 2 (public gym) if there’s equipment gym 1 does not have.

I work in the trades and have been trying for months to get in to this union, talking to many people to see what I can do to get in. Today, as I got to the gym 1, I receive an email telling me that I just I missed the intake and I will have to try again in January. This was the straw that broke the camels back, apparently. After struggling to find love, not be able to move out of the family home, and much more, this snapped me. I felt an anger, a fury, run through me, like my blood boiled, and immediately broke down. At every chance, it seems something is always holding me back.

When I worked out this time, it wasn’t out of the idea that I’m going to feel confident and love myself. For me, this was more like punishing myself. “If I lift heavier and get bigger, people will take me more seriously, and they won’t see me as some young boy, but a man. Maybe then employers, women and friends will truly want me and I won’t be worthless”. Obviously saying it now, the logic doesn’t track. In the mirrors, all I can see is a boy without an ounce of muscle. The only silver linings were I shattered PR’s and set new weights for sets, and that I’m lucky I didn’t get hurt in that pursuit.

I share this because it is often overlooked. BDD is not exclusively for people who are overweight or skinny people, hating their bodies and wanting to be skinnier. Young men and women are hit with male and female body expectations all the time in movies, ads, art, any kind of media, and can also take a different dark path to attain that shape, like pushing their body’s too far in the gym or taking gear (steroids). It may sound tone deaf or as not a big issue in some peoples eyes, but it’s also BDD, so it should not be invalidated, people. Please, if you know someone who works out, acknowledge their progress. You don’t know how much it means to them even if they come off nonchalant about it.

TL:DR - Got to the gym and received a rather bothersome message, in turn causing me to frenzy, and may be developing bigorexia again.

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