Anarda Nashai
Bio
"Chocolate. Cabernet. Bicoastal Resident. Pseudo-Punk Life. David Foster Wallace!"Stories (8/0)
Interviews with a Big Black Broad: Sessions #7
Interviewer: When did you began to seek professional help to treat your BDD? BBB: I'm sure it's not surprising that I was reluctant. I was complacent in dealing with my issues on my own up 'til the age of 28. I hid from mirrors. I would dwell in front of mirrors. I took down mirrors. I put them back up. I spent all my money on food, alcohol, makeup, hair products and expensive girdles of all kinds. I hid from the world for days and weeks on end. I drank to endure those moments when I gave in to the mounting pressures I felt to rejoin the world even when I felt the worst about myself. The annoyance of having to deal with a disorder that caused me to focus so much on myself had also taken its toll on me. I wasn't a purposefully vain person. I wasn't someone who would choose to be so self-consumed. I wanted to travel the world. I loved people and wanted to meet more of them from all walks of life. I didn't want to assume that everyone who stared at me only did so because they saw someone ugly. I needed the courage to live the life I ultimately wanted. How could I live any longer without being able to face myself in the mirror? Without being able to leave my house without being inebriated in some way? So, I faced the fact that I would remain stuck in the same positions in my life (literally) if I didn't at least try professional help.
By Anarda Nashai6 years ago in Psyche
Interviews with a Big Black Broad: Session #6
Interviewer: Did you try any permanent cosmetic solutions as a result of your experience with BDD? BBB: I've wanted a nose job since I was about 7 years old. I also wanted lighter skin and straighter hair at that age. By the time I was 12, I wanted all those things, plus a short smaller, more feminine frame. Again, I was a foot taller and wider than my pubescent peers. I had been compared to popular football linesman and EVERY hairy farm animal on the planet. I just wanted out of my body one way or another. I prayed to God that one day, he'd turn me into one of the pretty girls. Later, I learned to avoid the mirror all together because He didn't seem to be listening. After my adolescent years, I couldn't seem to successfully accept or reject being ugly. I was stuck in a pattern of eluding myself, which became both confusing and petrifying. I was isolated: mind, body and soul.
By Anarda Nashai6 years ago in Psyche
Interviews with a Big Black Broad: Session #5
Interviewer: After college, did you find entering the "real world" difficult while attempting to self-medicate your BDD? BBB: I had no idea what I my was in for when I left college. I would no longer have the distractions I depended on over the past few years while I attended school, and as a result of having no therapeutic support, my twenties were a blur of major psychological breakdowns. Also, I was diagnosed with a hormonal imbalance at 19 that would cause me to pick up even more weight and make me even more susceptible to emotional instability. By age 25, I had ballooned up to 230 lbs. At 5'8", I was slovenly obese. In addition to cystic acne, my face had started to develop cradles that no one could see but me, apparently. My entire body seemed to be covered in stretch marks. I fried my kinky hair into silky submission using straightening chemicals and hot irons and wasn't satisfied until it was bone straight and full of body. Others in my hometown didn't see my weight gain as a big deal. Those who noticed my growing self-consciousness reminded me that there were several girls where we came from who were just as big or even bigger than I was. It didn't matter what anyone else looked like. It didn't matter what they thought I looked like either. All I could focus on what how ugly I was compared to everyone else.
By Anarda Nashai6 years ago in Psyche
Interviews with a Big Black Broad: Session #4
Interviewer: How did your collegiate aspirations relate to your experience with BDD? BBB: Before I begin, I should to warn you that this may be the most bizarre coming of age story you've ever heard. I chose a difficult major in college for two reasons: It was revered as prestigious and lucrative, and I was told that once I graduated from all those years of rigorous study, I would have little to no time for a social life while I practiced my trade. I wanted a career that would keep me so busy that I had no time to dwell on my awful appearance. I also wanted a preoccupation that would provide an understandable reason for why I had no time for romantic relationships—why I would never have children. My plan was to strictly focus on my studies, after which, I'd rely on my friends to satisfy whatever social needs I had. I loved to laugh and discuss politics, philosophy and art. So, I targeted those who majored in these subjects to help me indulge my interests when I wasn't studying my more conservative curriculum. Perhaps every now and then, I would enjoy a casual tryst or two if I was feeling up to it. I'd be a workaholic socialite from now on, I thought. Without time to focus on myself—to obsess over my ugliness, I could avoid what I referred to as "The cloud," which were my severely depressed episodes. My new distractions worked to steady my moods and lessen my obsessions. My grades were almost perfect. I'd even managed to acquire a small but well-coveted grant from the university strictly based on my academic merit. There are ugly people all over the world who are very prosperous, I thought. I studied the careers of very successful, powerful men who were also practicing the trade within the field I was studying. Most of them were single, with few or no children, and no one seemed to criticize their life choices. They weren't stigmatized for not living a conventional life. They were celebrated as playboys in fact. This was one of several observations that solidified my decision to become a playgirl. I could be satisfied with just a great career and friends. No husband. No children. I couldn't really conceive of living what all the other girls had coveted since holding their first doll baby: A "normal" life.
By Anarda Nashai6 years ago in Psyche
Interviews with a Big Black Broad: Session #3
Interviewer: How was your experience as a college student while suffering with crude BDD? BBB: My college experience was a slippery slope. The moment I graduated high school, I knew I was in for an entirely new set of challenges when it came to hiding my BDD symptoms. Or at least, I thought I knew. I spent my final year in high school listening to college graduates prepare me for this major shift into adulthood. What scared me shitless was the expectation that my social interactions would have to change. My mother was hopeful that I would finally find a boyfriend in college. As you can imagine, speculations regarding my sexuality were starting to take root since I never dated throughout my teenage hood. Of course, my makeshift friends at school knew I was straight, and understood clearly why I was dateless. My family, however, refused to accept what my friends and I had. Ugly girls don't date. Remember, some of them had actually introduced me to the unfortunate connection of being ugly and alone as a child, so these contradictory messages made their expectations unmanageable. As far as my personal life choices go, I stopped seeking their consensus right then and there. I'd just have to live my life the way I wanted and suffer the consequences of ending up as the cautionary tale. Besides, none of them will ever understand what it's like to be trapped in the mind and body of a big black broad like me. Period.
By Anarda Nashai6 years ago in Psyche
Interviews with a Big Black Broad: Session #2
Interviewer: Can you remember when you first saw yourself as ugly? BBB: Actually, some of my earliest memories were of me being told how beautiful I was. Mostly by people in my immediate family. I remember posing for the camera when I was 5 and 6. I looked straight into the lens, struck a pose, smiled. She’s the cutest little thing, they would say. My teen aged aunties would take me places with them. Their friends would treat me like a doll. By the time I was 8 or 9, I was becoming “a big girl.” I was starting to pick up weight. My plump midsection warranted some light teasing from my play mates, but I still had my little childhood boyfriend, a funny-looking skinny boy a half foot shorter than I was who didn’t care that everyone thought I was bigger than the other little girls.
By Anarda Nashai6 years ago in Psyche
Interviews with a Big Black Broad: Session #1
Interviewer: When were you diagnosed with BDD? BBB: I was twenty-eight years old. Only after suffering several bouts of debilitating depression did I succumb to the idea of being honest about the cause. I had no other choice. My depressive episodes where becoming a little manic. Scary. Unpredictable. Unacceptable. I saw several therapists for a few years up until that point. Honestly, I didn’t trust that any of them would understand if I were honest with them about what my problem really was. They would never be able to conceive of it. You see, I had mentioned my issues with self-image to a few people I knew, and they all laughed at me. They were used to me saying awful things about myself since I was a kid. They couldn’t fathom what it really meant. Neither could I. So, I told a forth therapist that I’d seen two weeks after my twenty-eighth birthday what I felt about myself, and he asked me if I knew what Body Dysmorphic Disorder was. I shook my head and told him that I was never an anorexic, bulimic, that I would never sit and stare at myself in any reflective surface for any longer than I had to. That I was too scared to go under the knife for plastic surgery because I was afraid I’d never be able to stop. I shook my head “no” at him when he suggested that this was my problem. Any other reason? He asked. “I’m Black.” I said without hesitation, “Black people don’t suffer from body dysmorphia.”
By Anarda Nashai6 years ago in Psyche
