I think I look thin & fabulous So what’s wrong with saying so?
A‘Looking good in your 50s takes bloody hard work’
TALL, slim woman in her 30s wafts across the room — all thick glossy hair, blemish-free skin, clear eyes, full lips and a confidence normally reserved for women from the bon quartier of Paris. At least this is how I believe I look as I walk across the restaurant to my table. In reality, I’m in my mid-50s, bespectacled and rather less blessed in the hair department. But I feel absolutely fabulous. When people tell me my daughters, now 22 and 21, and I look like sisters, I believe them.
Of course, it is taboo for a woman to admit she is even vaguely happy with her looks. Particularly a woman of a certain age. You risk sounding conceited or self-satisfied at best, deranged at worst. I am none of those things, but while this sort of self-acceptance is rare — saying it loud feels subversive — I am happy with how I look.
Reading author Caitlin Moran about how she suffers not from body dysmorphia (a mental ailment whereby you see defects that don’t exist), but reverse dysmorphia or what she terms ‘eumorphia’, I realised with a thrill of recognition that I do too.
I wake up most mornings convinced I look great. I feel thin, fit, good-looking and ready to take on the day. I see no flaws, imagined or otherwise, to ruin the mood.
I look pretty much the same as I did 20 years ago, sometimes even better as I spent most of my 30s either pregnant, covered in baby sick and/or sleep deprived to the point of madness. I am actually more confident in my looks now, possibly because the pressure is off. As I am no longer young, no one expects me to look fabulous.
Unlike a lot of women of a certain age, I haven’t given up on myself — because of the reverse dysmorphia. It is the continuing fight to retain this positive self-image that keeps me slim and healthy. Because I feel good about myself and want to keep it that way, I take care of myself.
I exercise every day, try to stick to intermittent fasting at least three times a week (doing all my eating in an eight-hour slot so as to give my body 16 hours to rejuvenate), I will always pick the healthy food option and most weeks I have at least three to four days off booze. I cleanse my skin morning and night and invest heavily in creams that make a difference.
Among friends not lucky enough to suffer from reverse dysmorphia I see two main tendencies: one is to surrender unconditionally, abandoning their sense of style, gaining weight, wearing ‘comfortable’ clothes and relegating frivolities such as nail varnish and heels to a dim and distant past.
The other is to go for radical solutions such as facelifts that fool nobody, often resulting in them looking like rather unsettling versions of Madonna. The fact is that to remain looking good in your 50s is bloody hard work.
So why do I bother? Pure vanity. Because looking and feeling good are much more important to me now than when I was younger. And I now have more time and money to give it my best shot.
My role models include Jane Seymour, Isabelle Huppert and Gillian Anderson, all women who do just that and who seem to me to be improving with age, rather like a good wine.
There is a correlation between how much effort I am making in terms of exercise and appearance and the reactions I get. ‘You look in very good shape,’ my husband will say, a man who is not overly generous with his compliments.
About 15 years ago, I ran into a silver-haired lady in a department store in Paris looking at lacy underwear. I was researching the French obsession with matching smalls. I asked her why she bought that type of underwear. She looked at me as if I had just landed from another planet. ‘To look sexy, of course,’ was her response.
At the time, I was surprised a woman of her age thought she could look sexy. Now it’s my own narrow-minded reaction that shocks me. There are a few of my friends who tear themselves apart about their looks, but I’m pleased to say that most are pretty content — and rightly so.
I’m increasingly impressed with how good women of a certain age look, with their husbands often lagging behind. At my son’s school leaving ceremony it looked as if some of the other mothers had come along with their fathers.
There are moments when I waver. Mainly when my daughters borrow my clothes and look much better in them than I do. Then I remember they look like a prettier, younger version of me and feel proud of them.
There are times the delusion catches up with me. I’ve been a size 8-10 all my life. After my three children I was a 10, which I could live with. But post-lockdown I’ve teetered towards a 12, not that it would ever occur to me to buy anything larger than a 10. I recently ordered some stretchy size 10s as a compromise. Needless to say, they were too small.
According to the University of Western Australia, people like me perceive our bodies based on ‘a distortion created by our blended past observations… it creates an illusion whereby we appear thinner than we actually are’.
So it’s totally rational that I’m convinced that I am the same size I was ten years ago. I’ll probably end up like my 89-year-old mother-in-law, who says she is always taken aback when she catches herself in a mirror. ‘Who on earth is that old lady?’ she thinks, then realises it’s her.
But is it harmful? Should reverse dysmorphia become a disorder all of its own? No, according to
Floss Knight, a psychotherapist, CEO and founder of UK Therapy Guide, an online portal that connects clients with therapists.
‘It sounds like you are using mechanisms to minimise the cognitive dissonance between what you look like and what you want to look like.
‘There is no harm in this as long as the self-image you have doesn’t completely take over and you lose your grip on the truth.’
I will undoubtedly be lambasted for my reverse dysmorphia, but why shouldn’t you be the best version of yourself and own that glorious self-image until they drag you out kicking and screaming?
What is the point in thinking, ‘I’m getting older, fatter, shorter and less attractive by the minute’, when you could just ignore all that and join me.
As the poet T.S. Eliot summed up: ‘Humankind cannot bear too much reality.’ A man who clearly understood reverse dysmorphia long before the rest of us.
‘What’s the point in thinking, I’m getting older, fatter’