Goes Without Saying - the "feeling ugly" phenomenon: cut the cameras

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

so your mirror told you that you're the ugliest girl in the world... now what?join the conversation every monday.shop our merch: sephyandwing.co.ukspeak your mind on the @sephyandwing instagram. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wendy's Small Frosty is the ultimate summer refreshment. And not because it's cool and creamy and made with fresh Canadian dairy. It's also refreshingly cheap. Just 99 cents until July 14th. It's a treat for you and your wallet. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Nature. I've got a gay rooster named Francois. Here's a show that we recommend. And this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world.

The animal kingdom is queer and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple. Or wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com It goes without saying you're listening to Goes Without Saying with Sefi and Wing. I'm Sefi. And I'm Wing. And this is such a fucking nice conversation.

We're talking about body image and why we all feel like we're the ugliest fucking grossest piece of shit on the whole fucking planet and it turns out, spoiler alert, you're not. I think this is the perfect episode if you just need a little bit of almost like a hug. It's a little bit of a reality check if you need one so enjoy. All right that feels quite good. Good to be back. Yeah good to be back yeah good to be back good to be back like we never left we're doing oh oh go on what well i was just gonna say actually i guess we have left because we're kind of yeah yeah go on you wouldn't have got a thursday episode from us sephi's gonna be away i'm in lisbon right now we've prioritized the monday episodes but we're also intrigued

to how you feel about the two a week do you want two a week still do you want one a week do you want like more or less of us what's the vibe right now how are we feeling in the room let's just try and read the room right now what's the energy in the room telling us yeah could you tell us what you like from us please do you want one potentially bigger episode on a monday yeah or do you like the two thursdays just what would you like basically yeah let us know please do actually let us know yeah yeah spare moment or two yeah um fill in the short survey anyway we could put it on the spotify so you can well you can do like an ask a question thing now on spotify you can if you're on spotify now just

scroll down on this episode and then we might have asked it there yeah would be quite good yeah do you want to take it away so someone messaged I can't find the message which might be a bit of an issue but someone said that they were hit with an ugliest girl in the world attack and what to do when you have that and I don't think I'd never heard of that as a phrase before but I know exactly what you mean yeah had you heard of the ugliest girl in the world attack sort of thing i've heard of the thing of like i think i'm the ugliest person ever sort of thing yeah but kind of the attack of like it's just sprung on you yeah you know when it's like you've been marinating in your ugly sort of thing like that sort of yeah yeah that kind of lingo but it's an interesting i love the way that this person phrased it love them for asking it would love to chat about it yeah and kind of just just to

quickly say i don't think you're ugly if you're listening to this feeling like you're ugly i don't think so i disagree i know not i know you are definitely definitely not like yeah it's convenient that everyone it's like the reason why we're doing an episode on it is a lot of people will relate to it like what are the chances we're all absolute uggers it's just not happening it's not true it really does feel like an attack though right yeah because also it feels like so true when you're feeling it like when you feel when you look in the mirror and you're not happy with it it feels so true and so overwhelmingly like okay I'm seeing the truth here like this is bad blah blah and then once you've kind of cried and let it out and all of

the stuff and kind of got back to your normal thing and suddenly you're like at the supermarket or like on a walk or whatever suddenly it's like oh my god like I can't believe I thought that so intensely like it suddenly dawns on well I sometimes experience it where it dawns on me of like oh my god that was false actually what i was thinking like i was i was caught i was having an ugliest girl in the world attack attack rather than i'm seeing the truth i was under attack by my brain uh-huh when was any have you ever had any experiences? Oh, no, I don't want to ask you that. It's bleak. No. Spare me.

Have mercy on me. Yeah, no, I can't ask you that. Don't ask me that. When have you felt ugly? It's like, I can't do that to you. Look, I think the crux of the podcast and definitely an episode like this is like, I think I speak for both of us when i say we want more than anything to be able to like cut through the attack yeah and make you feel better and and

give you something that will help you come out of the darkness and into the light and kind of shake off the dust and open the windows and just get some fresh air going and help you feel a bit better yeah but with a topic like this and just generally coming to the podcast for anything even though it might not sound like a big ask it kind of is like it's hard sometimes i think for us to feel like when there are topics that we care a lot about it's hard to not feel kind of um immobilized by the desire to really do them justice so just putting it out there that we're probably not going to do it justice we often don't and that's okay and it's

fine i really don't know what to say um so this person asked for like routines and stuff so i guess when i hear routines i kind of go two ways like the routine that you do when you have the awareness of what you're doing and you're trying to make yourself feel better and you're kind of like, if we're going to like kind of moralize it, you're being good. And then on the other side, when you're being a little bit, I'm quote unquote bad, you know, like. Yeah. Not helping yourself. Calling you bad. Yeah. But you're not helping yourself. Yeah. And you're kind of going into the routine that you do when you start to feel shit in it. Those routines can be obviously so different. Let's go on a positive side.

What do you do when you're starting to feel the attack coming on? I would have had a different answer if this question was asked a mere three days ago. So you've had some big changes recently, haven't you? Well, I haven't had a new therapist. It's a big change. Yeah. So I've started a new therapist like not even a big change yeah yeah so i've started a new um like course of therapy and a lot of the stuff like i'm a lot of the stuff that will come into this episode i guess is stuff that like we spoke about body dysmorphia a lot

blah blah blah um but that's one of the things i'm working on in the in therapy and so in the last sort of course of therapy i've had a lot of the conversation was on like how to stop like overthinking about it stop ruminating of less like move on like get away from the thought and just like if you like feel the kind of attack of body dysmorphia or an ugly girl or like whatever you feel coming on those thoughts are starting to emerge immediately like one of the things i've said before and here is like rumination cues action of like okay so i'm starting to ruminate go and do something which i do think is really helpful but i was telling my new therapist about that and she was like but does that get rid of it at all and i was like it does in the moment and she's

like and they come back and it's like yeah obviously it comes back like it stops it but then the next day i'm back at square one again. And she was kind of the her whole approach, I find really interesting, because I don't think I've ever really like gone into this as a point of view. Even though it sounds so simple, she was like, I'm not really about like, trying to get away from emotions, like I feel this thing, or like I think this thing, I'm not about trying to like push it back or um not give it attention i'm here to help you like form a new relationship with your thoughts and and emotions which i really like because she did this whole thing i actually had the therapy oh my god yeah this at your house yeah yeah i had a therapy session whilst i was dog sitting ozzy at wings house which was really fun. He survived.

He survived, guys. They both survived. You thrived, in fact. Alive and well to tell the tale. Yeah, you were thriving. Yeah. And I had a therapy session. It was on Zoom. I was in Wings' living room, sitting on her little rug.

Was that the first one? Yeah, that was the first one. That you had with her? Yeah, yeah. That was me meeting her. And she was like, have you got anything heavy near you and i was like oh okay let me look and wings got like a load of books underneath her book on her like coffee table and i picked up like a coffee table book it was like a david shrigley art coffee table

book and she was like get your shit together and it says get your shit together on it which is quite apt and she was like right hold that in front of your face like hold it up now like how easy is that to engage with me right now and i was like really hard because i can't see anything and she's quite apt and she was like right hold that in front of your face like hold it up now like how easy is that to engage with me right now and I was like really hard because I can't see anything and she's like that's how it feels like when you're having for example an ugly girl attack to use that lingo like that's how it feels it's like you're just like staring at the thought like it's just huge and like you can't really engage with anything else like you're under a spotlight almost and then she was like right now push it away like hold the book at arm's length like to a side like that's how it feels like on your daily basis whilst you're trying to like fight these thoughts and like almost fight the like negative self-belief blah blah blah it's like and your arms are aching like it's big it's a big struggle like

you can talk to me you can see me but it's like a huge struggle to hold this big book and now put it in your lap and i I immediately burst into tears, like just with this David Trigley book on my lap in Wings Living Room. Cause she was like, and that's what we're trying to have of just like the thoughts are there. It's in your lap. You, they're still there.

They haven't gone anywhere, but it's not a fight. You're not resisting them. They're just sitting in your lap. And I think that immediately clicked for me of like, that's what I want to have. Like like that's what i want to have like that's what i want to work towards like i love the idea of being like and i've been really practicing she has this whole thing about a bus like you're the driver of your bus and there are loads of

passengers and people they come forward and they say like you're a piece of shit and you're just like okay thank you and you like drive your bus where you want to go blah blah blah the old therapy thing but i've been really trying to have that approach of just like it's sitting in my lap like the ugly girl attack whatever it is like they're gonna sit in my lap they're there i'm not gonna resist them not gonna fight them i'm just gonna like feel the feelings that comes along come along with it and not like get involved in like i don't actually agree with you like i don't think i am ugly it's like that's not helping anything because then you're just like fighting and fighting your arms are aching yeah this thing away so i just that's what i'm kind of trying to do now is just like feel the feelings and just like let it be there

and then get on with my shit whilst it's there it's kind of um a classic thing that we always say about like sometimes the thought or like the fear of something is actually worse than the thing itself because it's like if you know anxiety about anxiety exactly it's like if you know that okay the next three hours are going to be a bit of a write-off for me i'm gonna cry it's gonna be really emotional i'm it's gonna be really difficult but then you know there's an end to it and you'll get through it but when it's attached to this whole narrative of like i'm having another break oh my god and you're lost in like the story of what's happening being the things that the horrible thoughts are telling you rather than just the experience of like sitting at home feeling bad yeah because it's almost like okay if the worst thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna feel

really shit that i can handle god i've felt shit many a time and i've handled it every time not necessarily amazingly but i'm still here like i've handled it it's been handled it's done it was handled leave it to me consider is this fucking handled what is exactly consider it handled it's like if that's if that's what is going to be your experience is you're going to feel really shit it's like yeah that's not nice but i can do it yeah no completely feel so much more um manageable than like having to understand this huge thing that it also takes a bit of the power back of like yeah taking the power away from this kind of thing that it's like oh my god i'm dealing with this thing and i need to try and like challenge it and find this new way

of challenging it and fight it when it's like realistically if feeling really bad this afternoon is gonna happen you can do that and carrying this low level shitness with you in your life that's something you can handle because sometimes when i tune into the feeling of like say say i'm feeling really anxious i was feeling really anxious the other day yesterday actually um and i was like i'm working at this um sort of vegan cafe thing it's really cool and i was like washing up some pots and stuff and i had this like feeling in my belly of just like complete anxiety and i was like lost up some pots and stuff and i had this like feeling in my belly of just like complete anxiety and i was like lost in the thoughts of it and stuff but also because i was

like working i couldn't really get that lost in the thoughts but i was very aware that i still had this like pit in my stomach feeling yeah and it was almost quite nice because i was trying to put my new therapy stuff to test of like feeling the emotion and being like oh that there's anxiety like i'm on my bus and anxiety's just got out of his fucking seat and come and being like hey you little piece of shit like let's be fucking stressed and i was just like right there's anxiety like anxiety's just gonna like sit there for the day sort of thing and it didn't go like it didn't just i wasn't trying to fight it like it didn't leave it didn't like fucking dissipate like it was there still the whole day but i was really determined to like keep making decisions that i wanted to make not that like this feeling was

trying to get me to of like go curl up in a fucking ball go and fucking cry like be like i've gotta go home like don't be shitty to customers whatever just go and keep like doing your shit and it was actually quite nice because i almost realized like the feeling isn't that bad it's a tummy ache like i've had tummy aches before it's the feeling of anxiety is actually a tummy ache and like a bit of a fluttering heart whatever like it's not nice it's like undeniably like not a nice fucking thing to feel but actually the feeling of it detached from the thoughts is manageable is i can get through my day with this i've had period pains that hurt this much sort of thing and i kind of just got on with the day without like the without getting lost in the thoughts of it and it was like oh my god like the feeling of it when you

actually tune into it it's bad you don't want it but it's not as bad it's not as bad as the thoughts are the thoughts of the things that are really horrid yeah it's a tummy ache is what anxiety actually is mind-blowing isn't it yeah it's really it's actually really really truly mind-blowing it's like what if you just let it happen yeah and let it sit in your lap like it's your little friend it's like yeah okay you're here right you're here friend like it doesn't have to be amazing it's not like okay come and sit on my lap while i drive the bus it's just like oh i picked up a shitty customer yeah it's nothing to do with you it's not personal it's not because you have failed or anything it's just like there's a little shitty arsehole sitting in your lap right now okay sit there then

I'm gonna wash some pots up yeah yeah I'll carry on with my shit yeah I'm busy yeah well that's great yeah that's a whole new thing that's really lovely yeah that's really um it makes me feel good yeah good I like that I like that I would like that listening to that yeah i hope so i did kind of change my mind on some things of like oh okay like what's with all the resistance does make things worse yeah guys what's with all the what's with all the fighting just chill out it's fine um i don't know if i can be bothered to go into this but probably just worth acknowledging like the kind of political or like the gendered aspect of girls having so much terminology oh it's worth going into but you can take it if you want because i no no no no i'm so tired but

just why like there's so much language yeah there's so much conversation around what seems to be like quite a universal to the gender feeling yeah of this like ugly girl attack and and and etc etc etc like all the other names that we put this feeling under yeah um yeah sucks it does suck it does it actually does suck i think that i like it's one of the things I feel most pissed off about really in my daily life that I'm kind of continually confronted with the most stunning people I've ever seen. Just like the girls of the world, you're all them,

feeling shit and ugly. Like it's sickening to start off with how much our worth is even put into like what we look like. Like it's distressing to be honest, to think that when we have an ugly girl attack or whatever when we feel that we don't look good it doesn't just come into question our looks it comes into question our worth as a human being like it's actually like very distressing to think about that on a global scale i guess almost like this is maybe quite a nice angle in and not necessarily in the gender sense but just kind of more on like a human level what are some things

that really like feel quite nourishing to your self-worth like what are some things that make you feel worthy as a human i would love to know okay give me a moment it's just not really something i've ever really thought about in a weird way. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Nature. I've got a gay rooster named Francois. Is so gay.

These rams are gay. I'm studying gay animals. Does that mean I'm gay? So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson, and this is a Field Guide to Gay Animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world. The animal kingdom is queer, and we are a part.

Find a Field Guide to Gay Animals on Spotify, Apple. Or wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com I think something that like makes me feel really like good is when to start off i can be there for someone that needs me sort of thing but like in a specific way that if someone is feeling bad if i can make them laugh or if i can like not just sit through the sit with them and like talk it all through and blah blah blah which i will do to the cows come home but like that feeling where you like see that you've actually like impacted someone's mood in a positive way and like now they're like

laughing or they're having a good time like you've changed their mind on it it's like you've made them see the light of it all like I feel like that's something that I really get a lot of sense of like um purpose like that really feels like almost what I was made like a proper like a proper skill like a proper skill of like that is really it comes naturally it feels good it benefits other people like it kind of ticks all of my boxes of my values in the world um and I think I'm good at it as well yeah being a comedian in the darkest moments comedian a comedian in the dark times can't turn it off no but that's just a little one what about you like do you have something like that no but i was just intrigued almost by what you would say because i think i mean i guess it like it's not particularly

groundbreaking question but i just almost think the amount of pressure on no but almost by contrast like we as women are asked and like watch each other get asked a lot more. Like, when do you feel beautiful? When do you feel sexy? When do you feel you're most beautiful? When do you feel, like, all of this stuff? And I feel like having inherent worth and, like, feeling really, like, worthy and, like, fulfilled as a human. Yeah.

I don't know if I've ever thought about it in that exact way of like thinking about worth and like value yeah i think it's just got to be in those little moments surely of like it's in the moments to be honest that they're pretty detached from what i look like like it does show me totally my idea of what i'm worth as a person and what the world has kind of given to me as my a big signifier of my worth are not they're literally in different fucking planets like they're not connected in any way really but um it is quite interesting how much like i've bought into the delusion of like um my worth being connected to my looks but then actually i think when i have felt real moments of like purpose

of like that felt like um connected to like myself and my like um values and blah blah blah I would say almost never I can't think of a single example where something that I've done that I felt was valuable and cool and um gave me like a sense of purpose and worth was ever connected to how I look I think interestingly as well like it's nice to think about like the experience that you just described of like being with someone close to you making them laugh when they're not feeling good like it's so a moment where there's like a lot of safety in the community that you have with someone like the intimacy is very like secure and like it's really a shared security in each other versus i feel like the ugly girl attack is quite a scary

feeling and very isolating and kind of convinces you of lots of horrible things like kind of your community is actually your enemy and um you're not worthy and you're not safe and like kind of the antithesis of that being like a really nice safe moment with someone else i'm imagining a girl but i would be of course um just feels like it completely counteracts the ugly girl attack in being all about like making you feel shit making you feel lonely making you feel isolated making you feel unsafe like in your own body as well like kind of in your home on this earth yeah but that's the bit that i find so distressing like to hear everyone and live it very like intensely

in my own body to feel disgust or kind of like a not at home like an itchiness like in a discomfort whatever within your own body and to hear people constantly and say it myself constantly of just like oh i look shit in that like that's so ugly blah blah blah it's like god do we know what we're doing like it's so so sad to me what what we do like it is just so shit and it's not our fault like that is the bottom line it's like i've said it so many times we've both said it so many times of like it was designed like the beauty industry is billion dollar shit oh my god you can even fathom the wealth not an accident that we all sit there in front of the mirror and go oh my god i look shit blah blah blah oh my god i've got to do blah blah like it was literally designed to put money in the pockets of the people that don't give a fuck

about you like it's not good and that i think is empowering though of like that gives me motivation to be like fuck that shit and when i catch myself falling into the traps they literally set me they literally set up little snares for me of like she's gonna feel ugly at the beach she's gonna feel ugly in the changing room and she's gonna buy things from our shops like it's like no fuck that shit do you have any advice for what you would if someone came to you and say right today i'm having an ugly girl attack i looked in the mirror this morning i hated what i saw i feel like i struggled getting dressed i got get on a fucking bus and go to work like i feel like shit blah blah blah who's the bus driver you i said who's the bus driver you i'm i'm driving the bus of my of all the anxious girl he's gonna come up and say that

i feel like a piece of shit yeah they're going for drinks later with their friends they're gonna feel like shit there the whole thing they're gonna come home they're gonna feel shit rinse and repeat what do you say what do you say to them then okay so the only my way into this i have to liberate myself sorry but i'm just going to pretend that it's not anyone else it's just me so someone came to me it was me and i said yeah just because the pressure of someone else being like i don't feel good and then me saying whatever shit i'm about to say now and it not helping is just not what i need okay yeah so wing comes up to wing and says yeah help so i have been thinking recently i think the main thing that has really helped with like my confidence and like self-esteem and like self-worth and the ways that that can be related to and

attaches itself to the way that i feel about the way that i look the biggest thing for me that's really really changed my day-to-day it's changed the way that my mind works i feel like my life looks different my mind looks different like on the inside and the outside like my day-to-day looks different and also the patterns that i have like internally um feel very different to where they have been building up some sense of this is when it all starts to go they're vague building up some sense of appreciation for myself or like trying to get a little bit of perspective on like the amount of hatred that i had for myself has really like made such physical changes in my life i wish there was step one step two step three yeah i really wish i don't yet have it

but i might one day be able to feed back to my younger self like okay this is what you did step one step two step three but i've been thinking recently and i've been saying to people in my life like i don't know and i think i do know but i'm like i wonder if like almost has my face changed or do i just that's interesting like i literally feel like i must have grown into my face or something but then i'm like no i haven't do you remember this was ages ago this was when i lived in london but like my second not my last has the one before yeah I don't think we ever put this episode out but I remember saying a similar thing being like I don't know whether I mean weight is bullshit I'm I'm I've got a sick mind but I was like I don't I don't know whether I've

lost weight I've got a sick mind don't trust it right now because my sick mind talking I was like I don't know whether I have lost weight or i'm just seeing my body my body with not hatred right and i think it's a similar thing no it is because it's when you're feeling you just look at your face without hatred yeah it's just suddenly i'm like oh my god yeah i'm like thank god for that there's actually not much to worry about i can handle it this is not kind of a demon this is not that bad like jesus okay like we're fine we're actually fine you silly silly rotten minded girl like you're all right the kind of confusion that comes with like not hating yourself at the moment or anymore

is so wild but literally we'll be thinking to myself like surely i didn't always look like this because i had such a problem before and now it's just like you know what i'm so what cute little girl i'll tell you now you look the exact same i look the exact same way no i do because i've literally think to myself do i do my makeup different like am i what am i doing differently it's like you're actually you're not doing anything physically differently just mentally you're viewing yourself you change your mind so which is why like harry we speak directly to you there is nothing wrong with the way you look what you look like now don't need to change it it's perfect it's it is i'm actually perfect deadly fucking serious when i say it right now it's perfect like not in a shitty boots advert

way you're perfect now buy a fucking makeup you're genuinely doesn't need to change the only thing that's making you feel shit about how you look is how the world is being constructed around you and you've internalized that and put that onto your poor poor fucking body and face it's not fucking fair no it's not you as you were born does not need to change genuinely you will not be happier if you change it at all literally no because you don't need to change it you need to change your mind it's nothing there's nothing physical it's why people spend hundreds of thousands pounds on fucking surgeries and are just as miserable as they were before the first ever one it doesn't

matter at all it doesn't make you happier like that is the trick the trick is i'll spend all the money on the clothes and the makeup and the fucking hair and the fucking surgery that's the trick it's a lie it's actually a lie such a cheat code to be able to experience yourself yeah in all your perfect glory knowing that like the alternative is you get to your deathbed which i hope is ages and ages away it's miles away guys the alternative is you get to your deathbed and suddenly it hits you like oh shit when i was fucking 26 on that podcast i was super cute and i absolutely hated myself and that's what they say so's what they all feel that now which we can we can genuinely no no we do you really really can i think there's so much to be learned from like the older

generations just so fucking much like i was talking to like a 60 year old woman the other day and she was talking about how she wants to lose weight and blah blah blah and i didn't really know what to say because the truth is your whole life's been a lie like you're 60 years old and you've been bombarded by all of this shit and you're never going to fix like the perceived problems you're never going to accomplish the feeling that you want to accomplish from this and yeah my money would be on you have been wanting to lose weight or change how you look since fucking you were 15 or whatever and you're 60 now and it hasn't changed we've got so much to learn from those older generations who have been sold the same same lies as we have but

we have now been sold an even more amplified version because we've been given their shit and then the media is i mean a whole world of pain that they never experienced so i think we can learn from the 80 year olds the 70 year olds the people that die and say oh i wish when i was 21 i knew how pretty i was or they show us photos and they're fucking black and white photo albums of them at the beach and just say oh i wish i knew at my wedding how pretty i was and shit like that it's like we don't want to be them we don't want to be them and no amount of change you can give to your body will get you there no genuinely also kind of learning from one another how many times has like your gorgeous friend sat you down and been like i

just feel like this this this this and this and this and this and you can see you can see it so clearly they have nothing to worry about nothing the problems in our minds guys not in the bodies and the problem is actually also in the world yeah leave the world forget about the world for today it's not your problem your mind if it's running riot right now let it do its thing give it a break give some distance from it just let it happen be nice to yourself yeah that's all you can do what more can we ask let the the ugly girl attack sit there in your belly in your heart wherever it's fucking sitting right now on your fucking shoulder whispering in your ear let it sit there get on with your shit

it's not fucking true it's telling you lies lies lies lies all right right okay cool i really hope if we're catching you in a bad day i hope you feel like we're sending you a lot of love yeah we always promise you you're not the only person in the world to be under attack you're not and you're gonna make it out alive you really are if you don't hear from us. Assume the West.