u/LeoVanc

Die Rede ist immer von Gesundheit und Fitness, aber worum geht es den meisten in Wirklichkeit? Egal ob in der Arbeit oder in anderen Situationen: Die Leute sehen überall nur meinen Körper, die Muskulatur, den niedrigen KFA, die Venen und die Definition und fragen mich nach Tipps, wollen aussehen wie ich. Jeder denkt, dass ich extrem diszipliniert sei und sehen mich als Vorbild.

Was die Leute nicht sehen, ist, dass ich (neben einer sehr guten Veranlagung) unter Körperdysmorphie leide. Es ist keine klassische Disziplin, die mich das alles seit über 10 Jahren durchziehen lässt, sondern Leidensdruck. Ich weiß gar nicht, wie ich damit umgehen würde, wenn ich aus gesundheitlichen Gründen irgendwann nicht mehr wie eine in Stein gemeißelte Skulptur aussehen kann. Es würde mich wahrscheinlich wahnsinnig machen.

Da ich sehr viele Leute aus der Gym-Bubble kenne, weiß ich, dass ich keine Ausnahme bin. Egal ob Jungs oder Mädels. Das Wort Gesundheit oder Leistungsfähigkeit habe ich dort noch nie gehört. Es geht nur ums Aussehen, die Gesundheit spielt keine Rolle. Im Gegenteil sogar: Anabolika und andere leistungssteigernde Substanzen sind weiter verbreitet als Außenstehende vermuten würden. Bei den Mädels geht es wiederum oft nur darum, den Hintern unproportional aufzubauen. Athletische Leistungsfähigkeit oder eine funktionale, ausgeglichene muskuläre Entwicklung spielt keine Rolle. Sowohl bei den männlichen als auch bei den weiblichen Gym-Leuten stelle ich oft fest, dass dort ebenfalls mindestens körperdysmorphe Tendenzen vorhanden sind, kombiniert mit einem fragilen Selbstwertgefühl. Das Gym ist sozusagen eine Bewältigubgsstrategie für viele.

Insgesamt macht das das Gym aus meiner Sicht zu vielen aber mit Sicherheit nicht zu einem Ort in dem sportliche Leistungsfähigkeit oder Gesundheit im Fokus stehen (betrifft natürlich nie alle und in Reha-Gyms sieht es eh anders aus)

How did. it feel and how long did it take you to recover?

I’m a 33-year-old man. From the outside, I probably look highly functional. I’m professionally successful, work in a tech lead / leadership role, earn well, have a very athletic and muscular body, and am often perceived as competent, confident, attractive, disciplined, and socially capable.

Internally, I feel completely broken.
My diagnoses are severe chronic and recurrent depression, body dysmorphic disorder / muscle dysmorphia, complex developmental trauma, chronic suicidal ideation, and a severe personality structure with vulnerable narcissistic, borderline-like, avoidant, and antisocial / sadistic revenge-related traits.

I have almost no access to joy, hope, lightness, interest, or vitality. Most of the time, I feel empty, heavy, detached, and internally dead. My free time is mostly just sitting alone in my apartment, staring into space, listening to music, and waiting for time to pass. I avoid birthdays, holidays, company events, and social situations because they confront me with everything I do not have: a partner, family, close friends, belonging, a future, a real life.
Seeing couples, families, or groups of friends can trigger extreme pain, shame, self-hatred, and a sense of being fundamentally excluded from life. It does not feel like normal envy. It feels like watching other people live inside a world that I cannot enter. Sometimes I feel like I am observing life through a glass pane. Other people seem to have a home in the world, while I feel rootless, unwanted, and outside of everything.

My body is one of my biggest obsessions and sources of suffering. I have spent years bodybuilding and built a very muscular, lean body. Objectively, people often consider me attractive. But internally, I still experience myself as ugly, wrong, disgusting, defective, or deformed. Positive feedback about my appearance does not reach me. I train mostly because otherwise I cannot tolerate myself at all. My body is both my armor and my enemy.

My childhood and adolescence shaped a lot of this. I was tested as gifted as a child, was different from other kids, and was bullied. I experienced emotional neglect, a cold and devaluing father, an emotionally unavailable mother, violence and humiliation in boarding school, shame, isolation, and early depression. I learned very early that weakness is dangerous, that nobody reliably protects me, and that vulnerability can be used against me.

My father rarely praised me and often devalued or relativized my achievements. My mother was loving when I was young, but later became emotionally absent and repeatedly failed to make me feel protected, prioritized, or emotionally held. I grew up with the feeling that I had no real safe place. I became hard, controlled, mistrustful, and performance-driven because I had to survive emotionally.

I desperately want love, touch, belonging, a partner, family, and a place in the world. Physical affection can calm me like an extremely powerful painkiller. When I feel safe with someone, I can be very affectionate, loyal, physically romantic, and emotionally invested. Some ex-partners described me as “nonverbally romantic” because I constantly kissed, touched, held, and stroked them.

But I also hate myself so much that I cannot really accept love. If an attractive woman shows interest in me, I become suspicious, distant, or ironic. I assume she is using me, mocking me, seeking validation, or will eventually reject me. I avoid initiating anything because rejection would trigger unbearable shame and self-hatred. So I am trapped: I need closeness to feel alive, but I cannot safely tolerate the vulnerability that closeness requires.

A major collapse happened after I moved to a new city at 30. The move was supposed to be a new beginning. I wanted to leave my old life and old trauma behind. Shortly after, I met a woman I genuinely liked. The dynamic became extremely toxic: attraction, hope, ambiguity, devaluation, mistrust, shame, physical closeness, rejection, guilt, apology, humiliation, and eventually revenge. I made mistakes and hurt her too. But the whole experience broke something in me. After that, I had the worst depressive collapse of my life and was hospitalized.

Since that collapse a little over two years ago, it feels as if some permanent damage has been done. Before, I could still repress or compartmentalize many things. Since then, I feel completely exposed, naked, and severely damaged. I feel like I am going insane and that I cannot endure this feeling anymore. I do not know how I am supposed to keep living. It feels as if I am trapped in hell and it keeps getting worse day by day. It feels like something is tearing me apart from the inside. I do not know what to do anymore. Honestly, I often hope that I become seriously ill so that I am allowed to die.

When I feel humiliated, rejected, used, or betrayed, something in me can become cold and revengeful. I have what I call an “inner court” that judges people who hurt me. If I conclude that someone seriously harmed or humiliated me, I can lose empathy for them and feel that revenge is justified. I can become strategic, contemptuous, and emotionally cruel. I know this is one of the darkest parts of me.

Professionally, I can still perform extremely well. I can lead, solve complex problems, restructure failing areas, and receive strong praise. But it gives me almost nothing. Sometimes praise makes me feel even emptier, because it proves that even success, admiration, money, status, and competence cannot reach the place in me that feels dead. I know I can perform. But performance does not answer the question of why I should live.

My life feels like: work, train, go home, sit alone, feel empty, repeat.
The shortest honest description is: I am a high-functioning but internally collapsed person with severe chronic depression, body dysmorphia, complex trauma, chronic self-hatred, attachment damage, social alienation, and a destructive revenge mode when deeply wounded.