Don't Like Being Looked At

[Powder]

I feel uncertain of what to write, but here goes nothing.

I have body issues, disordered eating, and probably DDNOS or up near DID type dissociation problems when stressed.

It seems like when I'm stressed, shit happens more. You hopefully know what I mean. It's like the a**holes come out of the woodwork. And I'm feeling like "here it comes."

So today, my husband and I were going to the grocery store we always go into, but I hesitated and felt like I didn't want to go in.

My hubs and I have been having a lot of talking lately about our relationship, and its vulnerable stuff, kind of raw. One thing that rubs him the wrong way is other men checking me out when I'm with him.

Of course, he says this happened in the store. I had tunnel vision going into the store, and was too focused on the corn on the cob I was buying for our child's request. Apparently, he said some guy was circling us and staring at me, even though hubs gave him the "back off she's taken" look. This guy persisted and followed us a bit around the store, he said, and wanted to get out of there before it escalated. Usually, hubs says, guys will stop looking if he gives them the look.

I didn't see this guy looking at me at all, so I have to take him at his word. I noticed this guy was around but I never saw his face.

Thing is, I don't get it. I am overweight, out of condition, and wear old, faded clothes. My hubs says the clothes are too tight, but I tell him it's cause I'm poor and fat, and this is what I got. He says guys see me as "curvy" and having what they want to look at.

This upsets me because I look in the mirror and all I see is an old fat woman with bags under her eyes because her kid wakes her up at 2 am every night. I know people say I'm attractive but I feel it's to be nice because I have obvious low self-appraisal. Always have, always had an eating disorder.

I don't know what I look like. It's hard to dress right when you don't know what you look like.

I feel freaked out when men look at me like a piece of meat, and I always feel it has to do with them, and not me. Maybe they are attracted to a victim and they are predatory and can smell the fear.

I don't know what to do about how to dress. When I take my hubs to shop, I walk out with Mennonite clothes, and no offense, but I feel all wrong in them. He says he'd like me to wear a burka if that wouldn't attract even more attention. :) We joke about it.

I was sexually abused by my dad and he also let his pedo friends also have me, once there were three men at one time. :( I barely remember it. There was a camera, and I'm phobic of photography and cameras.

A guy in my neighborhood looks at me, and it freaks me out. My hubs thought I had a crush because I obsess about it, but it's not that. It's that it triggers me and my F's come out, maybe it triggers me into ego states. I don't understand how a "look" or the look in someone's eyes can do that, but obviously, it triggered something in me, from my predator(s) maybe a memory that hasn't surfaced yet. :(

I don't want to remember any more, and hope the flashbacks stop. I am getting a new big hot spot every three months, which is too much.

How do you get this to stop, get alpha men to stop looking but still try to feel pretty and happy and upbeat? No matter how hard I try, this keeps hitting me/us.

One older woman once said the more shy and demure a woman is, the more attractive as a "hard to get" and the more forward and eager, the more it isn't fun or a chase. I think that, and I may be wrong here, but I think that PTSD women might be ironically attracting the very thing they fear the most via this "opposites" phenomenon. The more I ignore and am deliberately not looking at men, cause they scare the bejesus out of me, the more they feel they can/should look. If I was looking at them, would that make it stop? I now it's not cause I'm hot. So what is the deal? I hope someone out there knows and can help.

I'm going nuts now. Good night. :/

 

[Powder]

Just so confused. And what bugs me is that hubs thinks I dress wrong, too tight. My weight yo-yos due to anorexia followed by binge eating and sleeping, so I can't maintain my weight.

 

[Kintsugi]

I can completely relate to the staring thing, although I am officially not too shy to say I am objectively attractive.

Anyway, I think from your post that this issue has a lot more to do with your husband's insecurities than yours. I know I feel an immense amount of shame when an SO brings up the attention I draw. I agree that some of it is predatory attention from those who can seemingly smell "blood in the water" from those of us who have been repeatedly abused.

Nevertheless. I think your husband is shining a magnifying glass on the shame you might otherwise privately feel. That's terrible. I think he needs to identify and work on his own insecurities as a husband and a man.

Don't let other people tell you what to wear, by the way. That gets f*cked up pretty quickly.

 

[The Albatross]

Concur with Simon... his issue, his to work on. Your issue is setting the boundary with him and having the communication that his behavior is adversely affecting you and needs to stop.

 

[shimmerz]

Ummmm, yes, I entirely get this. It is a hard thing to talk about for the same reason you bring up Muse. Talking about how people 'look at me' feels egotistical and it isn't. Certainly not the way you presented it. It is a fact of life.

I have had many experiences with this. With quite a few partners. The last partner I had literally had to stand in between myself and men to have them keep their distance. He was menacing looking when someone got in my space so men backed off immediately. I learned from him the difference between what I should accept and what I shouldn't. It had a ton to do with my boundaries.

Another partner of mine used to yell at me about it. Said I wasn't protecting myself properly. I wasn't. But I also didn't know how to because I was oblivious to what was happening and didn't have protection skills. I know that this partner was very concerned for me as he noticed how men looked at me while I didn't. I was a walking magnet for predatory types.

So yes, it may be about him - but it may also be a true concern for a lack of skills that you may have. Because if you don't notice these things predators pick up on it. They SEE that you don't see them. It is a form of hypovigilance (for me it was anyway). It is possibly a sign that you need to work on protection skills. I don't know that for sure, so can just relate my experiences (only 2 of hundreds during my lifetime) that seem similar to how you expressed yourself in this posting.

It is a unique problem and one that many don't quite understand.

 

[Powder]

@shimmerz yes, thank you. I feel like you hit the nail on the head, and I needed to hear it spelled out. It is hyper/hypo-vigilence, that I'm not showing these guys I'm annoyed. I tune them out, and then it doesn't bother me. But bad and also just narcissist or predatory types are out there.

Yes, @Simply Simon it's exactly like they smell the blood in the water, but I have been told it's not necessary to label the guy as predatory based on the fact that most males like the chase and the challenge of a women sending "I'm ignoring your advances entirely" signals.

I am thinking Disney's Gaston vs. Belle Beauty and the Beast. The more she isn't interested, the more mysterious. All the girls falling over themselves blur into the background.

I see it as narcissist bait from being raised by narcs who I had to tune out to survive. Now, narcs either hate me (for ignoring them) or try to "fix it" by gaining my approval, which I try to avoid if I see it coming. I try to avoid most people in real life, actually. I am kind to those I work with and my students, who seem to have healthy boundaries. Other than that, I keep to myself in public.

My hubs points out, like Shimmerz mentioned, a lack of healthy assertiveness and calm in the face of aggressive attention, that He sees what I believe is a Fawn response or submission response to aggressive type people. I feel triggered into that state from repeated abuse from my parents.

I agree he has insecurity issues, some maybe caused by my early acting out and borderline type behavior as I tried to veer away from my abusive home in desperate ways. But, yeah, any lingering stuff is his, not mine to address.

But as they say, I can't change him, and I love and approve of him. It's me I can change inside most, and should try (thus the post).

Thanks to each of you, @The Albatross & @Simply Simon I especially appreciate your way of saying what he owns of this problem in the above scenario. Yeah, I told him that it seems to make me unravel MORE to have him highlighting my vulnerabilities that I still don't have an answer to.

Today when I told him about this thread, he said that's good and he's not going to push me on how to dress because he can see it just upsets me more. It's something I gotta get to the bottom of. I don't think it's how I look per se in isolation. Like @shimmerz points out, it's more assertiveness and the correct level of body language that I'm strong and not triggered into hypo or hyper vigilence in public.

I should have some how centered or grounded prior to entering the store. I know that. I just don't know how. I was dissociating really badly at the same store earlier and had to go home and lie down. I ran out of mojo. I just shut down and dissociated to the point of worrying I'd fall and black out.

Thing is I don't know what triggered it or when, so I am a confused mess.

 

[shimmerz]

I get all messed up in stores as well @Muse. I get the tunnel vision that you speak about and because there are so many 'choices', I tend to daze out. I focus on nothing but what I need because it takes my all just to do that. I do this everywhere I go too though. I don't notice when people look at me in restaurants, walking through malls, nothing. I could walk right by someone that I know and not even see them. A hyper focus of some sort mixed with a hypovigilance for me.

Now with awareness, maybe you can switch that up a bit. I actually started to pop sour candies when I walked into a public place. It brought my senses back online. Not sure if that would be helpful to you. :hug:

 

[Powder]

Thanks, that is what works, simple grounding techniques that I can't overthink. Get back into my body. :) :O_o:

 

[Friday]

Dude... Your husband needs to back his shit down. No freaking wonder you're triggering left and right if he's all green eyed monster & hypervig about what you wear and anyone even looking at you. Yeesh. No wonder your anxiety is sky high around it. He might as well be throwing gasoline on a fire.

 

[Powder]

I'm having freeze response for three days now. Don't know the trigger yet. Rubber legs, mostly I lie in bed, heart pounding, sweating. Arms, back, and eyes hurt. Mostly have no energy and legs are feeling like they are giving out, can't move around much. No energy to cook, clean, be with kids. No cooking dinners for three days. Partial flashbacks, body memory types.

I got a rejection to a job and my plans fell to dust in my hands Thursday; hubs has end of college tons of work due. I feel like life's closing in. Saw I had $23 bucks in the checking, five days to payroll and it's all going to house. Found out my boss yanked plans for a fall contract, and he isn't telling me yet, others are who were in the meeting I wasn't invited to. Hubs no jobs yet. Worried all my hard work to improve credit will now be set back. No money.

I don't know how my hubs can stay optimistic when I feel like life is killing me/us. He isn't checking the bank, too busy. My brain's going into OMG shut down mode. My usual coping is not helping one bit.

 

[Powder]

Just saw I got another interview that sounds like it has potential, but I'm afraid I won't be in a frame of mind to do it. :/ Already I feel like I'm crying/dying inside and just faking "ok" for people. But I'm an fing wet blanket at best right now.

 

[shimmerz]

Jeez, Muse, no wonder you have all of this stuff going on. That is serious survival stuff you are drowning in! That is super triggery NOW stuff. Are you dealing with THEN stuff too? (Flashbacks etc?) Or are you reacting as if it is here and now stress?