When our diet culture distress tolerance is low it means that we easily get overwhelmed with feelings like anger, pain or rage when faced with conversations, media, imagery etc. that promote food restriction, body ideals, or other things you associate with diet culture.
When our distress tolerance is high it means that we (or may not) have feelings about those same types of situations, but we don’t feel overwhelmed.
Please note: when I refer to “diet culture distress,” I am talking specifically about conversations, media, imagery, etc. that promote food restriction, body ideals, and other things you associate with diet culture. I am not talking about personal experiences of physical or verbal abuse associated with body-shaming (which requires some different skills and shouldn't be tolerated).
Low distress tolerance isn’t necessarily better than high distress tolerance (and vice versa). What matters is that you know where you’re at so you can take appropriate care of yourself.
Just to be clear: Diet culture is dehumanizing, anti-scientific, and it has caused a lot of people a lot of pain. Feeling angry or sad are completely normal responses to exposure to diet culture.
Learning about your distress tolerance is not about trying to “let go” of anger or sadness. Nor is it about minimizing the reality of diet culture’s harm. In fact, it's about the opposite: recognizing how potentially harmful diet culture is to your sense of well-being and taking appropriate steps to protect yourself.
Learning about your distress tolerance is also about anticipating your needs, learning how to manage your exposure to avoidable triggers, and creating a self-care plan if overwhelm happens.
Your diet culture distress tolerance can change from day to hour, or even hour to hour. It’s normal to have low diet culture distress tolerance if you’re new to body positivity or fat acceptance.
You can quickly check in with yourself at the start of your day, non-judgmentally asking, “On a scale from 1 (low distress tolerance) to 5 (high distress tolerance), what’s my DCDT level today?” If it’s lower, think about some things you might be able to take off your plate and plan to build in a little more time for self-care and self-soothing. If it’s higher, maybe you can take a breather or possibly do something emotionally meaningful that is a little challenging (like having a frank boundaries conversation that you've been putting off).
You don’t need to feel pressure to decrease your distress tolerance level, but if that is something you want to do, the best thing to do is take care of yourself, be patient, and minimize exposure to things that overwhelm you. You have an opportunity to build up your emotional and intellectual reserves when you recognize where you’re at and treat yourself with care. Those emotional reserves can help raise your distress tolerance.
So, now that you know a little bit about this concept, what do you think your diet culture distress tolerance level generally is? Remember to try and be as honest as possible. This information is just for you, and the more honest you are the better equipped you’ll be to make the right plan for you.
Whatever your response was, here are 4 useful questions to ask yourself:
What words, phrases or media tend to set me off? Be specific.
Are there certain people, situations or things that consistently cause me to feel overwhelmed? Can I avoid or minimize exposure to some or all of them?
What small things can I do to self-soothe once I've been set off? Can I take a break? Are there some comforting words I can say to myself? What are they?
How will I know when my distress tolerance level has shifted up or down? What do I want to focus on during days when my distress tolerance is a little higher?
Knowing your diet culture distress tolerance level is having a powerful piece of information about yourself and your needs. Excellent work.
Class dismissed.
I’ll be getting deeper into my personal relationship to diet culture distress tolerance in this Thursday's BPU 201. If you’re interested in reading that article and attending tomorrow’s Boundary Script-Writing Ahead of the Holidays virtual seminar, become a premium subscriber. It's only $9.99 for the month (which includes 8 articles and access to 1-2 virtual seminars per month) or $99.99 for the entire year.
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