wrong thinking

How do you convince yourself to believe something?

Example: On one of my favorite TV shows, a woman explains why her life is pretty good and one of her reasons is because she can "stand naked in front of a mirror for five whole seconds before screaming, and not many woman can say that." I can't say that; I don't even last one second. When I bounce up and down on the balls of my feet my lower ribs, abdomen, sides, and sections of my hips jiggle, I don't fit in the summer shorts I wore last year, and I've gained roughly 20lbs since January. Because of those facts I believe that I am fat. My boyfriend, who has seen me in a bikini, disagrees adamantly! As do my gal pals and family. Virtually everyone in my life disagrees with me that I am fat, but I believe it. Now, those aforementioned facts are cast in a slightly different light when I say that from January to the end of April I have been lifting weights and biking at the student gym three times a week, but since the beginning of May my workouts have been decreased due to my loss of access to the gym. I have gained muscle weight and my pants don't fit anymore because my thighs have gained roughly an inch in muscle mass.

I could go on for pages about how the sight of obese people, or even just fat on regular people, makes me set down whatever I'm eating, candy or carrot, and not want to eat for several hours out of fear that I may become obese, or how I don't look good in a bikini or any other kind of swimwear but when it comes down to brass tacks, if you saw me as I am, you would most likely say that I'm not fat. But I believe I am because I don't look like the Victoria's Secret models and if I don't look like them then I must be fat & ugly. Logically, I know this isn't true. I spend hours telling my friends all the reasons and research about how the lifestyles that lead to those bodies aren't realistic for normal women, and how the pictures are airbrushed and fake but in the privacy of my bathroom I stare at myself and think how fat & ugly I am.

That was just an example of something that I think, that I know is wrong, but I still believe; there are many of them and if you ask I'll list more but be warned that doing so could lead to a bitter diatribe about all the different ways my life sucks. My wrong thinking runs into many different areas and so deep that not even my dearest friends can talk me out of some of them. I know, deep down in my heart of hearts and logic of logics, that most of the self-deprecating things I think are very very wrong, but I think them anyway.

So how many times do I have to "self-affirmate" to reverse all of this deprecation? Once a day? Twice a day? Five times a day? For a week? A month? Ten years?! From the way that some people talk on the subject it seems that the battle to affirmate and not deprecate is a constant one; every time a self-deprecating thought enters your mind you must fight it with all the reasons that it is a wrong thought. That seems like a TON of work to me. I believe that, like how the human lips naturally rest in a frown, it is natural for my mind to spit out deprecating thoughts and fighting them is hard. Since I don't like fighting my thoughts, I have other people do it for me. I fish for compliments and start arguments that eventually, sometimes unbeknownst to the other person, settle over one of my thoughts; me arguing for why it's right, them arguing for why it's wrong. Those are my two biggest strategies for getting others to fight my battles.

I want to learn to fight my battles on my own. Attempting to snare others into fighting my battles eventually loses me friends. But fighting my deprecating thoughts is hard, tiring, and it's so much easier to give in to them, to believe them. Is there any way to make the battle easier? Any way to make affirming thoughts more natural than deprecating ones?