Short - Celebrity Nail Artist Robbie Tomkins on Eating Disorder, Body Dysmophia and learning to love the skin you're in

Gorgeous Listeners, welcome to this week’s episode of Finding Your Way Home,

On today's episode on FYWH, we’re offering you a gem from our archive on one of the most popular topic requests we receive - how to navigate the complex and nuanced road of "recovery". So many struggle with ongoing, undiagnosed and life-impacting compulsion - whether to food, substances or forms of social and technology engagement that are fundamentally damaging. The question becomes - in a world ripe with opportunity for dependency and dislocation, how do we find our way home? To mind, to body and to a loving inner voice that advocates for us. 

In this week's episode we hear from the incredible talent and charisma of our favourite Robbie Tomkins - celebrity nail artist and mental health advocate. Robbie shares tenderly and openly about his own experience of body dysmorphia and ED; how his negative self-beliefs started early, how they distorted his identity and actions and his incredible road to recovery, and deepest self-embrace. 

For all those facing these themes, even on the smallest level, know that we see you, you're far from alone, and there are people, places and practices that can guide you back toward yourself. 

With such love, for this heart-opening episode,

A x

To find out more about captivating Robbie:

Find him on Instagram @robbietomkins or read about his work: https://www.lmc.world/artists/robbie-tomkins

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Transcript

Robbie: 0:00

I don't think my memories are the reality I'm starting to learn I thought my whole childhood I was bullied for being fat, in a nutshell, I just thought I was always bullied when I was a fat kid. And then, in adult life, my mum pulled out, you know, she's old school, she's got a massive box just full of old, old photos from Africa and everything else, before the internet and smartphones and all the digital cameras and I look at pictures of myself and it broke my heart in two because I wasn't a fat kid, at all. I was a normal sized little boy, um, bright white blonde hair. This has now left me, but, bright white blonde hair, pictures of me and my sister, and just very, very normal sized kid. Not fat at all. But without seeing those photos, my brain tells me I was this really chubby kid, because I think once or twice maybe one kid called me fat. I was very, very sensitive, um. And I think people played on that. So my whole lived experience of what I perceive I lived through was just bullying the whole way through. Now, in comprehensive school the bullying was very bad and I was very aware of it and, I was older so I, I do remember all of that. Um, But, like I said, these distorted memories from when I was really small, and a life, you know, a lifetime up until, again, I started working on myself for self pity. Of, oh God, it was so awful for me, and I'm sure there were kids it was worse for. But, wrapped up in all of that when I was 14, 15, you know. It was weird, I was so popular with all the really popular girls in school, being queer and a gay guy, I just gravitated towards friendships with girls. The boys in school hated that because, I'm hanging around with the, the top girls, you know, the pretty ones in the school. Um, it was a strange dynamic. It was a strange time, you know, and then when I was 15, 16, really sort of knew I was gay and was very active And I was that age with other boys and things in school and things. And it just, um, the bullying became sort of real then. It became physical and I came out when I was 16, just after I'd left school and it was towards the end of my exams and it went all around school and, you know, there were a few, a few beatings, a few kickings and stuff, but I always kind of stood my ground, had a big mouth as well. that's when I started to go, you know what, I don't care anymore, I'm going to retaliate and stuff. but yeah, not, not the worst, you know, not the best. I've stopped painting my childhood to be this awful, awful thing because it really wasn't. But it was challenging and it was difficult and it definitely shaped the rest of my relationships and my life. Um, and definitely I think, the minute I could. The minute I could pick up anything to change the way I feel, Anthea, you know, started with food and then 14, just escalated into everything else. whatever it was that came along that I could just go, oh, and forget myself for a little minute. I latched onto anything. I couldn't have one of anything, basically. People, places, things, it was all just. A big melting pot, and then it became Rockstar, and then it didn't. That I found freedom. A whole other podcast.

Anthea: 3:00

So everyone, I'm so grateful that you share that, irrespective of what level, what extreme any of us go to. and I've definitely had my own experiences of a lot of what you describe, there is such relatability in this desire to use things to take away how you feel, and I love that you talked about essentially body dysmorphia and that that is a real thing. Oh, I'm riddled with it. I didn't know what that was. And, and it's, it's horrifying when, like I said, I look back at pictures of me as a kid. Absolutely nothing wrong, but without photographic evidence, my mind tells me I was this really round, fat little kid. No wonder everyone bullied me, like, insane. the thing that you made me think of was this... this tendency that we all have towards a degree of self righteousness around our own perspective. especially in my experience, in the areas where we're the most self critical, that I will be absolutely convinced that my self critique is truthful, externally verifiable, and that anyone trying to tell me otherwise is really just trying to make me feel better. Because of course, you and I know a lot about codependency. Uh, we, we both worked our way slowly, gradually out of codependent patterns. And The, the codependent, let's assume that that's me, would say things to make the other people feel better because it is so painfully uncomfortable for me to witness somebody else saying something critical about themselves, that I can't sit with them expressing their truth and therefore I have to supplant their truth with mine. So in reverse, then when people try to be kind to me about my own body dysmorphia. You just discounted, uh, And it's really that, that rejecting, rejecting affection, rejecting love, which is where we get right back to what you're talking about, this difference between what is objective truth, which is an arguable point in of itself if there ever is one, but what is more truthful, more verifiable, even in a photograph versus my own filter and lens.

Robbie: 5:04

I sent you a picture recently, Anthea, didn't I? Of me on a beach. it just feels the right time to talk about it. Because, you know, uh... If, if it just inspires one person, like from a, from a person who spent their whole life thinking they were, you know, really fat and, and, and, my experience was I'd put on quite a lot of weight, you know, I did get quite big, um, and healthily. So, um, and hated my body and then I would. diet and exercise and batter my body and get really thin and still think I was fat and it was never good enough and all of this and just intimacy was hard, getting naked was hard, changing rooms were hard, you know, summer holidays and beach holidays, just getting drunk, pissed out of my head from 9am in the morning because then I could walk around in a bather and stuff. Two, three weeks ago, sober, clean, at one in the afternoon on a Sunday going to a nudist beach in Brighton was not a plan when I woke up that morning. Um, I was looking for parking to just go for a swim because I wanted to swim in the ocean and just. Be free, practice that freedom and just go for a swim and drive down on my own to Brighton and park. And while I was looking for parking on Google Maps, I saw this little thing that said nature of speech and something in me went, Go and see if you can do this. And, um, and I took a photo of myself. on, on the beach. And then I, I emoji over the bit that mattered. And, um, and I shared it with certain people that I really love. you know, my, my belly was crunched up and everything else. And it amazed me how my body dysmorphia from a place where I I couldn't, I couldn't look at myself in the mirror and stuff. So taking a photo of myself naked on a beach, looking at it and going, you look okay. You know, it was phenomenal to me and I think I said to you in the text, Anthea, I feel like I've just claimed Mount Everest I've staked my claim on this planet. Like the hair on my neck now, I like, I literally feel like I want to cry because it was, um, there was nothing sexual about it in, in a traditional sexual way. There was nothing showboaty. My ego wasn't in play. It was... Oh my god, I'm on the beach, I'm naked, the sun is on me, there's people around me, I'm terrified, but I'm here. I'm not 100 percent obsessed with what they think of me. It's new, it's scary and everything, and then I shared to you, you know, the challenge when I sort of laid down and wiggled out of my bather was, okay, you can get up now, and you can walk to the water, and you can trust, the universe has got you and you'll be all right. And now every now and then I pull that photo up to have a look at it and go, you are nothing that you have believed your whole life that you were. Your brain has distorted it Robbie and, and every now and then it comes up on my photo reel and I, I'm shocked. I go, Oh my God, I think that's me because I go, Oh, that looks good. You know? Um, and I'm not saying everyone needs to rush to a huge speech to get in touch with their body and stuff, but on that day, at that moment, and I had, and the worst thing was I had to drive an hour and 20 minutes to get to it. So from the moment of deciding it, I had an hour and 20 to convince myself that I should not do this. you know, I went to see an amazing play recently, Anthea, it's, it was written by a guy who was an usher in a theatre in New York. And it's almost a biopic of his life. And while he was in New York, he dreams of writing a musical. He wrote a musical about himself and all of his defects of character, essentially, and it's a massive smash hit. And I went to see it and it's him with all of his defects. And one of them is self loathing, but they're played by people. And he interacts with them. And there's a moment where, and he's a big queer black guy. And he's saying about, oh, my body. And then this person comes over and starts whispering, You can't think like that about yourself. You're disgusting. Like, how dare you start to enjoy your body. Like, ha ha. And he, and it was his self loathing. And I could hear it in the car on the way down. Like this. loud, nothing like before. The voice before wouldn't have even entertained a thought, never mind getting in the car and driving there. Um, but I ended up doing it. Yeah.

Anthea: 9:13

in sharing those moments with people that you love, the intimacy, the gift that you give them is enormous. And that's probably something that neither of us. I realized early on when we were withholding in relationship is that you are denying the other person the gift of knowing who you really are. I'd like to be really clear that Robbie. is not talking about drastically changing his body in order that he is then allowed to love it.

Robbie: 9:41

my body now is the same as it's been for probably six or seven years. So it's not suddenly I've gone, Ah, I'm ready, which is old, Bobby. Diet, diet, diet, diet, gym, gym, gym, gym. You can go on holiday for a week, but you're still gonna have to take drugs and drink every single day whilst you're in Ibiza to get through being naked and in your bather. That, that is, you know, this is like on one particular day by chance seeing a little sign on Google Maps. Um. And, and just, yeah. I love that you brought that up, Anthea, because I think that is really important. This isn't something I've worked towards. It's not something I've tried really hard to get. It, it happened.

10:21

gorgeous listeners. Thank you. So. So. much. For your ears. I hope. You enjoy today's. today's. episode. To find. More about our. Featured guests. Have a look in the show. Notes.