Into this circle of resilience steps Ashley, a girl whose wounds are not visible to the eye, yet whose words echo with a deep-seated disgust for her own body. Her presence challenges the very definition of the group, blurring the lines between seen and unseen battles, and revealing the complex, often hidden nature of suffering within the human spirit.
I’m one of the two people in charge of running a body acceptance support group, we hold meetings for free at a community center after closing hours every saturday. We don’t have a sign up process, you can just show up, write down your name and sit down to share.
We make it clear that our support group is made strictly for people with body deformities, amputations, severe scarring, disfigurations of some sort… It is not for people who struggle with self esteem and need a boost.
At our first August meeting, a girl showed up whom we’ll call Ashley. There wasn’t anything visibly “wrong” with Ashley, but we didn’t give it much thought since in some cases the scarring or whatever else can be hidden underneath clothes.
(In my case, a long sleeved shirt hides nearly all of my upper body burn scarring). However, whenever Ashley spoke, she would never mention what she was struggling with just that she was disgusted with her body.
The first two sessions, I thought it was fine, to each their pace and I didn’t want to force her to share anything she wasn’t comfortable with sharing. Even when we would wrap up the meetings and the members would chat to each other, she didn’t reveal what exactly it was that made her seek out our support group.
At our third meeting, Ashley showed up wearing a crop top and very short shorts, and again there was nothing visibly “wrong”. She dodged every question I directed towards her asking about why exactly she was here, asking her if she was a veteran, if she had a surgery…
She left quickly when we wrapped up and I couldn’t speak with her. Other members asked me what the deal with her was since she went on an other tangent about how disgusting her body was when it was her turn to speak without talking about what her physical defect was exactly or how it was impacting her day to day life.
Last saturday’s meeting, I approached Ashley before the meeting to voice my concerns alongside those of the rest of the members. Ashley responded saying we weren’t very “nice”, and that whenever she would speak up negatively about her body and such, we would never counter her with a compliment, we would just stay silent or tell her some “mumbojumbo” about how it takes time to come to terms with it.
I was getting pretty angry, and I directly asked her why is it that she was here, and I told her if she couldn’t give me an answer I’m afraid I would have to kick her out. She didn’t answer so I asked her to leave.
She contacted my co-runner (he organizes and plans timings, deals with the community center…) and he seems to think what I did is not justified, and that I shouldn’t turn away anyone or kick them out because of the way they grieve or deal with trauma.
When I tried to explain that I doubted she had any physical defects to begin with, he shut it down saying I’m being an asshole for judging someone as not “disabled enough”.
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) felt conflicted because the group’s established purpose—supporting individuals with visible or known physical deformities—was being challenged by a new member, Ashley, who refused to disclose her specific issue. The OP acted to enforce the group’s boundary, leading to a confrontation, while the co-runner argued that excluding anyone struggling with body image issues was an unfair judgment.
Was the OP justified in removing a member who refused to adhere to the stated criteria of a specialized support group, or did this action violate the core principle of offering unconditional support to anyone grieving or dealing with trauma related to their body?
Here’s how people reacted:
> We make it clear that our support group is made strictly for people with body deformities, amputations, severe scarring, disfigurations of some sort… It is not for people who struggle with self esteem and need a boost.
Even without any other context, this makes it obvious from the start that she’s TA and you’re not.
> she would never mention what she was struggling with just that she was disgusted with her body.
>Ashley responded saying we weren’t very “nice”, and that whenever she would speak up negatively about her body and such, we would never counter her with a compliment, we would just stay silent or tell her some “mumbojumbo” about how it takes time to come to terms with it.
She sounds like she isn’t very “nice” herself. And the point of a support group is for, well, support. If she just wanted complimented while she insults herself, there’s plenty of places to do that.
> I doubted she had any physical defects to begin with, he shut it down saying I’m being an asshole for judging someone as not “disabled enough”.
Disabled enough? Either she’s physically disabled or she’d not. If it’s only mental, she’s in the wrong support group and needs to find one that is steered towards people with a psychological aversion to their body.
For one, its apparently pretty clearly stated what the support group is for. People with actual physical deformities/scars/etc.
But the clincher for me is the “I say something negative about myself and you didn’t compliment me”. Thats clearly a case of where she’s just using the group to fish for compliments.
You’re running a group for people who have legitimate social stigmas attached to them because of their injuries. She’s just looking for people to kiss up to her.
> our support group is made strictly for people with body deformities, amputations, severe scarring, disfigurations
This is what the group is for.
> judging someone as not “disabled enough”
Yeah, either its for a specific group, or its not. You should be enforcing the rules so that *the other members are comfortable in the setting*. These are people with legitimate physical problems. Not that body dismorphia and the like aren’t real, but there is a HUGE difference between that and this.
The rules as you stated are clear. This is not a support group for “I don’t feel pretty enough”, its a support group for “I feel like a legitimate monster because of my deformity”.
Here’s the thing. You describe it as a “body acceptance” support group. But it’s pretty clear from context that you mean acceptance of some sort of injury or deformity. If I were suffering from Body dysmorphic disorder I’m not sure I would see “body acceptance support group” (dunno if you have a different name for it that is more descriptive) and think “Oh, they mean for physical issues, not like what I have.”
So it sounds like she was in the wrong group. It sounds like she has a legitimate issue to work through and just misunderstood your purpose. Rather than steer her in the right direction, perhaps by asking her why she was there in the first place, you instead came out in attack mode, forced her to defend her position and then kicked her out without any guidance of where she might go that would be better suited for her needs.
You didn’t need to validate her. You didn’t even need to keep her in the group. But you saw her, rather than as someone suffering from a mental condition, as someone who was faking it to be there and you treated her like shit accordingly.
So yeah, you were the asshole.
Personally, I understand the overall sentiment. I am a recovering heroin/opiate addict. When I go to a meeting and I here other people talk about how they got out of control drinking white wine, I eyeroll internally. But I wouldn’t dream of kicking them out of a meeting, because you never REALLY know the severity of someone else’s problems.
Uh…yeah going to say NTA if this is true. That’s someone using a therapy group for validation. She could just as easily post to facebook or some sub-reddits wherever if she wants to fish for compliments.
Though also INFO have they been supportive to others at all? By the sounds of it, the other members think she’s a detriment.
She likely has body dysmorphia, which is a real and debilitating mental illness, but not the target audience for your group. If your other group members have very obvious disabilities or disfigurations, listening to someone who does not have any visible issues may be triggering or traumatizing for them. You’re not required to expose other group members to a harmful experience to boost her self esteem.
If I were you I would have come prepared with other resources for her; perhaps a more appropriate group or message boards.
It would be worth addressing this with new members going forward, that it is a group for coming to accept what has happened to you as opposed to complimenting eachother.
It is bad for everyone else in the group to see a completely able-bodied person sitting there complain about how skinny/fat they are (even if their feelings are completely justified) and that creates an unhealthy group dynamic.
I have massive scars that would not show in a crop top and short shorts, but still make me self-conscious. Granted I have no issue taking about how I got them, but I still worry you might have reacted without the full details.
People dealing with physical trauma need different types of support than those dealing with mental trauma.
She sounds like she may be struggling with mental issues. Could be anything from an eating disorder to dysphoria. There are groups better suited to giving her the help she needs.
You are doing your job protecting the other people in the group.
Your supervisor is just trying to cover his ass without trying to understand what actually happened