Amen Strongchick!
Bodybuilding has given me my life back. I wasted 20 years with an eating disorder and chronic depression. All those years of therapy and medication did not do what bodybuilding did - make me happy in my own skin. It gave me so much more too, confidence, health, and strength - both physical and mental.
It's a little weird for me now, being noticed because of muscle. Sometimes I still think of myself as that small sickly child, the last one picked for teams in phys ed class. That hurt - I spent so much of my life just trying to disappear. I guess that's why I became anorexic.
So, now when I do get noticed, I sometimes feel guilty, like an imposter. Then I remind myself to buck up and enjoy it for all it's worth, since I've worked hard, paid the price and dang-blasted, I've EARNED it - sweet salve for those wounds of the past. It's neat being different in a way that some people admire and some people find threatening. So liberating!