Posted by Racer on October 19, 1999, at 23:35:14
In reply to Feeling Ugly, posted by Janice on October 19, 1999, at 22:51:26
I, too, feel ugly, and hate seeing pictures of myself...
Here's the theory: we first start to assess our physical attractiveness at the beginning of puberty. That's not usually the most attractive time in our lives, to say the least! I think that our physical self-image is largely set at that time, as is our sense of fashion/style, and our internalized idea of what we look like. Therefore, no matter how much we fix the depression/manic depression/etc, we always have a gawky teenager somewhere inside.
The reason I hate seeing pictures of myself, is that I have an internal 'snapshot' of myself that the pictures don't reflect. My 'snapshot' comes from a combination of that gawky adolescent and the woman I see in the mirror as I brush my teeth. The pictures never show that woman. (In my case, even other people have commented that the one thing they've never seen is a good photograph of me!)
What to do? I have had good luck by choosing the body image/face image thing as a separate issue in therapy. I've also had some good luck just by playing with make up. You'd be amazed at how much change you can get simply by looking at yourself more, and yet judging your face less: I look to see if that eye shadow works or if this hair style works. That way, I'm seeing more the pieces, and can see that each piece is fine. Eventually, I can see that each individual, attractive feature, put together with other individual, attractive features, makes a rather pleasing whole.
My other epiphany, by the way, is that it's not bone structure alone that makes someone attractive: many people find me attractive simply because (when I'm not depressed) I have a lot of energy, am generous to others, and like to laugh. You'd be surprised at how much a generous personality can hide!
Good luck, and if that didn't make sense, let me know. I'll try to express it better.
poster:Racer
thread:13470
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991016/msgs/13472.html