About looks and self image and isolation

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Hey,

I'm PaganMom, I joined yesterday and I've posted a few times. I'm 46, married 22 years, 4 kids and a grandbaby on the way. This post is about a thing that has had me in depression and isolation for the past couple of months. My looks.

Now, I can work on them and do small things and I'll feel like I look like a million bucks (although I'm still just average then too but that doesn't matter, the confidence does) but I haven't done them till day before yesterday. To give you a background, I'm 5-8. 130 lbs, half Sicilian on my Dad's side (who I only met once) and the rest is divided between a Cherokee grandfather and a Irish and Scotish grandmother. Well, those dark genes got their butt kicked by the whiter shade of pale genes. I'm glow in the dark pale, with a big Sicilian nose, and I have big teeth which grew in yellow because of Tetracycline that my borderline Munchausen's by Proxy mother insisted I take as a young child. I got braces for buckteeth and bonding later in life, my 20s, and the bonding turns yellow again over time. I do smoke, but didn't for a long time and they were yellow before. Just like old cotton curtains will do that. I feel VERY BAD about my glow in the dark face, my big ole yellow teeth and my big mafia nose.

However, I started using the whitestrips, which they say won't work on bonding but THEY DO, and I went back to the tanning bed today and yesterday and I get dark fast which makes my teeth look better and I tan olive looking not so much bronze surfer tan so it goes more with my big ole nose. I bought me some hair dye again today to cover the little grey, and I think again soon I'll start wearing the clothes I like instead of just the two pair of jeans and tshirts I wear every day when I feel bad.

I have a very eclectic wardrobe and it spans from vintage 50s to medieval clthing to Mod "That Girl" and "Samantha Stephens" type things to grunge to 80s to anything else. I like to dress like that, and to wear what suits my fancy even though it's WIERD but so what, I like it!

Anyway, I also bought me some nails to do and like I said my dye, and I'm going to keep it up with the white strips.

My question is this. Are there any other people here who wont go places or care much to do anything because of how you look? I know when I go months without caring, I HATE how I look and wish I'd just die or something, but it doesn't take but a week or maybe two to get me back up to speed. I'm going to tease my hair again on Sunday night and do the "flip" do again. I have a pic of me with it and looking decent on my Myspace if anybody wants to see it.

Any of you have this problem??

PaganMom

I too dislike how I look I wish I would have appreciated my youth and enjoyed my looks then I was cute then but terrible personality. Now old fat worn out with a rotten personality.

I don't like how I look, but I don't focus on ways to imrprove it. I mean, people can place too much on trying to make themselves look better, when looks fade anyway. It is the person inside that will remain, and I dont think looks can be the key to making the person inside feel better. Looks just become the focus for something else usually. I go out, even if I have looked in the mirror and felt disgusted at what I see. Because staying in wont change it and because going out can give another focus.

of course. I know how you feel, i hate what i look like. I have afro frizzy aboriginal australian hair from one side of my family, and scottish crooked nose from the other side, and terrible acne'd skin. I don't even look at myself in the mirror lol

I hate my stretch marks and I hate getting acne. I use the cream. The current one I am using isn't working as well. I still feel like I'm fat sometimes.

I go through periods where I am hyper-aware of what a flawed specimen of the female form I am...as my AS-ish friend is forever fascinated with perfect models of the female form, and I look like a short overweight boy with clumsy versions of female parts slapped on me for good measure....part of it..he has said...is because he wants to be a girl (he has gender issues)....and part of it is because he is just a "shallow" guy...He can tend to go on and on lustfully about different women...and I don't know how to vocalize very well that it hurts my feelings because he is my friend and I don't want him to feel like he can't talk about certain things with me. Even if I lost tons of weight, I would still have this huge rib cage and small funny-shaped boobs...I would still be short...I would still be me..and not somebody-anybody else....which is what he wants... ...but typically too painfully AS-ish and shy to get...

Toothpaste helps acne. You get the cream plain ole Crest, and you put it on the zits at night and leave it on an hour and wash it off. It dries them right out.

You all sound quite beautiful to me! "Ugly" people are people who merely *pretend* to fret over how they look in order to hopefully elicit praise about their looks.

Some of the most beautiful people I know have looks that never turn heads.

Wel, I went and tanned again today which is the third day of it and now that I have the correct olive tone to go with my big ole mafia nose I look more normal. My youngest daughter is gonna dye my hair for me tomorrow and tonight or tomorrow I'll do my nails and then hopefully I'll stop picking at the skin on my lip which will hep a lot too. I'll also iron me some dresses to wear next week so I don't have to try and deal with that in the mornings, and I actually do feel a lot better now that I've tanned. For me it's not just a looks thing but the whole light thing gives me energy. I have to make myself do it though becuase otherwise I won't get out of the house.

PaganMom

I have the same problem with hating how I look. I am 19 so I guess it is pretty common at my age but I feel like their is nothing I can do to improve it because of my sensory problems. I have been told I look fine but a voice in the back of my mind always convinces me otherwise. I am 6'2" 185lbs, long brown hair, not very broad shoulders but my upper back is a bit weird it is like I have a very tiny hump(but that is probably from leaning to read and play games). I hate sweat it feels like it burns and is eating away at my skin so the only way I can keep weight off is to limit myself to 1200 calories a day which can not be a good thing. I do take very good care of my hair and shower/bathe multiple times a day (pretty much whenever I sweat or come in contact with something that irritates my skin). I have dark circles under my eyes that never goes away no matter how often I sleep or how much vitamin K cream I put on. I even tried taking an allergy medication like my dermatologist recommended but they still won't go away. When I get nervous I bite my the skin around my fingers which causes me to want to hide my hands. I also have Tourette Syndrome which causes my neck and fingers to twitch which makes me feel very weird and it can also be very painful when my anxiety is higher (I twitch more when I am nervous). I have a picture on my Myspace page too if anyone wants/needs to see it just ask.