Social anxiety caused by appearance

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I have severe social anxiety because I think I am unattractive and I am very conscious about my appearance to the point where I have to spend ages mentally preparing myself to leave my room everyday, if I am manage at all. A girl once said to my face that I am ugly. I have never come close to having a girlfriend and I feel like most people in the world are vain in that they only judge people by genetics and that my appearance is not good enough and that I am therefore worthless in the eyes of everyone else. Even though I know I am a human being, I even feel as though some people don't even view me as human sometimes, am I paranoid or could this be possible?

I feel like I have no faith in my own self-worth or society's values. I have really strong trust issues towards other people because I know how judgemental people can be over appearance. Am I right to have these feelings or should I expect better from people?

I also experience suicidal thoughts because of my social anxiety. Are the suicidal thoughts and social anxiety reasonable? If not how can I control them?

I was bullied in school for six years because of my Aspergers so don't bother putting any bullying posts, it will just make me and possibly other people angry, nobody can say anything to make me feel worse than I already do, and nothing someone says could surprise me. I have absolutely no pride in myself that people can take away with words.

Last edited by ja795 on 05 Nov 2016, 1:37 pm, edited 4 times in total.

I feel you. Recently I had developed severe acne and my social anxiety got even worse. I have a "pimple" on the center of my nose (for over a year now) and its the most humiliating thing; its not even really a pimple, because its underneath my skin, but it occasionally flares up and turns red. Right on my nose, looking like a clown lol.

Also, I've been self-conscious of my body since I was 7 (mostly because of things my parents said to me), and I always felt uncomfortable with myself, which was probably evident to others, on top of any other autistic traits.

I've always been paranoid like you mentioned and I completely relate to feeling like some people don't even view me as human. Suicidal thought and social anxiety is pretty reasonable, in my opinion, just because when you consider how important socializing seems to be (which we're unsuccessful with because of anxiety) and how empty your life can feel if you keep feeling isolated.

Welcome to WP JA795. You have me very curious as to what you look like. Are you ok to pm me a pic? I am sure that I could encourage you by pointing out attractive things about you from a perspective that you may have never even thought to consider. No one is completely unattractive. That is not humanly possible. Even people who have the worst deformities are attractive in some kind of way.

I know that you see yourself a certain way but that does not mean that the way you see yourself is the same way that other people see you at all. But if you are convincing yourself that there is nothing attractive about you, that is the energy and vibe that you will put out to everyone else. I think that the reason no one is attracted to you is because you have convinced yourself that no one can be. If you can change your self image, you will be surprised at how people respond. It won't guarantee you a girlfriend right away or even a girlfriend at all but at least you will have opened the door to the possibility. But people do respond to those who put out a good and positive energy.

It is your energy that attracts people not only your looks. If you are the most perfectly sculpted most handsome creature that ever walked the earth but you have a really bad energy, people will not be attracted to you. They might be superficially for your outward beauty but what binds us to each other is how beautiful we are from the spirit. And fortunately, that is something that you can do something about. You could be the most outwardly hideous creature ever but if you have a beautiful spirit, good people will be able to see past that and see who you are on the inside. But I very highly doubt that you are as unattractive as you think you are.

Last edited by skibum on 05 Nov 2016, 12:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It was very rude for her to say to you that you are ugly. But truth is that not everyone has the same standards or ideas of what ugly or beautiful is. I have seen plenty of babies that I thought were outwardly hideous but their parents and families think they are gorgeous. And once I got to know the babies and play with them and bond with them, what I thought was ugly at first quickly faded away and I was able to see cuteness and even beauty. So ugly is not a term to really be taken as seriously as we take it and even though it hurts like hell, it doesn't really mean anything. Many people, not just babies, appear unattractive to me at first glance but once I get to know them, I actually start to see real and true beauty even in the exact same features that at first seemed unattractive. So to say someone is ugly is just being mean spirited and that says a lot more about her than about you. Even if you don't find the person's physical features attractive to you, that does not mean the person is not beautiful or that someone else would not be attracted to those features.

Thank you for your reply, I don't have any deformities such as genetic diseases, I am just anxious about my nose because it is probably slightly larger than average at both the bridge and the tip, and as a result I don't ever smile because my nose looks bigger when I do. I don't really want to send a picture though because I don't really feel comfortable doing it at this moment, I might message you another time if I feel up to it and it is OK with you.

Oh, yeah, that's fine. If you ever feel comfortable I would be happy to help you. But it's totally up to you. But just to give you an example, the actor Adrian Brody has a really big nose too and I find him very handsome. But I do understand what you mean though. I have features in my body that make me insecure as well.

Yeah I suppose there might be some other people that will look past appearance flaws if you get to know them, it just depresses me to know that you could be a nice and polite person and some people will still treat you like you are a piece of dirt on the bottom of their shoe because of a flaw in your appearance, but I suppose you cannot change that and you just have to accept that there are people in the world who are like that.

Last edited by ja795 on 05 Nov 2016, 1:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Yeah that kind of attitude has nothing to do with you at all. That just says the kind of person they are. But if you start to build some self confidence you will attract better quality people.

It was the girl's personality that was ugly.

Amen

I agree 100%

That that girl told you you are ugly really doesn't say a thing about you.
Among many other things I've repeatedly been called fat. My BMI is 19.6 (and back then it was a bit lower than that) which is normal weight and some of the people who called me fat were a little chubby.
I'm just giving this example because it is objectively untrue and because they must have been able to see that it is untrue but bullies don't care if their words are true and they don't even care if they themselves think they are true. They just care if they think they can hurt another person by saying them.

If the worst flaw you have is an a bit bigger than average nose you very likely are not ugly. That's just the way you see yourself because of the bullies and the damage they did to your self-esteem.

NorthWind,

Thank you for your reply, it is encouraging to know that some people are willing to help me and that not everyone is like that girl. I am sorry that people have insulted your appearance and I know that it feels very bad when someone does that.
The girl's insult was in either late 2012 or early 2013 which was before I was diagnosed which made the insult worse because before I was diagnosed I severely struggled to stand up for myself when someone insulted me.

Last edited by ja795 on 06 Nov 2016, 3:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I really appreciate replies because they are really helpful but it is possible that I might not be able to reply to everyone in future, because when my routine is changed a lot my anxiety over my appearance gets worse (although it is obviously common for someone with Aspergers to get stressed when their routine is changed significantly anyway). It is for this exact reason that I never use any general social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

I agree with that, as it makes me think of two examples I know. Both are men, both have facial deformities - one had a smooshed-in nose and front teeth, the other was born missing an eye and had just a tiny hole in his head, and his mouth on that side was also slightly deformed. He was also a chubby guy.
Both of these guys however were really nice people, had really outgoing, warm, self-confident attitudes and interesting interests (one was a martial artist, the other a band player). And it showed. The one-eyed fellow was a younger man and I once saw him chatting up two beautiful blonde private school girls on a train. They were falling all over him. It was as if because he didn't care about his unusual appearance, and instead was confident and easy going and upbeat, these girls responded to that, not his looks.
Plus, I believe if anyone can understand self-consciousness around looks it's a transsexual, and as such this is useful in two ways - one, when I have been agonising over aspects of my looks which were a huge problem for me and I was convinced everyone could see, people had later told me they never even noticed. Two - in my previous shape I was considered extremely attractive, and it was a nightmare. People would only ever even speak to me because they wanted sex. They would deceive me into friendship pretending they were interested in me as a person and we had interests in common, but it was all lies. They knew they couldn't outright ask me for sex, so had to pretend friendship first. When I refused sex, they either got abusive, or they cut all ties with me. Being attractive, in my experience, is not a good thing at all unless you're in sex work.
Nowadays, if people are speaking to me, are nice to me or show an interest in me, I know it is because they have a real reason, and I can respond. I find being unattractive much better. So, in pining for beauty you may be wishing a curse on yourself. Just be a great dude and then, women showing interest in you will truly be interested in you, and you won't get the attentions of the sort of woman who told you you were "ugly," which is definitely not the sort of girl you want thinking you attractive anyway.

C2V, thank you very much for your reply, I suppose another benefit of feeling you are unattractive is that it prevents you from having a sense of superiority over others and instead makes you feel inferior to everyone else, which means you have no self esteem to lose when people insult you. Obviously when someone feels that they are superior to other people it can come back to haunt them.