catpiecakebutter wrote:
I'm a overweight aspie woman in my late 30's and I don't like the way I look even when I get beauty treatments by dyeing my hair and eyebrows, waxing my eyebrows, painting my nails and wearing cool pretty tops. I still don't like the way I look because of my weight. I hate looking at my face in the mirror and I want to try to lose weight and even if I manage to lose some pounds I still will hate the way I look in the mirror. Do any of you feel similar this way and is it common for aspies to feel this way?
I think it's easy for autistic people to dislike their appearance simply because we're taught to. Everything natural to us is pathologized, and we're asked to fit an NT ideal of beauty. Our habits and affect are all described negatively, so over time it's likely we would internalize this.
Because our way of being is so bothersome to NTs, it's hard for us to understand this--except factually. We might assume there is something wrong with our appearance, then, not understanding why "special interests," direct communication, or solitude are so offensive. We know this is how NTs feel, but will never feel this way ourselves.
That's not even getting into issues of weight or style, which you mention. Culture, in general, is about making people uniform, and we are not uniform people.