Body Image
This is something that's been kicking around in my head for a while, and last night and today really kinda ramped it up for me. It's not coherant, and - as usual - it's unedited stream-of-conciousness rambling, but I've been thinking about it on and off for a for a few months now, so maybe it's time to finally get it out of my head and onto the screen.
For a long time now, I've known that I don't have a clear image of myself. But on the other hand, I don't think most women do. I think either we think we're too fat or too thin but rarely do we think we're exactly as we're meant to be. I think many of us wish we were shaped differently in someway - we wish we had a bigger butt or that our ass is too big, that our legs are too scrawny or our thighs are fat, our boobs are pendulous or too tiny, that our nose is too large or the tip is shaped weirdly, that our curly hair is the bane of our existance or we torture ourselves with curlers to make it be less board-like.
Almost no woman I know looks in the mirror and says "I am awesomely hot, just like this" with any regularity.
For me, I know a big part of it is because I grew up with really conflicting things being told to me from any number of directions - at home, I was told I was the most beautiful girl in the world, but at school I knew I was invisible because I wasn't tiny and blonde and tan and lithe. I was too brainy, too strange, my music too varied, my clothes not quite right, my parents all wrong, and I grew up in a trailer park in a land of gated communities (with security guards and multi-million dollar mansions).
Every now and again, though, I get a string of people telling me I am either "gorgeous" or "beautiful" and I don't know how to process that. I mean, I say "thank you" 'cos my Mama raised me to accept a compliment gracefully - but in my head I am catalouging my flaws. It embarrasses me because I can't believe it. There's a [majority] part of me that is always convinced people are saying it to be nice, not because they actually mean it. And I have a few friends who get really frustrated with me as a result of this: "Why can't you just understand how gorgeous you are?!" they fuss at me.
I just... can't. I believe they believe it, and that's the best I can do.
Here is what I see when I look in the mirror (a top-down assessment):
--- Hair: Ugh. Dark mousy brown, intractable disaster. Never does what I want it to. When I want it to lie flat, it sticks up. When I want it to get volume/ height, it falls flat. Always looks stupid/ dried out/ greasy. Deep conditioning makes it look both dried and and like I've got the Exxon-Valdez disaster on my head. Frizzy when I want it sleek, and often looks like a)I've a dead cat on my head or b) I combed it with an eggbeater.
--- Eyes: Blech: Mud brown and either smashed up small and dumb when I smile or I look like a deer stuck in headlamps with them so wide. Also, why doesn't eyeliner ever stay where I put it?
--- Skin: Getting better, but now I have the duel demons of acne and wrinkles. Plus all those pocks from the cystic acne I had until my late 20s. Splotchy enough that I pretty much always feel obligated to wear foundation. I like that I freckle, but then again... the underlying splotchy makes it hard to appreciate them when I feel like I need to smooth out the rest of the face.
--- Nose: Stupid and small, this device has no character and simply serves to add some dimension to an otherwise boring, flat, and extraordinarily wide face (which is far too round, regardless of how much weight I lose).
--- Mouth: Lips are far too small for my face and all the yapping that comes out of it; uneven. Lips disappear when I smile, which I hate doing because my teeth are grossly crooked and throw everything else off.
--- Boobs: Weirdly shaped (kinda flatly conical) and too small. I've come to terms with them as best I can, because I am not willing to have surgery and make them worse. But... Ew.
--- Tummy: Eh... Ok, so it's flatish, but there's flab and it has these weird spots from a skin condition. Also, I could do without the inches I can pinch over there.
--- Hips: I'm not even going to go into this one, because it's linked to my
--- Ass: Too big for my frame and is now providing the additional indignity of drooping. No matter how many lunges I ever did, I never could make it look like those cute, perky bottoms that you see in pictures/ movies/ the gym. Also, now it's gone lumpy in addition to all of the others. Plus, it makes pants not fit right because of what I call "schitzophrenic body disorder" - the ass makes me wear a whole size bigger than my waist sez it should be.
--- Thighs: Much like hips, there is nothing good to say about them either - especially since the saddlebags absolutely refuse to go anywhere, regardless of what I do. Plus, there's the inner-thigh pudge that makes all my jeans wear out disproportionately fast at my crotch area as a result of the seams rubbing. Adds to the hinderance of pants, since to fit over these ridiculous tree trunks, I have to go another size up from the ass to get the damn things on. (Which makes the waist gape) Also, in conjuntion with calves, far too short to make any sense with the rest of me.
--- Calves: Too muscular for most boots, but with the added bonus of fat ankles and no visible muscle definition. Extra bonus: retardedly short (see also: "Thighs"), so I look even more stumpy. Awesome.
---Feet: Short and fat, and look stupid in most "sexy" shoes because the sides squoodge out.
Add to all that the fact that I can barely dress myself without looking like a spaz, I am faking being a grownup (badly), usually when I get ready to go somewhere I give up and decide it's not worth trying to look human, I laugh like a braying donkey, and I can't clean my house and you begin to see why I can't figure out what people are talking about.
I'm not saying this so you can read it and send me comments about how I am pretty - that's what started this in the first place. I'm saying this so those of you out there who beat yourself up for how you look right now - all of whom I think are drop-dead fucking gorgeous and that I would give my eyeteeth to look like, mind you (because I seriously think I've got the prettiest friends in the world) - think about how someone you think is awesome looks at herself. I'd bet chances are good that she looks at herself with the same hyper-critical kind of eye I use on myself. I'm not saying it because I think there are hordes of people who hold me up as an ideal ('cos then I would have to tell you that you should get out more).
I'm saying it because I think I am a pretty average woman, and I don't think I am the only one who tears herself down like this. How much of what I wrote up there sounds like what you do to yourself everyday when you look in a mirror?
I'm working on thinking nicer things about myself because I wouldn't let anyone say such horrible things about my friends as I say about myself. And I think there's probably something very fucked up about the fact that I am meaner to myself than I would let anyone be about someone I love. And I have to wonder what makes me hate myself enough to be that cruel?
For a long time now, I've known that I don't have a clear image of myself. But on the other hand, I don't think most women do. I think either we think we're too fat or too thin but rarely do we think we're exactly as we're meant to be. I think many of us wish we were shaped differently in someway - we wish we had a bigger butt or that our ass is too big, that our legs are too scrawny or our thighs are fat, our boobs are pendulous or too tiny, that our nose is too large or the tip is shaped weirdly, that our curly hair is the bane of our existance or we torture ourselves with curlers to make it be less board-like.
Almost no woman I know looks in the mirror and says "I am awesomely hot, just like this" with any regularity.
For me, I know a big part of it is because I grew up with really conflicting things being told to me from any number of directions - at home, I was told I was the most beautiful girl in the world, but at school I knew I was invisible because I wasn't tiny and blonde and tan and lithe. I was too brainy, too strange, my music too varied, my clothes not quite right, my parents all wrong, and I grew up in a trailer park in a land of gated communities (with security guards and multi-million dollar mansions).
Every now and again, though, I get a string of people telling me I am either "gorgeous" or "beautiful" and I don't know how to process that. I mean, I say "thank you" 'cos my Mama raised me to accept a compliment gracefully - but in my head I am catalouging my flaws. It embarrasses me because I can't believe it. There's a [majority] part of me that is always convinced people are saying it to be nice, not because they actually mean it. And I have a few friends who get really frustrated with me as a result of this: "Why can't you just understand how gorgeous you are?!" they fuss at me.
I just... can't. I believe they believe it, and that's the best I can do.
Here is what I see when I look in the mirror (a top-down assessment):
--- Hair: Ugh. Dark mousy brown, intractable disaster. Never does what I want it to. When I want it to lie flat, it sticks up. When I want it to get volume/ height, it falls flat. Always looks stupid/ dried out/ greasy. Deep conditioning makes it look both dried and and like I've got the Exxon-Valdez disaster on my head. Frizzy when I want it sleek, and often looks like a)I've a dead cat on my head or b) I combed it with an eggbeater.
--- Eyes: Blech: Mud brown and either smashed up small and dumb when I smile or I look like a deer stuck in headlamps with them so wide. Also, why doesn't eyeliner ever stay where I put it?
--- Skin: Getting better, but now I have the duel demons of acne and wrinkles. Plus all those pocks from the cystic acne I had until my late 20s. Splotchy enough that I pretty much always feel obligated to wear foundation. I like that I freckle, but then again... the underlying splotchy makes it hard to appreciate them when I feel like I need to smooth out the rest of the face.
--- Nose: Stupid and small, this device has no character and simply serves to add some dimension to an otherwise boring, flat, and extraordinarily wide face (which is far too round, regardless of how much weight I lose).
--- Mouth: Lips are far too small for my face and all the yapping that comes out of it; uneven. Lips disappear when I smile, which I hate doing because my teeth are grossly crooked and throw everything else off.
--- Boobs: Weirdly shaped (kinda flatly conical) and too small. I've come to terms with them as best I can, because I am not willing to have surgery and make them worse. But... Ew.
--- Tummy: Eh... Ok, so it's flatish, but there's flab and it has these weird spots from a skin condition. Also, I could do without the inches I can pinch over there.
--- Hips: I'm not even going to go into this one, because it's linked to my
--- Ass: Too big for my frame and is now providing the additional indignity of drooping. No matter how many lunges I ever did, I never could make it look like those cute, perky bottoms that you see in pictures/ movies/ the gym. Also, now it's gone lumpy in addition to all of the others. Plus, it makes pants not fit right because of what I call "schitzophrenic body disorder" - the ass makes me wear a whole size bigger than my waist sez it should be.
--- Thighs: Much like hips, there is nothing good to say about them either - especially since the saddlebags absolutely refuse to go anywhere, regardless of what I do. Plus, there's the inner-thigh pudge that makes all my jeans wear out disproportionately fast at my crotch area as a result of the seams rubbing. Adds to the hinderance of pants, since to fit over these ridiculous tree trunks, I have to go another size up from the ass to get the damn things on. (Which makes the waist gape) Also, in conjuntion with calves, far too short to make any sense with the rest of me.
--- Calves: Too muscular for most boots, but with the added bonus of fat ankles and no visible muscle definition. Extra bonus: retardedly short (see also: "Thighs"), so I look even more stumpy. Awesome.
---Feet: Short and fat, and look stupid in most "sexy" shoes because the sides squoodge out.
Add to all that the fact that I can barely dress myself without looking like a spaz, I am faking being a grownup (badly), usually when I get ready to go somewhere I give up and decide it's not worth trying to look human, I laugh like a braying donkey, and I can't clean my house and you begin to see why I can't figure out what people are talking about.
I'm not saying this so you can read it and send me comments about how I am pretty - that's what started this in the first place. I'm saying this so those of you out there who beat yourself up for how you look right now - all of whom I think are drop-dead fucking gorgeous and that I would give my eyeteeth to look like, mind you (because I seriously think I've got the prettiest friends in the world) - think about how someone you think is awesome looks at herself. I'd bet chances are good that she looks at herself with the same hyper-critical kind of eye I use on myself. I'm not saying it because I think there are hordes of people who hold me up as an ideal ('cos then I would have to tell you that you should get out more).
I'm saying it because I think I am a pretty average woman, and I don't think I am the only one who tears herself down like this. How much of what I wrote up there sounds like what you do to yourself everyday when you look in a mirror?
I'm working on thinking nicer things about myself because I wouldn't let anyone say such horrible things about my friends as I say about myself. And I think there's probably something very fucked up about the fact that I am meaner to myself than I would let anyone be about someone I love. And I have to wonder what makes me hate myself enough to be that cruel?