Beauty is *also* skin deep
Over the last 15-16 years I've been told by a number of people that I look elderly and ugly. My mirror agrees: Thanks to my complete lack of teeth (I now wear dentures), my upper lip is sunken in; I have extremely deep frown lines from my nostrils to the corners of my mouth; and there is heavy vertical fissuring in my upper lip, as well. I look about 20 years older than my chronological age. What hurts is that my self-imeage is about 26 years younger than my chronological age. In the mirror, I don't look at all like me.
I've asked people where I live how I look. They say "fine." My psychotherapist thinks I look okay, too. Or are they all jazzing me? I really don't know. What I do know is that I desperately want to have Retin-A therapy and/or collagen injections and/or some cosmetic surgery on the problem area to make me look no more than 10 years older than my chronological age, and, when I wear my dentures, as if I still had teeth of my own.
My psychotherapist doesn't understand why. She's concerned it's part of my knee-jerk syndrome of reacting with disgust, revulsion, even nausea at myself when I turn my attention to myself. But it isn't. I don't look like me, dammit, not like the me that I really am inside. I can see why people would be disgusted and revolted by my looks, and think of me as really elderly, i.e., over 80 after a hard life, as many do. So why can't others see the problem?
Aphrodite, if You're there, cha-AAAAALLLLP!
I've asked people where I live how I look. They say "fine." My psychotherapist thinks I look okay, too. Or are they all jazzing me? I really don't know. What I do know is that I desperately want to have Retin-A therapy and/or collagen injections and/or some cosmetic surgery on the problem area to make me look no more than 10 years older than my chronological age, and, when I wear my dentures, as if I still had teeth of my own.
My psychotherapist doesn't understand why. She's concerned it's part of my knee-jerk syndrome of reacting with disgust, revulsion, even nausea at myself when I turn my attention to myself. But it isn't. I don't look like me, dammit, not like the me that I really am inside. I can see why people would be disgusted and revolted by my looks, and think of me as really elderly, i.e., over 80 after a hard life, as many do. So why can't others see the problem?
Aphrodite, if You're there, cha-AAAAALLLLP!