Do you think its possible to accept the way you look when...

[charlieHungerford]

you feel so negatively of how you look?

I remember the days I used to accept how I look, I was not self conscious, I didn't feel negative, inadequate, inferior for how I look. But years of ridicule at high school about many different aspects of my appearance left me with extremely low self esteem and that I am simply not good enough. Its not that I am shallow whatsoever, but when you feel so negative about how you look and received so much negative feedback in the past, it makes you feel so self conscious and down on yourself, feel like ashamed to be around people, feel that you are worthless and irrelevant.

I have sorted out so many 'flaws' which I felt so insecure about in the past (insecure simply because I kept getting so much negative feedback about these parts of me) such as becoming a weight I like, no longer having spots, always looking smart with cool hair and nice clothes, sorting out a speech impediment (I know its not looks but I got so much ridicule for that), etc. But I still feel really insecure about one last part of me - my nose. My nose isn't that bad, its funny that when I see other people with noses like mine or even bigger that I accept them and think they are fine and good enough but I did get many comments in the past about my nose, in a negative way and I am always self conscious about it. I don't believe in plastic surgery, I believe my problems are more in my mind because I accept everyone as looking fine and good enough and therefore place a higher value on them than I do on myself, but I still wouldn't accept myself even if I looked like loads of people who I accept. This would seem like its not so much how I look that is the problem, but that I cannot accept myself. Its like I am so self conscious about having any sort of flaw. I honestly do feel like although I have loads of positives in my personality, intelligence and my looks, that my flaws in my appearance defines me as a person.

I realise that its make or break time for me. I have to either accept how I look and stop feeling so negative and self conscious and just accept who I am and accept my flaws, accept that some people may think I am ugly and not good enough, to accept some people may ridicule or think bad of me, BUT by accepting myself I will value myself, I will not be self conscious about my flaws or what people think of me, I will no longer be insecure and worried by my flaws, I will not be thinking negative of myself, I will be able to handle worst case scenarios of what people think of me, basically my flaws will no longer be an issue - I am going to allow myself to be myself.
Either I accept that or I reject how I look, but what does that achieve? I will still look the same, it doesn't achieve anything positive to reject myself and feel so negative and self conscious and inadequate. If I reject myself I can remain insecure, hide myself, basically continue to suffer with zero confidence in myself, have no belief in myself, feel inadequate and inferior to people, I can kiss goodbye to ever overcoming SA and my confidence issues, I can kiss goodbye to ever living life to the full or fulfilling ambitions in career, relationships, etc. Rejecting myself means that I will never allow myself to be myself and have confidence expressing myself.

I have decided to accept myself, but its not as simple as just saying that, accepting myself means I will stop all this negative thinking of myself, to no longer hide my flaws, to show the world this is me, I am proud to be me - I have flaws yes - but I can't change them so I am just going to make the most of myself, if people don't like me well that is up to them, I won't dwell on it.

I write this post because I am wondering if anyone has any good advice about how I should do this? I mean I know looks aren't everything and I am not that bad, but when you feel so negatively about yourself for over half of your life its going to require looking at myself in a very different way in order to no longer care or feel bad about my 'flaws'. I will beat this, I realise I have to accept myself in order to move on and I will achieve this if its the last thing I do.

Would love to hear any thoughts!

 

[DancingDann]

Hi Charlie,
I know how you feel. All of my school days i felt bad about my looks. Especially my weight which i still struggle with. But this last year i have lost 4 stone and am feeling a little better about that.

But in school it was so difficut for me. You get the names like fatty and lardy which i would laugh about but inside it would crush me.

I too have a problem with my nose. Everyone in my family has the same big nose. But i have no intention of having a nose job. It's obviously in my family's genes.

I am slowly starting to accept myself. But as you also say it will take some time as we've both felt bad about our looks for most of our life. But in life i think you can either accept what you have been given and get on with life. Or you can let it get you down day after day and stay in the same place forever.

I think once you can truly accept yourself in every aspect. Then that will be the first step in the right direction to overcome SA.

I should take my own advice i think! :wink:

 

[charlieHungerford]

Dammit, I just wrote a huge reply and lost it when trying to send it. It took me almost an hour!

 

[charlieHungerford]

Well, I will attempt to write my mail again, talking about accepting how I look, I feel the problem for you and I Dann (although maybe my problem is more extreme) and I can't speak for others who have issues about their appearance as no one else has wrote, but I just think that maybe our beliefs of having flaws is just totally extreme to the negative because of the past experiences we have had whereby we seem to have suffered lots of ridicule and put downs, name calling, etc that it has made us so aware that having flaws in our appearance is something to be very self conscious about.

I mean I don't think others who have a big nose are ugly and not good enough, I just see it as a nose, big deal. Just like I see someone with big ears as having big ears. Someone who is bald is bald. Someone who is overweight you can see is overweight, but so what? I have known two friends who have 'big noses' and both had no problems meeting women, one is married to this really nice girl and the other one seems to be fancied by all women. So, something is very wrong in my beliefs about how big a deal my nose is.
I decided to analyse my beliefs of my nose this morning after I wrote that first post and I could recall 9 people ridiculing me for my nose. That isn't that many and none of them said I was ugly for it, more to do with just pointing out my nose was big in a negative way.
I worked out that the way I am self conscious about my nose, feel insecure about my nose, hide my nose, believe I am not good enough for my nose is actually very very rational. However, the core beliefs behind these thoughts are very very negative and unfair - therefore its these that need fixing, I mean I can't help feel those stupid negative things like I need to hide my nose and that I am not good enough because of my nose when I have such terrible core beliefs.
These core beliefs are things like: I believe my nose defines me as a person. No woman could ever be interested in me because of my nose being bigger than ideal, that people will will only ever laugh or be thinking negatively of me for my nose, that I am a walking freak show because my nose is bigger than ideal. I mean they are just ridiculous don't you think? There is no evidence for these to be true. People with big noses don't have problems meeting people and even I have had some success with women in the past and had women fancying me, but I seem to see that as irrelevant because I have these deep rooted beliefs. People can only laugh at me for my nose? I can't remember anyone ever laughing at me. Do people laugh at people who have a flaw? Only some absolutely jerk who are irrelevant! No woman ever could be interested in me? Again I have had small relationships with women, I used to meet women on nights out frequently when I was a student, I had a woman at work email me saying she was my secret admirer who I had never spoke to before, so again this is not right. And I think one huge factor in why I have little interest from women is because I never meet new women, I never ask women out, I don't go out of my way to chat to women, I have no confidence around women because of this 'flaw'. I mean you can't win the raffle if you don't buy a ticket.
These beliefs are what I have been trying to desensitise, but it will take a while to get out of this terrible negative thinking.

I also think in order to accept how I look, which again I am talking about my nose, is that I have to be able to see pictures of myself or see a side profile of my nose and not start worrying and feeling really upset because my nose is noticably big. Accept my nose is big but that it doesn't matter. Yesterday when I started working on this I was looking in two mirrors to see myself side on. And I was just being stupid - I was just basically looking at my nose, not my nose in relation to my face. And yeah my nose is slightly bigger than ideal and because of that I started getting insecure and self conscious again, feeling upset and ugly. Therefore I think my beliefs on what it means to have a big nose is very very wrong and exaggerated. But then later I looked again and saw myself as who I am, well my nose didn't look that bad at all. Its this stupid attention to detail. I mean if I have a spot I get so self conscious and feel like I want to hide and feel ugly. Yet everyone gets spots and I think nothing of other people's spots. When I can't style my hair (my hair is all spiked up) like I wish I often feel crap about myself, but everyone elses hair looks the same and they look the same each day, so does it make any difference about how spiked up my hair is looking? I don't think people look that closely at others, when I see people with flaws in their appearance I don't even think about it, we are all unique and that is how they look. But I don't seem to treat myself in the same way I treat others. I think all of us have issues and are not perfectly happy with how we are to start critically analysing others and tear them to shreads. I have got to accept my flaws and accept that a % of people in the world may laugh because there are billions of people on earth and some are pathetic and shallow like that, if someone laughs I have to think oh there is one of those pathetic people. I should laugh back at them too and point at the same time. Then there is a % of people who won't laugh but probably think I am ugly, again I have to accept this and not worry about it because there are people out there like that. But why dwell on this, there are billions of people on earth, why dwell on one person - who I really hate anyway for their shallowness!
And then there are a % of people who won't care or notice my nose as being an issue - if they don't care why worry what they think? And a % of people may like my nose. A lot of people have told me that it makes no difference, that my nose isn't that big or bad and that if it was a few mm's smaller I would still look the same, I am basically obsessing over what having a big nose means. I have developed such terrible negative thoughts that the reality has just been lost totally and am left believing ridiculous negative beliefs. Yet if my nose was fine and I had another flaw like a big chin or big ears or whatever I would feel just the same about that.

And finally, my nose being big was first mentioned when I was at that awkward teenage age where I grew lots. Before then my nose was small and I remember a girl at school always got called concorde nose, big nose, etc. She was so self conscious about it and would look like she was going to cry. I never said anything. But when they said she had a big nose, I remember looking at her and I didn't think she was ugly or undesirable, I just thought well maybe her nose was bigger than ideal but so what, it seemed to be just a bit of fun for those others who don't have a big nose, but those on the receiving end take it very hard. And I think that is the reality, those who don't have a big nose don't really think anything of it, they notice a nose, they don't have loads of negative labels attached to it as they never really think of it like I do for example.

So basically yeah got to keep working on desensitising this until this stupid fear goes. I am going to give it a go from now on - force myself to no longer hide my nose and feel self conscious about it. If someone doesn't like me for the fact my nose is a few mm's bigger than ideal then they are not worth knowing either. No nice person is going to think bad of me for this, only those who are really shallow and believe beauty is only based on looks.

 

[nimrodel]

It's this type of obsession that just drives me insane sometimes. I am extremely self-concious about my looks. However, no one has ever mentioned anything negative about it. But I'm continiously comparing myself to them and just imagining what their thoughts are at every single moment. I know it's stupid, but I can't stop.

I have met several people who weren't particularly handsome/beautiful but they had amazing personalities. The weird thing is that after hanging out with them for a while, I saw the true beauty in them. I don't mean that I thought they were ugly at first, but perhaps overweight or something else like that. I'm definitely not a shallow person but I don't understand why it's so easy for me to accept other people with certain 'flaws' and not myself. Maybe it's because I think the majority of people are super-ficial in this way.

But sometimes, it's people's unique or 'flawed' appearances that you might grow to like. I think personality can make a huge difference in how beautiful/ugly you perceive a person to be. But unfortunatly, my SP and low self-esteem prevent me from allowing people to get to know me and thus, understanding my personality. Which is sort of pathetic.. like you can't win either way. But I've noticed that many people are self-concious about their appearances when I don't even notice any of the flaws they're pointing out. Chances are, that your nose isn't as different as you might think.

 

[charlieHungerford]

Good post nimrodel,

I can totally relate to what you say, you sound like you are like me in wanting to overcome this and accept the way you look so that you can move on from this stage. We have to accept the way we look, it just achieves nothing to remain like this.

I do believe that this problem can be overcome definitely, but it is going to take some work and commitment to making changes, making some sacrifices and stopping destructive behaviours like hiding ourselves, comparing ourselves to others, negative thoughts, etc. I am just wondering how we must be thinking of ourselves in order to accept outselves? Ideally we have to like ourselves and feel good about ourselves which would require desensitising all our flaws so that they are not a problem. I think at the same time our self image should be concentrated around all of our positives that we like. I mean how is it that when I have so many things I like about myself, I am only thinking of my negatives? Surely I can change my mindset around if I work on it - to concentrate on positives and disgard negatives, but in order to do so requires no longer worrying about the negatives.

So I guess the question is - how must we think about our 'flaws' and our appearance which is realistic and we can accept, even if we are entering a room full of people where there maybe someone we like, looking at ourselves in the mirror or in a picture, or if we are meeting a new person or the centre of attention, etc - whereby we will not be insecure about our beliefs of ourselves?

For my nose which is my main insecurity, I guess I must think the following:

Yes my nose is big. There is no point me pretending its not even if its not that big or bad, I think I have spent too much time trying to convince myself my nose isn't big and when people have said it is it has made me really unhappy. I think instead I have to accept my nose is big and see the light hearted side that yes it is big, if anyone says I have a big nose I should congratulate them on their perfect vision. I also need to come to the conclusion that I don't care what men think of my nose as I am not bothered if they like how I look or not. As for women, I need to believe that women who I like - i.e. nice natured who see people for who they are and are not all superficial and shallow will not care that my nose is a few mm's bigger than ideal. And therefore I have to accept that some women who I think are attractive and nice who I see, I should not let my nose worry me at all, and at the end of the day if they don't like me for my nose that well I don't care because they are not good enough for me if they are so judgemental. Its not like I can help my nose, I was born with what I got given. If someone thinks I am crap because of it I mean what am I supposed to do about it? Its not my bloody fault. If we could all pick and choose how we look that would be fantastic, but it doesn't work like that, we have to accept this is who we are and make the most of ourselves, be the best we can, but we cannot do any more than that, and we certainly shouldn't feel bad about things we have no control over.

There is no point being self conscious and feeling negative about ourselves, it doesn't change anything or achieve anything. We have to come to a decision a.s.a.p. about whether we are going to accept ourselves in order to move on. If you can't do that then you have to stay feeling the unpleasant things you do and feel so bad about yourself. There is no point.

We can do this, it simply takes the awareness of the problem and a motivation to make the change happen.

 

[charlieHungerford]

I write this in relation to my own insecurity about my appearance - which is that for so many years I have been so self conscious about my nose.

I worked on desensitising my insecurity of my nose yesterday and I think I have managed to make amazing progress and actually feel happy with my nose.

What I noticed was that yesterday I was searching the internet to find articles on 'Does having a big nose make you ugly?' And I realised that I had lost all track of reality here for asking this question. Because it became clear that it wasn't how my nose looked that I was insecure about, it was the fact that I was working on the principal of the stereotype that having a big nose is seen as ugly and I was so insecure that my nose may be seen as big by people and therefore I am ugly, inadequate, not good enough, etc, etc.

But yesterday I had a haircut which looks so cool, I was really happy with it, and when looking at my nose from the side it look bigger than ideal, but not that much bigger, but I actually thought my nose sort of looked right for me and with my hair looking cool my nose looked fine, not ugly at all. I think I have been so self conscious in the past of worrying is my nose big and that I can't let anyone see my nose because if they see its big they will think I am not good enough. But I have been looking at people on tv who have big noses and I ask my question, would someone be interested in them if their nose was slightly smaller but wouldn't whilst their nose is slightly bigger? And everytime the answer was it makes no difference. I have for so many years been worrying if people see my nose if they think its big what would they think of me and worried that having a big nose means I am not good enough for people to be interested in me. I think been thinking some very negative irrational thoughts. After yesterday I think I can now start to accept my nose and actually like my nose rather than feel so ashamed and self conscious, feeling so inferior and inadequate for my nose.
I have also always been so self conscious when people have said I have a big nose. I think for so long because of the negative ridicule I have heard over people with big noses I have transferred the word big nose as meaning ugly. But realistically why should it hurt? Having a big nose, having big eyes, having long hair, being described as overweight, skinny, big ears, tall, etc - they are all just descriptions of a feature. There is no insult about it unless you want to take it as an insult.
I was also thinking about how to react to negative comments about my nose in future. The key is definitely to accept my nose, to like it as much as I can and to understand that with billions of people on earth, a percentage of people will be shallow and may be insulting, but these people do exist and if you come across them then that is unlucky, but if you understand in advance that this need not hurt and that some people will think that way, and you can react in a positive way - whereby I look cool and accept myself and not feeling negative about myself, whilst the other person looks pathetic and shallow then that would be a great result. So a responce such as 'Yeah you are right my nose is big but so what? In an ideal world I would look like you of course!'.
I know my nose is not perfect by any means, but its not horrendous or bad to the point where it makes any difference. I have kind of finally realised this for the first time in 12 years.

So, I have decided to accept my nose, but I will have to slowly but surely aim to overcome this, I mean I have hidden my nose and avoided people seeing me, avoided my picture being taken, avoided looking in some mirrors, hated people staring or looking at me, avoided people seeing me side on, etc for probably 12 years, I cannot expect myself to instantly remove all of this. But I will aim to stop all these safety behaviours and always consciously think positively about my nose and not hide myself. Hopefully before long I will overcome this totally.

I am now going to work on the problems caused by this - i.e. I have had a real fear of speaking to people I have felt so self conscious around - i.e. women in particular or groups, I have never had any confidence about this because I had no confidence being looked at for starters, plus a speech impediment as a kid where I received so much ridicule for speaking. I feel I can overcome this quite quickly, but of course you see I had to accept myself and have some confidence in how I look instead of previously thinking I was like a walking freak show. I could never become confident until I sorted that out. The fear of speaking is something I have looked into and have a plan of action to tackle. So fingers crossed, once I remove all the existing negative thoughts and insecurities on myself, I feel I will have some self confidence at last, I will not be self conscious focusing on 'flaws', I will have some self worth, believe I am good enough, start believing in my abilities to succeed in situations, instead of for so many years been focusing on how I can only fail - am not good enough and I have no belief I can succeed.

I am going to beat this defintiely.

As for others who can relate to my problems, I feel that I cannot really say this is the way to do it because I have to really work on this and will take a lot more understanding, but I do feel you simply have to accept yourself and to do work at changing the way you see what it is you are self conscious about. I know I will never be confident and overcome SA until I desensitise these parts of me that I feel so self conscious about.
I also think that because we live with the insecurity, we blow it all out of proportion because we have been thinking negative about it non stop for years, whereas when you see people you probably don't even know what their insecurities are because you don't study them like we do ourselves.

 

[Moonie]

I think I can relate to what you are saying about how when you see people with a nose like yours, it doesn't bother you. But for me, I am kind of self-conscious about my height. However, when I see girls that are the same height as me or even shorter, I think they are really cute and/or beautiful. Hell, I think I would even have a fetish for shorter girls if I were a guy, LOL. But I cannot, by any means, let me get away with it.

The sad things is, I think there is nothing wrong with our looks- It IS in our head. If I were to see me walking down the street, I'd probably think I am an okay looking girl. But I can't believe it. I will always think of myself as ugly, even though I am not that bad. But I was also teased or neglected in elementary and high school.. So I think I will forever carry those insecurities with me.

 

[charlieHungerford]

Moonie - you will never believe this - but I have in 1 day overcome my insecurity about my nose. I have for 12 years hidden my nose all the time by wiping my eye or looking away or whatever - but since I worked on changing the beliefs - which I wrote about above - I have not done any self conscious action or cared once. I am just amazed! I no longer care whatsoever, I have realised that people who have 'big noses' that if their nose was just that bit smaller so they be happy with it, it would not make them really any more desirable. But I have accepted my nose and like my nose (or maybe the phrase should be content with it). I really do not care any more, it just shows how amazing you can make changes yourself by working on something.

As for your height. You are so silly, tall women are stereotypically classy and elegant. I mean almost all supermodels are tall, and I was watching the tennis yesterday and Maria Sharapova who is very attractive is 6'2 tall, that is the same height as me!

What you need to do is to analyse your reasons for feeling self conscious and disliking your height. Although it may seem rational because of past feedback maybe, but I am certain you are letting extremely negative beliefs determine your thinking. Its time to understand the reality. At work I used to be really friendly with this girl who was very tall, she said she didn't like being so tall, but I fancied her so much - personality and how she looked, I just never had the confidence whatsoever back then to ask her out because I felt I may have had a chance. Do not feel self conscious whatsoever of your height, its a fantastic attribute.

For me to overcome this insecurity of my nose is just a massive step in me overcoming my SA. I am getting very close to overcoming SA now, I have one last hurdle to overcome - the fear of speaking, which I have been really looking into, I know I can beat this soon, I know this has developed from bad experiences, I am so confident around friends, family and work colleagues I get on with - and I am looking into whether this fear is simply down to the fact I have no confidence in people unless I trust them. I am going to write a post on this today in which I will write in detail, its a different angle of looking at the problem from what I have been, and seems to hold very strong links.

I am going to overcome SA in the next few months definitelty.