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I don't know what to say! Even though I have trouble agreeing with some of the advice, one thing is for sure. I DO know people here care and I will never question that again. Thank you sooo much. I'm also a little confused about something that happened to me yesterday and I guess it's a good kind of confusion. I took the chance and took a picture of myself to send to a good online friend in another forum. Her reply to me was nothing but compliments and she said she couldn't understand why I didn't think I was good looking. That really made my day but I looked in the mirror and I have to say I just don't see it! I have to be honest and say though I am feeling a little better about myself right now but I still feel like self doubt is attempting to take over again.

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It's a start that you understand that people here care about you. That's a beginning. Even though you don't see some of the things that have been said to you, can you not give them some deep thought. I have the same problem with not seeing what other people see about me but when I'm continually told the same thing repeatedly by several people, it's a little hard to ignore it. They can't all be lying and what purpose would they have in doing so. Obviously we both have a very distorted view of ourselves. Think about it that way. Why don't you just try to accept the compliments others give you about your appearance of whatever other aspect of you that they refer to. I have often been told by even complete strangers how beautiful I am. It happens all the time. I don't see it at all. I don't think I'm ugly, I think I'm average looking. But for some unknown reason to me others see me as beautiful. Everybody's idea of what is beautiful is different. I just accept the compliment, with puzzlement, and carry on. I don't go home and look in the mirror and start to negate what has just been said to me. Instead it makes me feel good to hear that from others. Nobody has to make those comments to you, they did it because they want to and because that's what they see. If a complete stranger can tap me on the shoulder, while I'm waiting for Dracula to take my blood test, and tell me how beautiful I am, then it helps my self-esteem. I may be puzzled about it when I don't view myself the same way, but I'm not going to let my personal feelings negate the way others see in me. Geez, I think I just contradicted my other comments about personality comments. What can I say, I'm a baby work-in-progress and this is all going to take time. I guess what I'm saying to you is to open your mind and try to take in and accept what others see in you, at least give it some deep thought. I think if you can do that then you'll soon start to have at least a little bit better feelings about yourself? What have you got to lose? Can we be right and the rest of the world be wrong? It hardly seems likely to me. As I said, we both have a very distorted self-image, we don't see ourselves as we *really* are, as the rest of the world sees us. Somehow, we have some good qualitites about ourselves that are seeping out, regardless of how we feel about ourselves. So, open your mind even just a crack and take in whatever might help you to feel better about yourself. If others can love us, there must be something good there, don'tcha think? I think if we both decided that everybody else was wrong, we would be doing ourselves a huge disservice and we would be the only ones that would suffer in the long run. So what do you think, can you give it a try?