[Thought+Broad.Girl]

ever notice yourself in the mirror?

ever feel like that person staring back at you changes if even slightly depending on what is happening in your life at the time or your mood at the time?

Well. i was noticing that and thought about one of my best old friends (name remains nameless). anyway on her facebook, she looks Hot. but when i think about how she looked (to me anyway) in person it was a completely diff story.

but that just makes me think about perception and how dif people see eachother.

i mean are people all the same? does everyone see things similarly or is it as subjective as what your fave. color is?

idk. but what i do know is when a person has high self esteem and is doing well in life, their whole aura/persona changes. they take better care of themselves.. and they just look/seem better no matter how much of an A*hole they may have been to you in the past and to other people as well

.. so question is. how do you change the way people see you in society. especially when you have an emotional disorder or mental illness in the first place? or is it all really all about how you are seeing yourself in the first place?

I Heart my Friend forever! :P

[Crazy Hitch]

Yes; this is a great post.

Thank you for pointing this out.

I feel the same way too

[annoyedgrunt84]

I definitely think that others pick up on how I am perceiving myself at the moment. Some people see I'm struggling and will back off while others seem to see that moment as the moment to attack.

[weirdologie]

Originally Posted by Thought+Broad.Girl

ever notice yourself in the mirror?

ever feel like that person staring back at you changes if even slightly depending on what is happening in your life at the time or your mood at the time?

Well. i was noticing that and thought about one of my best old friends (name remains nameless). anyway on her facebook, she looks Hot. but when i think about how she looked (to me anyway) in person it was a completely diff story.

but that just makes me think about perception and how dif people see eachother.

i mean are people all the same? does everyone see things similarly or is it as subjective as what your fave. color is?

idk. but what i do know is when a person has high self esteem and is doing well in life, their whole aura/persona changes. they take better care of themselves.. and they just look/seem better no matter how much of an A*hole they may have been to you in the past and to other people as well

.. so question is. how do you change the way people see you in society. especially when you have an emotional disorder or mental illness in the first place? or is it all really all about how you are seeing yourself in the first place?

I Heart my Friend forever! :P

I'm dealing with this exact thing in therapy right now. I have BDD, anxiety, and depression, all seemingly triggered by being bullied in school. So as a college student, I now have a very complicated hierarchy of groups who, depending on how similar they are to the kind of people who bullied me, have a different standard in my mind. For example, I won't deal with disrespect from beautiful girls and young men as much as I'll deal with it from fellow ugly nerds because beautiful girls and young men = my bullies, but ugly nerds = people who always tried to cheer me up after I got bullied. The social order in my head gets very complicated, this is just the most simple example I can give.

For me, a big chunk of this stems from societal problems as well. How we treat women based on beauty, how we treat poor people, etc. For my therapist and I, right now we're working on changing the way I view society and not necessarily how I view myself or how society views me.

This is because:

1.) I actually do value myself. My self-hatred stemed from other people telling me I was bad, but for me, there's nothing wrong with my looks.

2.) Society is large, so it's very hard to change how it views you.

3.) My biggest challenge is wanting what other people have, whether that be their looks, the respect they get, the authority they have, etc. Frequently, I say to myself, "I don't care what hardships they might have in life, I still wish I was them!"

So, in short: I don't change the way society views me because it's impossible and I don't change the way I view myself because I find nothing intrinsically wrong with me. I change the way I view society because really, that's the only option left to get better.

[lucami]

anyway on her facebook, she looks Hot. but when i think about how she looked (to me anyway) in person it was a completely diff story.

never trust photos, especially on social sites, it's oblivious that everyone always post only the best pictures of self, or use photoshop

but yeah I think it's normal that people looks different, even mouth looks different when you smile while being really happy, and totally different when you force smile, I would say if eyes are 'mirror of the soul', face is a mirror of emotions. even if someone wears a mask after some time knowing someone it's more visible when somebody just acts

[Thought+Broad.Girl]

yeah I have bdd too. and it really freaks me out. and looks as a woman are very important to me especially since i was molested and mostly praised on looks alone growing up. but i was also bullied for my size so. when i feel certain ways inside it shows on my face, body and everywhere visible. and when i am with a guy... when i feel bad i look bad and want to run away intantly because i feel like they won't like me unless they see me as "hot" or "pretty".. so yeah

[Thought+Broad.Girl]

Originally Posted by weirdologie

I'm dealing with this exact thing in therapy right now. I have BDD, anxiety, and depression, all seemingly triggered by being bullied in school. So as a college student, I now have a very complicated hierarchy of groups who, depending on how similar they are to the kind of people who bullied me, have a different standard in my mind. For example, I won't deal with disrespect from beautiful girls and young men as much as I'll deal with it from fellow ugly nerds because beautiful girls and young men = my bullies, but ugly nerds = people who always tried to cheer me up after I got bullied. The social order in my head gets very complicated, this is just the most simple example I can give.

For me, a big chunk of this stems from societal problems as well. How we treat women based on beauty, how we treat poor people, etc. For my therapist and I, right now we're working on changing the way I view society and not necessarily how I view myself or how society views me.

This is because:

1.) I actually do value myself. My self-hatred stemed from other people telling me I was bad, but for me, there's nothing wrong with my looks.

2.) Society is large, so it's very hard to change how it views you.

3.) My biggest challenge is wanting what other people have, whether that be their looks, the respect they get, the authority they have, etc. Frequently, I say to myself, "I don't care what hardships they might have in life, I still wish I was them!"

So, in short: I don't change the way society views me because it's impossible and I don't change the way I view myself because I find nothing intrinsically wrong with me. I change the way I view society because really, that's the only option left to get better.

You are a very strong person. and Forget looks. they don't define you. I suffer from BDD too. and so sometimes i think i am very attractive and am told so. but other time i think i am so ugly that at a certain point i have to just tell myself to give up completely on looks because they change too much anyway.. how can i keep up? so i try to praise myself on whether i am being a good person or not .. and also i tend to have a tendency to scrunch up my face, or put on a certain persona that shows i am a tomboy so who cares what i look like. I wear casual clothing and have cut my hair down to 2 inches.

Sometimes i think i will try to lose the last of my belly fat, get healthy and all of that so that i will look better to try and get a boyfriend. but then when i do that there is still something inside of me that makes me feel like an ugly person.

I am not perfect. i have made many mistakes. I am a recovering alcoholic.. still drink but not as much as before. I do this because i have extreme anxiety and Thought Broadcasting. so the people reading my mind know my every dark thought and all my casual decisions so if i don't do what part of my thoughts tell me to.. whether it be small things like brushing my teeth on time.. or big things like drinking too much or cheating on my ex... they know it all. so i tend to want to give up because it feels like too much pressure but then i get guilt about that too.

I did a LOT of psychedelics growing up and still have guilt about that.

I was in a 10 year relationship and i cheated on him a lot . we didn't get along at all and i don't know for sure if he was abusive but it felt that way. he would jab at my self esteem and self worth all the time, and never forgave me for anything while simultaneously not letting me break up with him.

I tried over and over. over 50 times during the 10 years probably more to break up. but he would always talk me out of it saying he loved/missed me. or that i will never really do it. and i never did. I finally did it on christmas eve. and to be honest i still call him sometimes but luckily he finally gave up! LOL and won't answer my calls!

[eskielover]

Perceptions of people & self are interesting. My mother grew up (she would have been in her 90's now) when glasses weren't used much & her eyes had never developed. She couldn't see but no one knew that was her problem until she was in 3rd grade......so kids in those days made fun of people who wore glasses....so she had really low self-esteem & she was also very dependent on others even after she did get her glasses because she was so unsure of herself....she didn't even drive until I was 16 & didn't need her to drive any longer....I could do my life without her just as I had always had to do.....but.......

Her mother was also that kind of old lady who used to pick on if your eyebrows weren't exactly equal...you need to pluck your eyebrows or you need to do this or that's not quite right....blah blah blah. Honestly I hated being around her & obviously, my mother was very similar (gee, wonder why). I hated all this what seemed to be petty crap growing up.....& how self-conscious my mother was & I remember feeling so self conscious growing up in school trying hard not to be anything like my mother but still not quite fitting in because other parents knew each other & my parents didn't know anyone......

I grow up now, I had to have all my teeth removed & just my luck, I'm one in a whole bunch who can't tolerate dentures because of this horrible gag reflex that I have......so for 6 months, the oral surgery group said that they can't do implants until the surgery heals & the bone is solid......so I have my choice....I either stay in my farm & never go out & be with the wonderful friends I have.....or I just go for it........it popped back in my mind about how my mother wouldn't go out & do anything because of her eyes.....& I had always promised myself that I wouldn't be like my mother....so I just go for it. It's hard to talk without teeth & it definitely doesn't look great.....but hey, I promised myself that I would NOT allow things like that to bother me....so I just put it out of my mind & go for it just like I always have.....I have found that I am usually the one that says something about my no teeth rather than anyone else & it becomes a good conversation rather than something others could make fun of or give me a hard time about.....found that being up front about my situation & being in control of the conversation myself really helps & it keeps me from allowing myself to end up in the position that my mother did with her eyes.

& honestly, it doesn't matter & no one even says anything to me. We discuss what options I might have & it ends up being a topic for conversation rather than one for others judgment.

[Thought+Broad.Girl]

wow! amazing story! wish i was that brave. a brother of mine is agorophobic. and i never wanted to end up in the house all the time with no job or life at all. at 17 i even went to a group home to avoid this. stayed out that way as long as possible but felt very lonely and ended up coming back home. and even when i got back to the city i enrolled myself in school. but ended up meeting a guy. we stayed together for 10 years. now that we are broken up, and with everything i have gone though in life. i have a hard time getting motivated to go back to school.

i am super depressed and still have thought broadcasting and guilt/shame after all these years and am just not sure it's worth it. i think i would take comfort over just about anything else in life right now.

i met this guy recently on plenyoffish. he has a four bedroom house, and wants a wife and kids and has called me about 5-6 times since the first time we met. and i think he would want to marry me if i tried hard enough. i would get out of my situation, living at home with my mom and on ssi. but i don't want to go through that. i am not in love with him, and he seems nice enough but i don't want to be thrown into any situation that takes me that far out of my comfort zone even if my life could be set doing so.

comfort over anything else right now is my answer.

but yeah i know what you mean about your mom. self conscious and anxious type. my mom is the same, and she didn't have any friends when i was a kid. and i struggled in school too not to mention we were on General Assistance growing up so that didn't help me fit in either since i was over weight and low income i hardly had anything to wear during my school years.

life is painful but u have to take it as it is. and play the cards you were given.

[supermacho]

No, I don't feel like that at all. I feel like a total loser, weakling *****, but when I look in the mirror I see a handsome man. Girls and women think I'm good looking but they don't know that I'm a 25 year old kissless virgin. If they knew I'm sure they wouldn't like me and would laugh and humiliate me.

[gayleggg]

Originally Posted by annoyedgrunt84

I definitely think that others pick up on how I am perceiving myself at the moment. Some people see I'm struggling and will back off while others seem to see that moment as the moment to attack.

I agree that I'm perceived differently depending on how I'm feeling. I think I project a different persona at different times and that people pick up on it. When I'm depressed for example I feel that I'm ignored while when I'm manic I attract others attention.

Best wishes, Gayle
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Nina Simone]

Thomas Cooley said "I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am". I have found this to be true in life. I react to what I perceive in others.

Up until the last several years I was excellent at maintaining a good front. I looked good and no one knew what was really happening with me. Little by little it all started to crumble. Now I don't go out much and I don't interact with many people. I'm just tired. I have to find a new way of being in the world and being my open, honest self is difficult. The truth is I don't really like many of the people in my life and I don't want to be involved with them. To say that makes me a bish which I'm not and don't want people to see me that way. I admire people who dance to their own music and live life on their own terms. I hope to get there.

[Thought+Broad.Girl]

Originally Posted by supermacho

No, I don't feel like that at all. I feel like a total loser, weakling *****, but when I look in the mirror I see a handsome man. Girls and women think I'm good looking but they don't know that I'm a 25 year old kissless virgin. If they knew I'm sure they wouldn't like me and would laugh and humiliate me.

LOL! no, girls would now! HAHA they would think you are cute, and sweet.. if some girl thought that about you because you are a virgin in early 20s, she would not be very nice in the first place and you would not want to be with her anywayz! LOL

[Thought+Broad.Girl]

Originally Posted by gayleggg

I agree that I'm perceived differently depending on how I'm feeling. I think I project a different persona at different times and that people pick up on it. When I'm depressed for example I feel that I'm ignored while when I'm manic I attract others attention.

Best wishes, Gayle
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

YUP! so true. even when i am just drunk people are nicer to me. (at least in my direct neighborhood) i can get cigarettes more easily and things like that because i feel outgoing and am a pretty consistently happy drunk.. (except when i start to come down .. but that is a dif story..)

[Thought+Broad.Girl]

It happens to the best of us. people didn't used to be able to tell i was crazy either. and i used to not drink, go to school, dress normal. all of that stuff. now i am a drunk at home living with mom at age 31. i can't get motivation to change it. sometimes i think i should try harder so that i can at least find a new man, but then i think i wouldn't be able to handle that anyway so i stay in my rut.....

Originally Posted by Nina Simone

Thomas Cooley said "I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am". I have found this to be true in life. I react to what I perceive in others.

Up until the last several years I was excellent at maintaining a good front. I looked good and no one knew what was really happening with me. Little by little it all started to crumble. Now I don't go out much and I don't interact with many people. I'm just tired. I have to find a new way of being in the world and being my open, honest self is difficult. The truth is I don't really like many of the people in my life and I don't want to be involved with them. To say that makes me a bish which I'm not and don't want people to see me that way. I admire people who dance to their own music and live life on their own terms. I hope to get there.