[Locust]

If you have a REAL, physical flaw, that is not just your run of the mill, "Okay so nobody's perfect," type of a flaw, but a serious flaw that is....downright, abnormal in its severity, how do you convince yourself that you are still attractive?

[Rachie]

Im ugly im a cruel n heartless ***** that deserves to die

[beutifulxdreamr]

I hate to sound cliche but beauty truly lies in the eye of the beholder. Some people are more shallow than others and will allow the physical realm to distract them from what is truly important. I feel bad for those people because they miss out on a whole lot of hidden beauty.

This may or may not be similar to what you are referring to, but my second toe is much longer than my big toe... in fact, my third toe is slightly longer than my big toe (kind of defeating the purpose and definition of having a "big" toe). I have scars on my body from multiple causes - not always my own. For example, my appendix scar. I occasionally struggle with acne and I have a a few moles hanging around on various parts of my body. Sometimes it's the oddities that attract people to you. Most of my significant others have found my "freak toe" to be cute. And some people call my moles "beauty marks." I've also had people tell me that if they were me they would never wear sandals. I used to try to hide my scars, but I don't any more. A scar is a sign of healing.

There was some one who came to a local church to speak who had no arms and no limbs, save a small shadow of what one might call a foot. He was born that way, but he was beautiful. His soul was beautiful and in my opinion his face and body was beautiful. He didn't need limbs - not to walk, not to preach, and not to be a beautiful person on the inside. And boy did that beauty shine through.

I have had patients who go to the bathroom through stomas on their abdomen, but you would never know unless you took their clothes off. I also had a patient once who had a staph infection in his penis that split it completely in half. We are not our limbs, our sexual characteristics, or any of that.

Focus on the things you have that are attractive. I don't believe any one is purely ugly (unless of course their soul is purely ugly... I've met very few people like that in my life though). I may have acne, I may have odd toes, and I may have moles or beauty marks, but I have awesome curly red hair. My body isn't perfect and I may not be very graceful or coordinated, but I use my body in any way that I can to make beautiful things (like draw or dance, etc). Besides, people have very strange fetishes. As I said before, your "flaw" just might be the one thing that a person is attracted to. It's what makes you unique and different. And in my opinion, if some one is willing to say you are unattractive/not worthwhile based on your looks, you don't need them anyway. Think of it as a filter... that's the way I view my scars any way. I know that my true friends will not be put off by my scars or why they are there.

I really hope this helps.

Originally Posted by Locust

If you have a REAL, physical flaw, that is not just your run of the mill, "Okay so nobody's perfect," type of a flaw, but a serious flaw that is....downright, abnormal in its severity, how do you convince yourself that you are still attractive?

[beutifulxdreamr]

Originally Posted by Rachie

Im ugly im a cruel n heartless ***** that deserves to die

You seem really upset. Is there something bothering you?

i don't have advice with this, but wanted to let you know you're certainly not alone- i have disfigurements that i think really ruin me and i'm curious to see what kind of answers you get.

i suppose, though, that you have to accept that "attractive" is something completely personal, and also not the most important thing. at least for me, it's easy to see past physical "flaws" in people, but i'll always be my own harshest critic and have trouble understanding how anyone can see past my own.

[shezbut]

Hi Locust,

Acceptance - to put it plain & simple. The acceptance phase is the mostchallenging, regardless of what the issue is. Challenging because we have other ideals in mind. We don't want to accept the reality. We fight it. We try everything we can think of to avoid feeling so flawed.

The fact is that when we accept the flaw, no longer repress or deny it, a heavy burden is lifted from our shoulders instantly! That is when we begin to see others honestly. Friendship and love are much easier to find when you aren't carrying that burden anymore. Acceptance is more rewarding than I can express. Honestly !

Personally, I am still struggling with acceptance. I have finally accepted certain parts of myself (that I found absolutely horrible and embarassing- my epilepsy and traumatic brain injury). Despite this discovery, accepting other painful experiences I've had isn't easy.

Hope that helps answer your Q !
Shez

[Rachie]

Wow i so dont remember writing what i did! Thats really weird...

[equive]

Hi Locust:

I feel like I can relate really well to what you're saying. I have huge gross scars on my left arm from when I was born. It sort of looks like my arm was mangled, and for a while that part of my arm was bigger and puffier than the rest of my arm, so it was extremely noticeable.

For the longest time, in high school and a while after, I just wore long sleeves everywhere and never talked to anyone about it. Eventually, I had plastic surgery to make it more slender like the rest of my arm.

What it took for me was finding people that didn't care and didn't think about it like I did. My boyfriend thought it was pretty cool - like a "battle scar", sort of. He sometimes shows it off to his friends, like "Dude, check out my girlfriend's arm, isn't this awesome?" Having the surgery really helped, because I feel as though it's significantly less noticeable. A lot of my friends think it's sort of neat because the scars are in the shape of Z's, backwards. I've noticed that when my boyfriend leans his head against that arm, it fits perfectly with the contours of his face.

So my advice, I guess, would be to keep in mind that everything you think you're insecure about, there's someone else who will think it's neat. My friend used to be overweight, and he lost a lot of weight, and now he can pull his skin like a foot away from his body. He showed me and I thought it was so cool, like he could make himself a little basket, it's fun to pull on, it's soft to the touch, I think it's great, even though he doesn't like it so much.

My other advice is, as hard as it sounds, try to change the way you think about it. For me, in particular, that meant not letting myself leave the house everyday in longsleeves, actually wearing a bathing suit to swim in instead of like a sweater. Sort of, I am who I am and this is what I'm working with, so I better work it as much as I can mentality.

Hope any of that helped.