Inadequacy

[bluemoon]

Lately I've been feeling more and more inadequate around my boyfriend.

 

I don't feel attractive or sexy and therefore kissing and sex makes me feel a little bit off. I have no idea why this has started happening, my boyfriend admires me whenever we see each other and tells me how attractive I am to him, but yet this makes me feel choked up and disbelieving.

 

The thing is, I know I am not unattractive but recently I've been feeling more and more off with myself and uncomfortable in my own skin. A lot of my focus has been on my flaws and pains of my body as different sections of my body kept providing me discomfort. As soon as something would clear up another thing would come and provide me discomfort & worry.

 

I'm only 19, yet every day I feel as if my body and mind are incapable of actually feeling good and in harmony with each other. I feel much older than my age.

 

..back to feeling inadequate around my boyfriend..

 

I haven't had any trust issues with him, though lately I keep thinking someone more attractive than me will come to replace me. That with age I will no longer be desireable

and that he would possibly find someone younger/more attractive. I also found one of his porn vids on his computer and I expected it to be an average porn video, but the girl in it was a supermodel with a perfectly symmetrical fresh face- minimal makeup, long legs and stunning and all natural. My heart sank when I saw it- I don't have a problem with porn and I understand it's just a tool but it didn't stop me from feeling less confident in myself. Curiosity killed the cat.

What may have triggered this is that we had an argument about a 60 year old man watching porn of just legal girls and this being acceptable for my boyfriend because they were legal.

 

I thought about how if I was 60 how I would react to finding out my partner would get off to 18year olds, and it seriously put me off my boyfriend because IMO at 60, an 18year old could be the same age of your grand child! I assumed by that age you would have grown as a person and would no longer find it acceptable. He said it would be normal in human nature to find a youthful body more attractive, and I agree.. but I would draw a very definite line at mid to late twenties in this case.

We then talked about our differences and sort of came to an understanding where he said that he is not 60 and that he has no way of telling how he would feel at 60, which was a reasonable statement.

 

 

In all ...I've been more afraid to age and am more anxious to be in relationship as an inevitable fear of being replaced.

When he took forever to reply to my texts last night, and i remembered him checking his phone a few times at a party last week while we were together.. it made me overthink the situation.. as in WHY would he check his phone a few times when we're together, but not when we're apart?

I've cleared this up with him already and no longer worry about this, but i fear I may start to worry again in the future.

 

I know I am being insecure, but feel this is putting a strain on me and how i feel and think in our relationship

 

Help

[ThatwasThen]

You sound depressed and anxious. Have you thought about going to your doctor and telling him everything you've told us? Perhaps he can refer you to a therapist that will help you with your apparent low self-esteem?

 

In the meantime you can try and motivate yourself to start feeling better about yourself by joining a gym, or going for a make-over or buying a new outfit or even just going for a romantic over-nighter with your bf where the focus will be on the two of you rather then you over-indulging in your own mind about yourself.

 

I don't think this is about your boyfriend or your relationship in general but rather about you and the negative thought process you've dug for yourself. Work on you and its more likely then not, that the rest will fix itself.

[bluemoon]

Thank you for you reply!

 

Yes, I think it really is more me that's the problem.

I can't really afford a therapist at the moment though I know this is something that I need to do since the 3 counsellors ive been to have been unhelpful.

It seems counselling is all really about getting stuff off your chest and doing breathing exercises, one counsellor even told me I didn't need counselling because my brain was 'analytical' enough as I'm able to establish the root of my problems and make connections from the past, but she seemed to have missed that my analytical mind immobilises me and I have a strong tendency to wallow in a state, that's like a fog you don't really know when its going to thicken but it's always kind of there.

 

I've started journalling in the meantime writing down all occasions on where i felt anxious during the day and how it made me feel and why it made me feel that way and then when i would finish i'd write about reasons to be greatful for ranging anywhere from : -being really cosy in bed.. to other small pleasures of the day that normally would pass and be forgotten about.

I found during the week this fog was less evident and I was actually able to focus in college and enjoy the relationship. Though then there was a few days in between i was able to write in the journal and now it's coming back. I wrote a journal entry last night but now it feels like i have this force in me that wants to avoid journalling because i was briefly dissappointed in myself on each day I could not write in it and that since i've been doing better ... my mind tries to tell me its ok.. and that i dont need to make it a chore to keep writing.

 

My mind tries to turn everything good, sour on me. This week ive been to college once due to not having energy. I've lost all the motivation from the previous week and I can see myself falling into a slump again.

 

 

You're absolutely right by saying i need to focus on motivating myself to feel better about myself. atm im just tryin to wade through this fog and wait for it to fade a lil so i can see through it.. but really i should just be going straight through it instead of procastinating

 

retail therapy has left me broke 3

[ParisPaulette]

In your case I would recommend maybe not just seeking a therapist or counselor, but rather finding someone who specializes in helping people change their mindset. You do seem to have a pretty good awareness of why you have these feelings, but it's more about how to get control over them that you need help with. Many places will offer sliding scale fees or even if you don't go that route just reading up and exploring the idea of how to take more charge of your own feelings can help. I can say at the age of 19 it's not unusual to feel weird or awkward and if you've been having physical issues that doesn't help. Have you ever thought of getting involved with something that makes you use your body like yoga or martial arts even or some form of dance? Although it's hard in the beginning to learn these things sometimes as you master something and can see what your body can do it can help to make you feel better about it.

 

Also getting involved with yoga and meditation can be very, very good for anxiety and issues with your body. I use yoga to calm myself sometimes, because I tend to be an anxious person by nature and it really helps. Just a thought. The whole thing with the 60-year-olds watching young women in porn sounds horrible to you in part because you're young, but I can tell you as an older person you don't usually really ever feel old. I don't think anyone stops appreciating beauty, even in others, no matter our age, but it's a far different thing to look at a pretty painting or body and admire it than to actively try and do something about it or put away something real one already has instead. Again, you have to realize your boyfriend loves all of you and the girl you describe on the video may seem natural, but chances are there is still airbrushing and makeup and lighting and posing to make her look her very best. And age is the great equalizer, someday she'll be old and not look like that anymore nor should she. Age isn't something to fear, but we do live in a culture that tends to send that message. Which is pretty dumb when you stop and think of it because we all age, no matter what. Unless we're dead. Personally I prefer aging.

 

Anyways these are just my thoughts. And after nearly six decades of love and marriage and dating I can honestly say no man ever replaced me with a younger woman. And if they had it would've just meant I was with someone shallow and I can't stand shallow people, so it would've been a relief to find that out.

[bluemoon]

thanks for taking the time to post such a lengthy reply.

 

I've had feelings of inadequacy pretty much for the majority of my life it probably started when I turned about 11. It could be down to hormonal changes but I don't think feeling worthless and anxious pretty much for most of that time can all be accountable to hormonal changes.

I grew up with a lot of criticism and no good example of what a healthy relationship should be like and daily live in some sort of form of guilt.

The only closure I really get from a person is my boyfriend. I mean i do have friends.. but no one really close that I have been able to comfortably relax around. And the other good friend I have is in a similar situation to mine and usually grumpy and complaining when we meet up and it drags me more down as I try to forget of all the worries when I'm with people and being with her reminds me of all the unneccessary drama going on with people that I used to be friends with but am not anymore because said drama. So i dont see her that often- maybe once every two weeks.

 

Yoga and dancing sounds nice, though with these things I'd feel I'd need to have buddy of some sort to feel motivated enough to go. I don't really enjoy doing things on my own, i can't even enjoy sitting back alone at home - watching a movie without feeling like it's a chore... even though I love movies! I really don't know what that is about.

 

You're right by saying that it would be a relief to find out a shallow person, i've also told myself that if it happens then I could only learn from it and it would have been good because I know I wouldn't want to be with someone like that.

AHH i know!! It was an eyeopening moment to me when a 70 year old told me he still feels 21!

you're right about the porn also, but I still find it slightly absurd because sure.. one can appreciate beauty at any point in life. Though i do think you would still perceive another persons age as much younger than your actual age. I mean most adults a good 10+ years older than me think I look any where between 14-16 , but to people my own age they would be able to guess more correctly.

 

It's more the morality of it that bothers me because at 18 it seems unlikely for the majority of girls/guys involved in porn to actually know that that's what they want to do and majority probably only do it to pay the bills. It's that aspect of it that bothers me cos it kind of feels like pornographically taking advantage of just legals (ofc not the case for all) I mean people do a lot of growing between then and their late twenties, so IMO I draw the line at 25.

[ParisPaulette]

I do agree about the morality of it, but let's face it--a 60-year-old man watching porn starring barely legal young girls probably wasn't the most moral person to begin with. And I would urge you to try and do thins once in awhile by yourself. That is a skill really and some of us have to learn to develop the ability to do that. It's not so hard for me, because I've always been a bit of a loner and I actually need alone time sometimes, but again that is where yoga can help. In fact I would say find a yoga studio or class where they're really friendly. I probably went through about five different studios/classes before I found one that was run by a wonderful couple who were both so warm and so friendly that I liked going. And better yet they'd get the class to engage with each other and them, so it really did feel like a community thing and I made friends out of it. Maybe look for something like that?

 

I will tell you that time and getting older and some life experience under your belt does often help a lot of what you're going through. I had a rough time of it as an adolescent too, because of some issues I'd rather not talk about and it took some active work on my part to overcome them. A concerted effort to change your thoughts and mindset can help and that's where finding a counselor or therapist who can work with you on acceptance of yourself and how to change negatives into positives can really help.