How can I improve my self esteem? Not feeling attractive..

[HotCoko]

Hello everyone! I've been through alot over the last 21 years of my life. I've had very bad experiences as a child and I think that it's what molded me as what I am today. When I was younger, I was always the girl that was teased on and made fun of because I was fat or what not. When I hit middle school I lost alot of weight and guys started to notice me. However there are still times where I don't feel attractive and that's 85% of the time. There are some days that I wake up and I feel 100% confident and happy but those days are few. I don't like how my face looks and I am constantly examining and criticizing myself in the mirror. Then I still have some people to down me on my looks but I also get hit on by guys too so I'm confused. Am I an attractive person or not? I don't even like looking at myself in the mirror because it gets me extremely depressed and it shoots my confidence down the drain. I always look stupid in mirrors or pictures, I look so awkward and ugly looking.

 

I know it sounds silly and I know there's so much more to worry about in life but it really effects how I feel and how confident I am. I'm really nervous when I even go out now, I hate to talk to people because I am also extremely shy. It's pathetic! I can't even look people in the face when I talk to them because I get a weird vibe from looking at people too long. I tend to mumble and stutter when I start talking to strangers it's embarrassing. It makes me look like I'm retarded or something. Like yesterday I went to the store to get some groceries, I had to literally pause for a couple of minutes when I went to the cashier with my things because I was so scared about what I was going to say.I'm also paranoid of my surroundings because I'm always looking around to see if people are looking at me or talking about me. I also don't like being around a bunch of strangers. My friend invited me to a cook out this weekend and I declined, because the only person I knew was my friend and I didn't want to be around a bunch of strange people asking me questions. I spend most of my time at home because that's when I feel the most comfortable.

 

I never used to be like this but I seem to get worse more every year.I have some issues but I want to know what are some ways to make me less anxious and shy. Also how can I feel more attractive and more confident in myself, even if I hate the way I look?

[chickidee23]

Beauty begins from within. It's a mindset thing. If you tell yourself you are ugly, you're going to believe it. If you tell yourself negative things, you moods and attitudes are going to be negative the majority of your life.

 

Change something!!! Do something to make yourself happy! It won't happen over night but YOU are the ONLY one who can make you happy!!!!! If you have issues, try seeing a therapist. If you don't like your skin, try finding a skin product that will help it get better.

 

I want to write more but I have to go so I'll be back later! It's all up to you, though! Change your focus, change your attitude and the way you feel will change!

 

Good luck and I'll be back!!!

[itsallgrand]

Hi HotCoko.

 

That sounds an awful lot like social anxiety. Generalizing.

 

I don't have any big answers, but, I know for myself going to see a competent pyschiatrist has helped.

 

That is one option. For me, it has been the best thing I have ever done. Again, just speaking for myself, the anxiety was - is - more of a symptom of deeper stuff going on.

I take now to be like an early warning symptom when I am under stress. A call.

 

Good news - You really can overcome it.

 

It takes some work. Some digging. Some risk taking and a willingness to try doing things a little differently.

 

I find that having a touchstone - someone who is there 100% just for me, to listen to me and my messy issues and help me untangle the ball, to take a look at me regularly and help me chart where I am at at any given time - helps tremendously.

 

I can relate a lot to what you are saying. Days where going to the grocery store seems like a feat.

Looking down, feeling disorientated, trying to be as small as possible so as not have to deal with people.

 

Stuttering and feeling 'retarded' - like other people may be thinking all these negative things.

 

Some days people still need to tell me "speak up" repeatedly because I am mumbling and speaking very low.

 

It is beyond frustrating and aggrivating because I have - I am - naturally a rather forceful and passionate personality. I love myself when I feel 'like myself' , if that makes any sense.

Yet, it can be so hard to remember to be nice to me when that anxiety acts up!

 

All I know is that things start to really change when you make it a big priority in your life. It's like anything else: it takes commitment and you need to make a decision.

Then it can become about one little decision after another, day by day, minute by minute, to where you stop having to think about it so much. You wonder "how was it I was afraid to do that?".

 

So make some choice today. To speak to someone you trust, face to face as soon as possible.

 

The support on-line - here, it's great. Fabulous.

 

With social anxiety especially though, it honestly requires live human contact. That is what you really need.

 

hope this helps you some.

[iwishiknew]

I also never felt attractive, from my days in jr high, high school and college and still today, I always been rejected and put down beacuse of my appearance, looks and my height and it always put's an impact in me.

[Orlander]

The ultimate, undeniable truth is that if you believe and act like you are attractive and confident then other people will see you as such.

 

I mean, do you really need someone else to place value on your looks or worth? If you truly believed that you are attractive I guarantee you that you will not wonder what other people think of you and if by some awful occasion where someone says something about your appearance that is negative, I promise you that you will just think that person is crazy loco.

 

All parts of happiness come from within.

 

Orlander

[Anonybrit]

This is just.... bizarre. Word for word, I could have written your post Orlander.

 

 

 

I can look in the mirror one day and really like what I see, and look again the next, and absolutely have my heart plummet into oblivion.

 

I just... can't understand which perception of myself is correct.

 

This is the root of every anxiety in my life - I wish I could get over it.

 

I've never had any negative comments on my looks, and before I started college I was attracting some pretty atractive girls, but that was before it mattered, and since then it's tailed off - this is may well be because I haven't gotten into going out, because of my self-consciousness, but then I'm in a Catch 22.

 

 

I'm considering just getting a little surgery to fix what I'm most conscious about, because whether or not anyone else notices, I do, and I really want to beat this thing.

 

 

 

 

So yeah, I certainly don't have any answers, and I realise that the only way to get over this is to look in the mirror and finally like what you see - whether that involves physical changes, or mental ones, I don't know, but I know that neither of us will settle with what we percieve as "lying to ourselves", am I right?

 

I mean, if it turns out it's our heads incorrectly percieving a perfectly attractive face, then fine, but if we genuinly aren't attractive, I just feel like I'll do whatever it takes so that I'm happy with myself.

 

And I think I know how you feel, and it's tough. It feels like a big fat weight holding life back.

[Orlander]

"Lying to ourselves"?? What?? How is loving yourself enough to SEE that you are attractive ever lying to yourself?? How many people out there have you seen who you knew were not attractive but they believed they were? How many times have you seen some ugly guy or girl with someone much more attractive and said to yourself "How the heck is that person with him/her?"

 

Confidence is the most attractive trait.

 

Orlander

[Anonybrit]

Physical attraction is just that, physical. It's not about how you feel, it's about how you look. Anything else isn't physical attraction, and is not relevant to this thread.

 

Whether we like it or not, we care what people think of our appearance - but sometimes it's hard to tell whether you're intepretating your appearance fiathfully, or whether your mood is distorting it.

 

But regardless, the utlimate aim is to get positive reactions back about our appearance from society.

 

We may laready be getting them and not know it, but we can't ignore the possibility that we are not getting them, and it's because we genuinly aren't attractive - in which case, exploit what's available to us now in the 21st century.

[chickidee23]

Physical attraction is superficial and if someone only likes you for the way you look, they aren't worth your time anyway.

 

I can guarantee you that everyone in this world feels ugly at one point in their lives if not most of their lives. It's because of all the ridiculous standards society and the media has set for everyone else. IMHO, there is no such thing as set standards for beauty. People that I think are beautiful are not always the same people others think are beautiful. I have been attracted to lots of guys who aren't conventionally attractive but I discovered things IN them that were beautiful.

 

Like I said in my first post, beauty starts from within. You need to love and appreciate yourself before anyone else can. Try doing things that make you feel happy more often, like volunteering or doing random good deeds. If you feel down, you will start harping on yourself. If you feel happy, you are less likely to point out the things you think are wrong with you- and that is something you should never, ever do. You are your biggest critic, you are the one you believe the most. You need to squlech those negative thoughts ASAP! Check out this website and see if it can give you some ideas on how to feel better about yourself:

 

link removed

 

Best wishes and I know you can do this, you just have to try!

[Anonybrit]

Physical attraction is superficial and if someone only likes you for the way you look, they aren't worth your time anyway.

 

Yes, but I didn'gt get the impression the OP was worried about people like that.

 

It's obvious that that post was just a way to reaffirm your personal philosophies on life rather than actually provide the OP with any kind of relevant advice.

 

Appearance obviously does matter. Relationships can't be based entirely on physical attraction, but a certain degree of physical attraction does have to exist between two individuals for them to have any kind of intimate and lasting romantic and sexual relationship.

 

That's simply the way it is - we can train ourselves to be less judgemental of looks and place more emphasis on personality, but physical attraction still plays an important role in self-confidence and first impressions.

 

 

I'm not trying to say that the OP is doomed to eternal lonliness - indeed, it's just as likely both me and her warp our perfectly attractive appearances in our heads into unattractive ones, as us both being genuinly, conventionally unattractive.

 

But I am of the mind that this problem probably means as much to her as it does to me, and so she'd probably rather face it head on rather than comfort herself with the pub philosophy of people who don't seem to understand the feeling at all.

 

 

 

The media does set unnaturally high standards (airbrushing), and our society is piling on the pressure to be sexually attractive everywhere at all times, but nevertheless, physical attraction is a valid desire, and not having it, or not believing you have it, hurts.

[HotCoko]

I know that feeling attractive must come within and I've tried to do that also but it's very hard. I've tried doing things to overcome it but I'm still worried about it.If a guy starts liking me, I have to ask myself why does he like an ugly girl like me? How can someone possibly be attracted to me? I've been complimented plenty of times by people saying that I was beautiful etc etc, but it always seem like the negative comments always stick to me the most. I was in a verbally abusive relationship last year with a guy who said horrible things to me. He would call me out of my name,calling me a b*tch,h*e etc etc. He also said I was butt ugly yet I stayed with him for so long. After hearing people call me ugly & fat all of my life it really has taken a toll on me. Yet at the same time, I've been hit on by lots of guys(not trying to brag or anything), but I still never feel attractive. I know I shouldn't care what other people think about me but I do. I wanna feel attractive but I don't, I'm not the supermodel you see in tv everyday or the actress or the singer with the glamorous bodies and faces, guys go crazy over.

 

I know it has to start with me but how?? How can I like myself if even I don't like what I see in the mirror? Then it seems like pictures and mirrors tell different stories everywhere I go it's confusing. I like how I look in some pictures and some mirrors and others I don't, so it's like who am I? What do I really look like? If I take a good pic of myself, I'll look at it and go, that's not how I really look, I look like the pic that is the bad photo of me. That's why I would never meet people off the internet, I don't want them to see me and be disappointed because I look so much better in my photo.

 

I know this sound very superficial and petty but it's been an issue I've been struggling with for a long time and quite frankly I'm tired of it and I want to stop stressing over it. I just want to not care what people think and not let comments get me down but they do. I spend lots of times shopping for clothes and finding things that look good on me to doll myself up but I always feel the same, even if I have a nice outfit on.

 

Also the media doesn't help matters either. With superstars like Beyonce,Brittney Spears,Jessica Simpson portraying this image like they're soooo perfect. I wanna like like these girls, I wanna be the girl everyone goes crazy over. I feel like I should look like that to get attention and I'm far from that. That's all I ever hear guys talk about what they want and it makes average looking girls like me not even get a chance. Everyone around me in my age group have these high standards for what they perceive as beauty, it hurts when you don't measure up to alot of people's standards.

[talo]

Physical attraction is just that, physical. It's not about how you feel, it's about how you look. Anything else isn't physical attraction, and is not relevant to this thread.

 

Physical attration is not about how you feel? You don't feel anything when physically attracted? A feeling is physical is it not?

 

Whether we like it or not, we care what people think of our appearance - but sometimes it's hard to tell whether you're intepretating your appearance fiathfully, or whether your mood is distorting it.

 

Any interpretation of an appearance is a 'mental distortion'.

 

But regardless, the utlimate aim is to get positive reactions back about our appearance from society.

 

As seen here, the ultimate aim is to see without distortion. A positive reaction, just as a negative reaction, is a distortion.

 

We may laready be getting them and not know it, but we can't ignore the possibility that we are not getting them, and it's because we genuinly aren't attractive - in which case, exploit what's available to us now in the 21st century.

 

Any judgement, assessment, conclusion, about an appearance such as "genuinely aren't attractive" is a distortion.

[Celadon]

~HotCoko~

 

Let me tell you my own story, and hopefully it will help a little. I grew up feeling kinda ugly, or at least plain. When I was a teenager, I was convinced I had to be blonde and blue eyed, or at least have large breasts, to be desireable. (I'm about as flat as they come, and nuthin's changed since then, lol!)

 

Then came college and I took my poor self-image with me. One day I said something negative about my looks and my roommate looked at me incredulously and said, "Are you kidding? You're pretty!" And she was genuine in saying that.

 

Well, I'm not a gorgeous person and never will be. There will always be tons of women who are more elegant looking or more stylish. But what I HAVE found over the years is that all you have to do is find some part of you that you really like. For me, it's my eyes. They are probably my best feature. Once you find something you like about yourself, play that up!!!! When you look in the mirror, look at that aspect of yourself.

 

Oh, I could tell you everything that's wrong with my looks. My hair's flat. My face is a bit plain. My eyebrows are naturally bushy. My nose is just sorta there. My skin breaks out. But can you see that it's rather pointless to dwell on these things?

 

It's true that you have to be convinced of your own beauty before it radiates to other people. Forget about what supposedly "perfect" people look like. Everyone's unique. What really IS true is that, if you can't figure out something to like about yourself, then you're shooting yourself in the foot. 'Cause then you won't carry yourself with pride and happiness. You'll always be hunched over trying to hide. And that's no way to live!