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noname223

Archangel
Aug 18, 2020
5,231
Here after a long time another recovery thread. Recovery certainly is for me he hardests sub-forum to find new ideas for due to the fact I am a pretty negative person that suffers a lot. That being here is the story.

I am kind of an insecure and shy person at least in front of strangers. With my closest friends I am completely different. As a teenager I wanted to have a girlfriend (still as an adult though) and was very insecure about it. First I lost a lot of weight. Still no girlfriend. The reason for that was probably a lack of contact and low social skills. Though I blamed it on something else. I blamed my outer appearance for it specifically my teeth. They don't look that good and I was pretty ashamed about it for a long time. When I grew older I could ask my friends for an honest opinion. And they said they barely noticed my teeth. They were fully honest that they don't look that bad and more or less average. This kind of blew my mind at that time. I already wanted to save thousands of euros for an operation. Gladly after some time I gave up that goal.

But there was also another example with a distorted self-perception. As a teenager I was very obese and got bullied for it. Still during that time period 2-3 women had a crush on me. I am not sure whether the third girl counts because we just had contact for one day but the others were friends at school. I had absolutely no interest in them for me they were only friends I had a crush on another girl during that time period. These women had interest in me despite the fact I was very obese and I could not believe that someone could be interested in me who was bullied daily.

The interesting part follows. I changed a lot as a teenager I lost a lot of weight and became a careerist. And these women lost their interest in me. So the things that gave me a boost of self-confidence my good grades and my lost weight were deterrent for women. (I hope this is the right word.)

I want to point out that our self-perception can be from to time distorted. This is why we should listen to feedback of people close to us. Maybe we are overthinking something. Maybe we are too harsh on us and the criticism of oneself is only a product of a too strict superego. Especially abuse and bullying can lead to such a behavior. Therapy helped me to reflect on me. But also the close bond to my friends gives me a lot of strength.

There are other things I don't like with my outer appearance. But overall I like my outer appearance now. One weird thing. I really like that I am very thin and I am sort of proud of it. I value it way too much because of the bullying. When I asked one friend about my teeth whether he ever noticed how ugly they were he replied he never noticed them but he thinks I look a little bit too thin. I kind of have to laugh about that. He was concerned about the thing I am the most proud of but he never noticed the thing I despised myself for as a teenager.

One could also apply this theory on personal traits etc. probably. But I think it is good to end here.
 
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timf

Enlightened
Mar 26, 2020
1,168
Often as one gets past the early 20s, physical attributes begin to fade in importance as things like kindness, humor, compassion, and thinking of others become more important. This is perhaps because as children develop into adults, the superficial is what is first perceived and given too much importance.
 
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