To be constantly horrified by how ugly I am?

[uglyuglyugly]

This issue consumes me and has taken over my life. I had an abusive childhood, with a violent bully of a stepdad who ran me down every day and my mum backed him up. Then I was called all manner of names at school including ‘birds nest’ about my hair, ‘bugs bunny’ about my teeth and was told I was so ugly I’d never get married.
I also had a boyfriend who continually called me goofy.
So I hate my teeth and my hair which I keep snipping at and changing my hairstyle in a bid to look better. My son called me fat the other day (I’m a size 12, he didn’t mean to offend me I don’t think, he’s young).

I’m overwhelmed with shame about my appearance. When out in public I keep glancing in shop windows and mirrors and recoiling in horror at what I see, and at home I keep checking in the mirror continuously.

It should also be noted that my mother is/ was the most vain person on the planet who spends two hours a day bavkcombing her hair into a massive bouffant (not exaggerating) and slags off people for being over a size 10.

I feel so disgusted by my appearance and no hairstyle makes me feel better. What do I do

Funny thing is that my son looks like me. He has my features down to my overbite and hair colour/ type. And yet I think he is the most beautiful thing in the world. And I look at pictures of me prior to my stepdad turning up and like myself. From that time on though I feel disgust looking at all those photos. The mind really is a complex thing

You sound like you are partially there in realising that your thinking is down to your abusive step father. I think counselling could help you deal with this . I'm sure if we were to see a photo of you , we would see a wonderful lovely looking woman, completely different to how you see yourself. Obviously I'm not suggesting you put your photo on here though!

Tell your mother the 1960's called and they want their manky old beehives back!!!
You are not fat ( size 12 is NOT fat!!!) Needing to lose one and half stones is not a great deal of weight at all and in my experience losing the weight won't change much about how you feel.
No onea is really ugly.
People have been cruel and convinced you that you are. Please don't let them win. Please dont let their cruelty make you believe that looks are the only things that matter. This was abuse.
I don't think that you can fix this on your own, you need some help to talk these issues through and find a way past them. You really need to get help as you don't want to accidentally pass these issues on to your children.
Some good advice on this thread.
Try to distract yourself from these thoughts, earplugs in and listen to comedy shows perhaps?
There are lots of things you can do in the meantime to feel better about yourself first and foremost STOP telling yourself that you are ugly. There are some great make up, hair and clothes advice channels on You Tube. Treat yourself and be KIND to yourself and cut out the toxic people who treat you badly.
It is true that beauty/ or uglyness is in the eye of the beholder. Why did Wallace Simpson get requoted for saying "you can never be too rich or thin." even though she was both, she never thought it was good enough.
Give yourself a big hug and tell yourself things will be better. You don't have to improve.. its the people who have treated you so badly that are the ugly ones xx

I'm sure if we were to see a photo of you , we would see a wonderful lovely looking woman, completely different to how you see yourself.

I think that's the truth. Your self-confidence was totally shattered so you see a very false picture in the mirror.
You had some pretty shitty beginning to your life but I am pretty sure you realise yourself you're not really ugly and that's all in the heads of the people who want to put you down to feel better about themselves.

Dear god, OP, your post is utterly heartbreaking, as are many of the responses you’ve had on here.

Read again what you’ve written about your son, and imagine saying to him what must have been said to you to make you feel so unhappy in your own skin. It’s not just nonsense, it’s unbelievably cruel. Imagine the level of insecurity, stupidity and malice that would induce an adult to say such things to a child. That’s ugly.

You sound like a lovely person and a lovely mum. There’s a lot of good advice here, and I hope you find a way of shedding these unfair, untrue and life-limiting beliefs about yourself. Sending you a big hug

When I was a teen I had zero confidence in my looks and developed a problem with insecurity. So I never had a boyfriend at school.

A group of male 'friends' basically destroyed any confidence I had gained in my looks as when I was 26 I discovered they were calling me by an awful name behind my back & saying I looked like a well known ugly male film character with a white face & frizzy hair. It was a horrible shock - one of them had always said I should straighten my hair but I thought they liked me, I didn't realise they disrespected me that much.

Other insults I've had mainly off men are that I was too thin, too fat, eyes too close together, bottom too big, hair had split ends, too pale skinned, looked miserable & didn't smile enough... etc. These were either male colleagues or strangers.

Then at 36 I had a psychotic breakdown.

My hair fell out at the front & I put on stones in weight but strangely got none of the insults - people seemed to know I was ill.

Now I'm 43 I'm stable & my hairs grown back & im losing weight.

Ive still had no insults recently despite working with men & going out socially.
Well, I think it's because I'm more assertive & confident than when I was younger & give out the attitude that I won't take any shit.

However I'm single & too nervous for online dating.

I sympathise with everyone on this thread - when you hear things enough it's easy to believe them.
Totally shocked to hear about those whose own families have behaved horribly towards them! What the hell. These people did not deserve to have children!!

BDD. It's a dangerous and awful problem for those that suffer.
Luckily there is free NHS help. Google iapt x

@aliceabsolum I wondered if it was BDD. I bought a book about it. I feel so snowed under with all these feelings and I’m afraid to see a therapist as the last one I had was awful.

Bless you OP and everybody else posting here!

I went shopping yesterday and caught sight of myself in a mirror in M&S. I was really sweaty so my face was all shiny, I could see a couple of spots and my hair was all frizzy from the rain! Not an attractive sight. I think I look quite nice sometimes and other times I just think “urghhhhhhhh.”

Everyone should watch this

I am quite hideous looking. It has an impact on every part of my life. Problem is that I’m already slim so I can’t lose weight. I’m so embarrassed about the way I look that I don’t dare have surgery. I couldn’t face talking about how horrid I am. And, weirdly, I feel like if I did make changes then it would be pointing out my previous ugliness even more.

My jaw is wonky, my nose is huge, one eye is a different shape to the other. My hair is disgustingly thin and getting thinner every day. I despise the way I look.
I have no advice Op but I get it. I get the sadness, the shame...I hope counselling makes you feel better and you can work past the horrible mistreatment you suffered.

@Weedinosaurus I bet if we were friends IRL I would think you looked lovely. That’s the thing, we don’t go around looking at people thinking they should change their nose/ jaw etc. We accept them exactly as they are and value them for their personality. Funny how I can say this to you and not apply it to myself in my own mind though!

I had a big realisation last night. I was tired and emotional after reading everyone’s responses and as I was going off to bed dh asked what was wrong. While talking to him I said that by snipping at my own hair again yesterday I’d made myself look like Anton Chigur (it’s true I’m not even being mean to myself). And I blurted out I keep cutting and changing my hair because it’s the one thing I can control. And I realised that’s why I’ve been obsessing over my hair for fucking years, going from long to short to a bob over and over and in the last week alone I have cut a fringe, hated the fringe, and then cut it shorter and hated that too. I’ve got to stop now. Let it grow and just be. There is no magical haircut that’s going to make me feel better inside. I’m still the same (unfortunately).

As an aside, I always want a bob but they never work out for me. I hate the traditional bob and a wavy bob always looks a mess on me. I’ve always looked better with long hair.

Aaaaaaaaand breathe.

I've got a delightful friend who speaks their mind, I used to be really thin then I gained some weight, I was happy as I didn't look like a twig anymore. They moan how awful I look, but then I'll be somewhere public and see other women, I realise I'm a normal size, also a healthy weight.

Due to some issues I get bloating in my tummy, but that's it. I hate how subconsciously I feel inadequate. Now I've realised it's them not me, I need positivity in my life, not negativity. The old adage, 'If you can't say anything nice...' springs to mind.

Your post made me think of this podcast I listened to just the other day.
podcasts.apple.com/cr/podcast/dear-sugars/id950464429?l=en&i=1000450632742

OP, I don't think it's unusual for hair to be very important to women and also often to men, I find it with short haircuts it's very difficult to get it right and I would feel very upset when I had short hair because I just couldn't seem to find the right cut or the right hairdresser.
I wear my long now and generally I find that easier, perhaps you could grow your hair?

TimeforanotherChange
I took your advice and told my negative voice who is now called Fred to f*ck off a couple of times today

Well done, bean! All sneery voices need to be told to fuck off. We don't need to do this to ourselves.

And OP
Change your username ! NOW

To ‘cantdecidebetweenbobormidlength’
Snappy

@RhinoskinhaveI yes I’m going to grow it. My hair is naturally wavy/ curly and I normally hate it but it’s a right pain to straighten because the tiniest bit of moisture in the air and it curls up again, so today I let it do it’s thang. It’s bascially a short curly bob at the moment but I will indeed let it grow back to mid length because I cannot make a bob work, I’ve tried and tried and tried. Like most people I see pretty pictures of models with baylayage and perfect wavy bobs but for your average Joe schlepping on the school run it isn’t a reality.

I will change my username when this thread dies, that’s a promise.

🙂

I wear mine up in a kind of top not most of the time, so you get the benefits of short hair ie it being all out of the way, but you still got the long hair there for if you want a long hair look 😊
Have you got some ideas for your new username yet? 😊

Yes I’ve changed it, this is me. I used to always wear my hair in a topknot and loved it, but I’ve got fibromyalgia these days and it actually kind of hurt my head to wear it like that in the end. I miss it.