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I’m in the group who had a mother who was horribly critical. Examples:
Don’t wear your hair in a ponytail, you should cover as much of your face as possible
Don’t look in the mirror in the school bathroom, the girls will think you believe you are beautiful and will make fun of you
You get the point.
Then I was married for 14 years and one day the spouse announced he was moving out because “I don’t want to hang around and watch you get old”. I was a whopping 44 years old at the time.
So while I’ve come to believe that I’m perfectly fine looking, those comments have lingered and resulted in my decision to avoid men (because I won’t measure up).
Another one with a wicked mother here. "Oh, too bad you take after your father, instead of looking like me." "Your hair is too thin, it looks terrible." "Your neck is so short, too bad you don't have a long neck like I do." "Oh my, your ankles are so much thicker than mine" (my ankles are normal size, not cankles by any means, but even if, why say something like that?) And one time after I had just had a baby, "You are much too fat, you'd better lose weight or your husband will run off with a slim, pretty woman." And on and on. I really can't figure out why she was so mean and critical, but I do know there was something wrong with her, not with me!
Not at all. I'm late 30s, no botox or any other work, and I rarely wear makeup. I feel prettier and sexier than ever before in my life, honestly. I've done a LOT of therapeutic and self-help work over the past three years, and I'm finally starting to like who I am deep down inside. When you have that confidence, you glow.
I've always thought older women were very beautiful, so getting older isn't something I'm too concerned with. My heart breaks when I see these 20-something young ladies filling their faces with botox and fillers... it's really sad. Beauty is a truly happy smile. It's kindness. It's a light that comes from within.
When I had to start wearing glasses in 4th grade I felt they made me look ugly and back in the middle 60's kids called me "four eyes". Plus, I was a small for my age Italian girl who looked a lot different from the other kids. My grandmother, who raised me, always told me I should be grateful if a man was interested in me. Unfortunately it made me choose poorly when it came to men.
About 12 years ago I ran into a lady I knew from high school. I was around 52 by then. We talked and the next time I saw her she brought in our yearbook; I had lost mine years earlier in one of my many moves. In looking at myself and my classmates I realized I was actually one of the prettiest girls in my senior glass. My grandmother and having to wear glasses when few kids did at a young age, colored my perception of what I looked like for years.
Now at 64 people are always amazed that I am not still in my early 50's and I finally realized that I look damn good considering all I have been through in the last 15 years.
Looking back at photos of myself during my school years, I also seem a lot better-looking than what mean-spirited people (family members and others) had convinced me I was. I was forced to wear glasses during the 3rd grade, even though I had flawless eyesight and that added to the incorrect self-image I had. Forming a strong and accurate estimation of ourselves and our abilities at that age, is more important than the feedback we get from others. Because much of what is pushed on us by others about ourselves, is not done for our benefit and we shouldn't let it eat into our self-esteem.
Looking back at photos of myself during my school years, I also seem a lot better-looking than what mean-spirited people (family members and others) had convinced me I was. I was forced to wear glasses during the 3rd grade, even though I had flawless eyesight and that added to the incorrect self-image I had. Forming a strong and accurate estimation of ourselves and our abilities at that age, is more important than the feedback we get from others. Because much of what is pushed on us by others about ourselves, is not done for our benefit and we shouldn't let it eat into our self-esteem.
If they gave you those glasses to prevent lazy eye, consider yourself lucky.
Mom was never one for sparing our feelings but Dad was the source of hurtful comments about our looks.
He resented us for existing, so I kind-of get it, but nobody should say those things to kids.
This must be Fluffy-bares-her-soul day. I gotta get off the computer and do some stuff.
From the many testimonials here about such verbal abuse from family members, you'd almost think it was a rite-of-passage, that is part of human behavior. Maybe it is helpful, to know that we weren't alone. Perhaps even those who were considered very good-looking, had to deal with it at home?
My own sample I'll offer, comes from when I was eleven and first started to contemplate my appearance. One day, my mother caught me in the act of combing my hair before a mirror. She sneeringly said, "Well, aren't we being vain!". But then she added, "I guess it won't do you any harm to try to improve your looks-----you certainly don't have any to spare!".
An extreme example of this, was a very nice young woman I met during college. She was just gorgeous------drop-dead good-looking, as they say. And she had a shape that would have stopped traffic. But she must have been put through the wringer at home and made to feel unattractive. As we were getting acquainted, she puzzled me by saying, "If we become lovers, you won't like my body-----it's just not good at all." Well, I'm an expert on that subject and I thought she was one of the best in that respect. But she would have none of that. She was convinced otherwise and could not get past the self-image that was embedded in her.
Many of these women you hear about, who don't like their own bodies, would probably hear a different opinion from men, if they were permitted to comment on them.
If you had flawless eyesight, there was no danger of lazy eye.
Who was his ophthalmologist, Dr. Jekyll or Hannibal Lecter, or the goofy mother who forced him to wear specs?
Sometimes the vision tests perfect but they are actually over accommodating even if the eye looks straight and they need plus lenses. It's all I can think of that a kid with seemingly good vision would be put into glasses.
It took a little bit of getting used to for me to get comfortable to my post-partum body. I had two back to back pregnancies while hovering around 40, and that takes a toll...things are less elastic than when you are twenty, and two pregnancies in two years, one of them involving major abdominal surgery, is pretty intense.
But I've really come around to appreciating all my body did, gestating and delivering two humans in really rapid succession, and it makes it really hard to feel negative about how skin naturally shows evidence of stretching, or how a c-section scar stays puffy.
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