Are you Pretty?

[Guest2]

This is not only for women.  If your parent was N, what did that do to your opinion of your attractiveness?  During that critical teen period?  When finding a mate?  Now?

[Bliz]

I am considered pretty but it has been hard for me to believe it.  I was a chubby child with a mass of kinky, curly hair.  My Mother was a classic blond beauty.  I was the polar opposite.  I never felt that good looking until my recent years when I accepted that I am and nurtured it.  I lost weight around 14 and felt more attractive.  My mother still nags me about the clothes that I wear and how I look at times.   I know it is about her but somtimes it still annoys me.

[Anonymous]

Most of the time I feel pretty and I've got friends and a husband that will tell me the same. But what stands out in my mind the most is that growing up, any time anyone would give me a compliment about my looks, dear Nmother would follow it with, "don't tell her that, it will go to her head" and a sneer. If I am feeling good or enjoying my looks, I'm told I'm vain.

[Anonymous]

When I was a teenager I was tall and skinny, however I developed my breasts pretty young and they stopped growing when I was about 13, so they aren't really that big now.  My mother always complained about the way I looked.  Guys used to tease me, they would call me a toothpick with two big bumps.  I was never overly concerned with how I looked.  I was washed and clean and my hair brushed.  I wore mostly jeans and baggy shirts, still do some.  However I am fully capable of getting all dressed up.

As I got older the rest of me filled out some.  When I was about 25 I saw a guy from school who had to take a double back to look at me and then asked if I was really me ... When I was 30 my mother decided for my birthday that she was going to give me a make-over as a present since I didn't know how to do my make-up (according to her).  We went to the cosmetic store and the lady pretty much put my make-up on like I do.  My mom then said something really needed to be done with my eyebrows and the lady said "OH NO, they are just beautiful how they are!"  Then the lady said to my mom, why don't we try some of this make-up on you.  Well my mom hesitantly agreed and had her make-up taken off (I went there without make-up on).  She put it on totally different than my mom does and it looked good, but my mom didn't think so.  My mom bought me some of the make-up, and that was fine with me.  I don't use make-up all the time and I don't use a lot.  I still have the three eyeshadows and the blush, but the blush fell and broke up some.  The facial make-up dried up a long time ago, I didn't use that much anyways.

I found that whole incident hilarious.  The reaction of the cosmetic lady was the best birthday present I could have, the make-up was just a bonus.  Like usual it all "flew over" my mother's head.

LM

[Denise]

Everyone is pretty in their own way

[Anonymous]

Hi all:

Everyone is pretty in their own way.

Great point Denise!!

(I was going to post....."Well, I'm pretty silly...does that count??"  But I like your comment much better!!)

   

GFN

[Brigid]

I think I worried so much how the outside looked, that I ignored the inside.  Not that I was bad on the inside because I do think I am a good person, but that I didn't pay attention to things my gut was telling me.  

As a kid I was skinny and had very little shape.  I was never told by anyone that I was pretty back then.  As I matured, I have become more attractive and I think I look better than ever now.  I have been overly conscious about my appearance, at least as an adult, probably because I was hoping that it would make my husband love me more and pay more attention to me.  Since the beginning of the separation, it has gotten worse.  I think this is because it was one of the few things I had within my control and it gave me something on which to focus.

I don't think I will ever not care how I look, but I am trying to give it much less focus now and concentrate on what goes on inside.

This is not an easy thing to talk about.  

Brigid

[Formerly Guest2]

Everyone is pretty in their own way
Denise
 

Yes.  I think this with the top of my head, but the bottom of my heart thinks I could possibly earn love by looking different.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is not an easy thing to talk about.  
Brigid
Thank you for talking about it anyway.   I think there are some N issues around looks and need to hear what happened to other people to maybe identify which messages I got were normal and which not.  I don't even know.

I changed my name because it seemed too generic.
Formerly Guest2

[mum]

Wow, American women....get your fear factor faces on!!!
This is a huge question, and maybe it's global, but in America, we are bombarded by what the "standard" of pretty is.
It's amazing to me, really.
I did not have N parents, and always felt pretty as a child....until teen years, when I knew I was pretty, but felt the standards were messed up. Screw them!
But then I have to ask: if others (not loving parents) hadn't told me I was pretty, would I still believe it or have said" screw those impossible standards"?  I must meet the standards somewhat.
My parents were both "good looking", so why should I get credit for genetics.....?  Or why should anyone?
I guess them being able to afford braces for me helped, but does that change the real pretty?

My own children are "good looking". When I was divorced and she was a preschooler, men would hit on me by telling my daughter how beautiful she was .....so I told her to say  "and I'm smart too!!"  Set a few jerks on thier ear...so funny (and she is way smart!!!)
My daughter went through a pre pubescent "chubby" phase, which took a lot of coaching through on my part, as her dad and stepmom, who are mean and stupid, would send her messages of "fat" girl, etc.  It took a lot for me not to choke him at this point!  I just told her what I knew to be medically true about her body at this point, and to NOT talk about her looks in anything but a positive manner at all.
Anyway,  she has typically moved through such a stage, and is now, suddenly a "swan" and now her dad is NOW freaking out about how "mature" she suddenly looks. (what a stupid loser).  Basically, she can never be good enough for him.
Bottom line, she is kind and loving, and THAT is what makes a person beautiful..
How many "beautiful" (physically) people do we all know, who are such mean, nasty folks, that the beauty is totally lost , and they are actually ugly to us?

My son, who is tall and handsome, told me he though his girlfriend was the most beautiful girl in the world. (awww) (and yes, she is "pretty").  
He said, "I wonder if I'm good looking enough for her."  I told him that I hesitate to tell him these things, as I don't want to creep him out, but my colleagues, after meeting him, say "oh, my Gosh, your kid is georgeous!" and so do his sister's friends.  That is the truth, and that did satisfy him....but I asked him to notice that the more he got to know his girlfriend, the more beautiful she becomes.  He got all starry eyed and said....yeah......

I am currently pissed off at my lack of motivation to get back to my skinny bikini body.  I want it, but I don't feel like doing the work to get it.
In ohter words, I don't want it that bad.  Chocolate is calling me.

So there you have it, the pretty dissertation.

[Portia]

I’m not pretty in a girly-way. I wouldn’t want to be. I don’t look like the back-end of a bus either. I don’t think much about attracting men, or women. I worry more about looking ‘normal’ (not eccentric).

“Earn love”? Love is reciprocal. Value me and I will value you. Be honest with me and I will be honest with you. Tell me your secrets, show me your vulnerabilities – this is what builds trust and love. How old are you Formerly Guest2? Are you still chasing passion, a knight on a white charger, happily ever after? I did (mother said it happened). It's all lies, dangerous lies to stop us being happy (happy people aren't great consumers and our economy depends upon having consumers).

Looking different might earn you lustful looks. It might earn you envy (often disguised as admiration). It might also encourage people to not see past your body and if they do that, they’ll be tempted to treat you as an object, instead of a person.

I was treated as an object in childhood. I treat my body as an object and I don’t particularly value it. I have trouble with this. How about you? What messages did you get?

INTJ - how about you?

[mum]

Portia: you're funny (back end of a bus!).
I think you are right on with your thinking: ie: healthy about it.

My 2nd husband was all about looks. Very, very vain...and always telling me how so and so looked, how young women have such great bodies, etc.  He would also compliment me on my looks almost to the point where I would say> how about ME....not my looks.  He never got it.
I was very flattered to be considered beautiful by someone for whom beauty meant  so much (after being told I was "allright" by a man who cheated regularly).  But it was a hollow prize and his admiration was never about the REAL ME....
Anyway, turns out he has no REAL him, just the shell and a lot of hidden (must be horrible) stuff he refuses to look at. He is his package. That's all there is, and when I wanted to get to know the rest....he didn't.
We are divorced. He is with a beautiful (even)younger woman now....who is fresh off a divorce from a real N (sounds familiar).

So if you go into things looking to "attract" with your looks....well, you got that right, Portia.

[daylily]

This is very painful for me to write about.  I am not at all attractive, and my mother was unmerciful to me throughout my growing up.  As I have remarked before, she used to cry because it was so difficult to be my mother--and believe me, that was entirely about the way I looked.  Otherwise, I was a pretty good deal--obedient and high-achieving.

I withstood incredible bullying and taunting as a child, to the point that one little monster actually walked up to me on the playground, announced that her father said she could hit me, and did.  Hard enough to knock me down.  My mother would not intervene; she said I had better get used to it.

I think it would be ridiculous not to admit that all this has had a big effect on who I am as an adult.  I am afraid of people in general, but women in particular.  I believe it is only a matter of time until my husband leaves me for an attractive and fertile woman, and I can't say that I would blame him.  I don't talk about it much, because I don't want to be so needy.  I just try to build up some reserves of strength against the day when it will happen.  I try very hard to be "appropriate" and inconspicuous; I walk looking at the ground, dress in dark colors, avoid eye contact, etc.  The cosmetics industry might never have been invented, as far as I'm concerned.  Most of the time, I feel that I'm not really a woman.  None of the experiences that seem to define womanhood have happened to me, except the painful ones.  I had a wedding, mostly because I thought it would give my mother some pleasure to be "mother of the bride" for at least one of her three daughters, but it was a quiet disaster, an event to be endured rather than enjoyed.   When I saw myself in my dress for the first time, my only reaction was, "Get this off me."  I kept repeating, over and over, "I have no right."  My mother was very angry at me.  I haven't looked at my wedding pictures once, although we just celebrated our 12th anniversary.

In recent years, I've also come to believe that my attitude toward my appearance has affected how I feel about medical care.  I haven't been to the doctor or dentist in years, mostly because I'm both ashamed of how I look and indifferent to myself as a physical being.  In other words, I find it rather difficult to take care of this body I hate so much.

I am trying to change this, mostly because I'm tired of hating myself.  But it is extremely hard.  Forty years of habit builds a very thick wall.

I can't write any more.

daylily

[write]

was jealous of me and my sister and our looks/ figures when we grew up. SHe even lost a load of weight when we hit puberty, and made it like she was competing somehow...

It did us all a favour though. She had an affair and went off with the man, and wasn't part of our lives after.

My father has loads of problems, was neurotic, controlling and clingy, but I swear when she left it was like the whole household did a collective sigh of relief.

I've often wondered if I have PTSD from those 16 years lived in that hostile atmosphere she created where ever she went ( oh yes, she caused trouble everywhere she was )

[Anonymous]

Awwwww ((((((((((((Daylily)))))))))))):

I am afraid of people in general, but women in particular. I believe it is only a matter of time until my husband leaves me for an attractive and fertile woman, and I can't say that I would blame him.

Maybe, he sees beneath your external appearance?  Maybe he loves you.....not your body?   Daylily, you are soooo beautiful!!  I mean it with all of my heart!!  Inside.  The inside that you are letting out here.  It may seem awful and painful and ugly to you, but to me, it's the most lovely thing.  What's in your heart is not the least bit ugly, Daylily,  It's just those nasty experiences tricking you into believing that your body is the be all and end all of you.

It isn't!!  It's only skin deep.

I once knew a gorgeous look girl.  She was model material!!  There was a gas leak in her appartment and she lit up a ciggarette!  Kaboom!!!

80% of her body was burnt badly.  She was soooo lucky to survive!!  She endured the horrible of physical pain and many, many reconstructive surgeries, in attempts to fix the damage.  It was unfixable, as far as exterior beauty is concerned.  She was the scariest looking human being I have ever seen!!  Or I thought so at first.

Then I got to know her.  She told me her story.  She told me about her looks before the accident and showed me pictures.  She told me she was a pediatric nurse now.  When I asked her why she chose that profession she answered:

"Adults are such cowards.  They just give me frightened looks or avoid eye contact.  They can't handle the way I look.  But children.......children come right out and ask:  'What's the mattter with your face?'.  They're so honest and not afraid to be honest. "

She was one of the most beautiful people I have known.  I don't see the scars.  I don't see the supposed ugliness.  All I see in her is lovliness.

She also used to raise her hand, as if to be kissed, and say:

"kiss my a**"

She told me:  "They used the skin off my butt to cover my hands".

What a happy person!!  What an inspiration!  What she sustained and transformed into something good.

 I find it rather difficult to take care of this body I hate so much.

Please don't hate your body.  Please believe that inside your body is a good and wonderful, lovable, sweet, honest gentle person!!  What on earth could be more beautiful than that??

((((((((Daylily)))))))))

GFN

[mum]

((((((Daylily))))))
I am sorry that my post may have sounded flippant.  I do not know anything about "pretty", I realize.  
I cannot see you, and I have always thought of you as a beautiful person. My image of you, because of your post name, and your words, is one of warmth and deeply natural beauty. I am sorry you don't see that about yourself when you consider "pretty".

I cannot believe a mother would ever, ever, under any circumstance, not think and tell her own child that they were the most wonderful, beautiful creature ever to walk the earth.  I know so  many "unnatractive" people (by some "standard", I guess) who are extremely attractive in so many ways as to the point that their physical appearance takes on so much more meaning than those of an arbitrary societal standard of beauty.
Perhaps this is because they were fed with loving, positive mothering...I do not know.  I do know, that what your mother did is unexcusable.

You are married. I am sorry you think that is not real in some way.  I would be willing to bet that man sees beauty when he is with you.
But your self image, it seems, is not only about how you look.  You may feel that is where it is centered, or came from, and it may well be so.
But do you feel you could heal?  I think you could if you want to.  
Are you in therapy?

I heard someone say once: 'People think I'm handsome because I act handsome".  It was true. (and once you got to know him, he became less so,as he was without empathy). But the "whistle a happy tune", or "fake it til you make it" mentality is about attitude, not appearances and in that way, it may work to some extent.  

You have let us get to know you here on the board as a beautiful soul. I doubt any of us could ever see you differently in "person".  It doesn't sound like you believe that, though.

I hope you find help with this.  I doubt this "hiding" is helping you have a happy life.  Sending you love.