Just needed to be heard for a little while

whitewing

What did your great grandfather do, WaS? Do you know anything about him?

whitewing

Waves_and_Smiles wrote: »

My mother and grandmother looked like sisters and were very pretty and quite different to how I looked. Round faces, little nose and mouth, dark brown round eyes and dark, straight hair. I picked up almost none of their facial features although they did have very big boobs which I did inherit. They were also quite small, my grandmother was 5 ft and my mother 5 ft 2. All in all they looked delicate. I got my dad's family's height at 5'7 and I am also quite broad shouldered with clearly defined bones, not delicate at all.

Get a roll of greaseproof paper, take all your clothes off and get DP to carefully draw around you with a pencil. Cut the life sized shape out.

Do the same for DP.

Stick your silhouettes up in the bedroom or on the sides of the Cupboard of Doom or somewhere.

Get used to how your shape looks. Is your shape really that displeasing.

Also DP has to take 5 - 10 close up photos of your body parts, or a curve or something. Clothed or unclothed. He can take more photos than this and edit them down. Then he has to show you and you need to look at them. It will help you get used to yourself.

Waves_and_Smiles

He was in the army for a while in Poland and was then stationed here. He decided to stay after his service was over as he had met my great grandmother who was here as her family had emigrated. He owned a building company that he built up from scratch and worked hard and benefited from it. By the time my grandfather was born they were quite wealthy and by the time my dad came along the family was seen as quite posh. My mothers family were very working class with few of them working long time so there was a huge contrast there.

I found out years later that my grandfather had an affair and left my grandmother and had 3 children with the woman who became his new wife. I am in vague contact with one of my cousins from that marriage but we don't speak very much even though she wants to know all about me. I found it very difficult as she is quite elderly and wanted to know all about mine and my parents lives and frankly I don't want to risk upsetting her with the truth. It isn't the most heart-warming story...

Oh, good idea whitewing! You do come up with some fun ideas! I have added that to my goal list!

elsien

You might also discover you have a really sexy little toe. Or something. It doesn't have to be the obvious stuff. (Totally unrelated, but have you seen how much the shoe fetish stuff goes for on eBay.)

Whitewing, you have some really creative ideas to help WaS. I'm in awe of your suggestions.

lostinrates

I think feeling comfortable with the way we look is very important but, WAS I think it ties in with that thing that its is what WE are thinking about us, because other people are thinking about them. If people are commenting or thinking negatively PERSONALLY its born out of their own insecurity.

At certain times in my life my appearance has been very up for discussion in a non personal way, I am able to view my appearance and body reasonably subjectively and I am under no illusion as to my good and bad points, and if it were not for the ravages of health I am happy with the cards dealt appearance wise. I find the ravages on my body from appearance one of the single hardest aspects to deal with, with puts every thing I just said into a box and marks me as a hypocrite! but its honest, I believe both things concurrently.

whitewing

Waves_and_Smiles wrote: »

Oh, good idea whitewing! You do come up with some fun ideas! I have added that to my goal list!

You inspire me more than most people do. You are similar enough to me for me to think that some things I offer may be useful (and they do seem to help me too because I am looking things up and reading around things, which is an unexpected bonus). I am also making a huge effort to do things with my daughter. I do not have a natural maternal streak and my health visitor actually got someone else involved to help me learn to play with her. So as I watch her develop I am reminded of how things were with me and therefore how it may be likely things were with you. So the past couple of days I actually seriously think that there is no such thing as an ugly person, only someone who is neglected by themselves and their family.

Some things are sparked by something I read or saw. I think some of Gok Wan's makeover shows have a husband videoing or photographing the wife while doing a running commentary.

Something are from something else entirely. I am a good lateral - thinker (so I am told, but had forgotten). The greaseproof paper thing was because DH had asked me to make a Victoria Sandwich and I need to greaseproof paper it to stop the cake sticking to the tin. You could use wallpaper but you may not have a spare role knocking about. I thought it more likely that you'd had the greaseproof paper.

Waves_and_Smiles

Very true, LIR. There were reasons why my family called me ugly that weren't actually to do with my appearance, it was because I looked like my dad. With the children at school I think it was more another insult to tell me because I was different and didn't know how to socialise, they just generally didn't like me.

People have told me that I am pretty and I haven't been short of attention when I was younger yet somehow I find it hard to reconcile that with my own self-opinion. I remember once my mother told me that the ugliness of my personality showed on my face. That stayed with me and has influenced a lot of my self-image.

I do indeed have greaseproof paper! The ideas you come up with do help because I know all the standard therapy ones and have done them to death. Yours are new and exciting and also fun so I am more willing to try!

elsien

It just says way more about the ugliness of her personality than it does anything about you. But being young and isolated it's the opinions of those closest to you that become most ingrained. How old were you when you started to realise (on an intellectual if not emotional level) that you could have a different perspective to your mother?

lostinrates

Waves_and_Smiles wrote: »

People have told me that I am pretty and I haven't been short of attention when I was younger yet somehow I find it hard to reconcile that with my own self-opinion. I remember once my mother told me that the ugliness of my personality showed on my face. That stayed with me and has influenced a lot of my self-image.

I do ind!

You describe your mother as very pretty and delicate.

Did their character reflect in their appearance?


Sometimes behaviour, demeanor, is revealed over time in ones face, but character is not in ones features. Very beautiful people can be very beautiful inside or not. Most of us are average looking and average doing, and vary day to day.

whitewing

Your mother was seriously ill and unhappy for the whole of your life. It is still a choice she made to be nasty. You also probably found it a lot more difficult to shrug off than in normal circumstances. Even at a young age children with a good sense of self will stick up for themselves at the injustice of an unkind remark unless there is no point. Did you ever tell anyone near the time that your mother had said that? Did you tell your father?

You don't have an ugly personality, WaS. We wouldn't be here if you did. You think we are all lovely. A consultant psychiatrist told me that we tend to attract people who are similar to us. Now, these are comments really for an adult because children can't help their situation. You have a lovely DH and a lovely Team WaS so, by default, a lovely personality. We would have sussed you out by now if you weren't. And, I say again, you don't have to be perfect. We will still like you.

You will also be able to cope with being and looking attractive in the future. There are no ugly secrets inside you any more. People can learn as much or as little about you in real life as you feel comfortable giving and we and your DP will help you with that. But it won't be a big deal if something comes out accidentally as the fact is the fact and other people, not you, have their own responsibility of how to deal with it.