Self Image
Entry posted by Nephylim
1,189 views
I have been inspired to write this by a number of recent threads
First of all... How 'real' is your online identity. Well I took that to mean are you a role player, do you pretend to be someone else, hide behind a facade and my first reaction was ... no of course I'm not. I don't hide behind any facade, I am exactly who I say I am. I am completely open and honest, what you see is what you get... etc etc. But am I honest? Am I completely honest? Becuase the only pictures I have posted here on the site of me are good ones... very good ones and by that I mean flattering.
So many times in the picture threads I have seen people post a picture and then say things like... don't blame me if you have nightmares, or don't run for the hills... what they are really saying is don't judge me by the way I look, don't hate me because I have a negative image of myself.
Of course some people say that to draw out favourable comments because they know they're good looking but that's a different story.
The thing is that I have been completely open and honest in all the things I have said... all the opinions I have expressed, the things I have revealed about myself, my likes and dislikes, who and what I am, my family, my experiences. But in the things I haven't said? The things I haven't let you see? Surely the things we hide say as much about us as the things we reveal, even more.
Another thread that made me think was the.... how do you define beauty... thread. How do you define beauty? All to often it's how somone looks on the outside and I know it is because that is a large part of how I define it too. I love eyes. I love minds. I fall in love with minds and eyes and I don't even have to ever have met the people behind them. So does it matter what that person looks like... no. It helps if they have gorgeous eyes and I usually find that people with beautiul minds have beautiful eyes, but it's not the way they look that interests me at all. If someone is beautiful on the outside but ugly on the inside then they are not beautiful at all.
So where do these two come together. Well it has to do with the way we see ourselves and the way we project ourselves online. When we are online no one can see us. They can't see the fact that we are slobbing out in our pyjamas or eating toast and gettng butter on our chins and the keyboard. We are not intimidated by beautiful shells or turned off by less than beautiful ones. In some ways we can be more honest online because we can show what is behind the mask and see what is behind other masks.
But is that being honest at all. Isn't that mask part of who we are as much as the things we say, the way we think? If you have a negative image of the way you look then doesn't that affect the way you present yourself, whether someone can see you or not?
I can express my opinions until the cows come home, contravertial or not. I can talk about intimate details of my life, my past, my experiences, my thoughts, feelings.. blah blah blah. But I don't take compliments well and in the beginning I would actually cry when someone said something really nice about my writing. I am getting better at that but sometimes it still makes me feel uncofortable. Why? Because I hate the way I look. Does that make sense?
It's hard to describe but over the last 45 years I have spent a large part of it being told negative things about myself, usually for non malicious reasons. My mother was so concerned that I would get 'big headed' that she took every opportunity to pull me down and sneer at every achievement I have had. You would think that she would be proud that I am the first member of my family to go to university, the first to be a professional, the first to be a writier, the first to be a painter... the first to actually do something interesting and creative with their lives... but no. It is a cardinal sin where I live to be considered 'snobby' or 'above yourself' and she was on a mission to make sure I 'kept it real'
And then there's my weight. I used to be a very active person. I played badminton for the county, a lot of sqash, walked the mountains, engaged in very physical activites with the re enactment society I belonged to .... like running around fields waving a sword at sexy men and screming. And then in 1997 I broke my back. For a time I had to use a wheelchair and I was told I would be confined to one at some point... well screw that. No one was interested in pushing me in it and got resentful when they had to so I got out of it and stored it underthe stairs. I threw it out the other day because it was gathering dust.
However, as a result of that accident and the ongoing problems it has left me I piled on the weight.
Once I was fat AND useless I started to lose hope. Then I got epilepsy and it flared up my psoriasis so now I am a red, flaky, fat, insecure person with severe mobility problems and a stubborn streak a mile wide. Who's going to love me? Well people who can't see me might.But then I would have to pretend to be attractive and that wouldn't be honest.... so I cut that whole thing out of my life. I can be a flirt to a degree but it's never personal. I never let myself get close to anyone, not it that way... well I didn't... because rejection is expected and therefore the opportunity to be rejected is never allowed to present itself
So I don't show a photograph of me as I really am, I show one of my head, in a good light, half hiding behind my hair, with enough make up to sink the Titanic.
So how honest am I? I am breaking all my own rules about beauty and I am hiding a huge part of myself from eveyone here. And that's not even touching on the whole vampire/angel thing and by completely off the wall beleifs.
So how honest am I? i really don't know.
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