4 steps of picture perfect

Most people nowadays are familiar with selfies and are also taking selfies. And I’m one of those people who never even considered to take one and I also hate to have my picture taken. Pictures of me are close to nonexistent. Of course there are pictures of me that my dad took over the years, simply feeding his slight obsession with photography. There are also pictures of my prom and few accidental pictures with my friends. But there was never a time when I was like “Hey! Let’s take a picture!”. I don’t even have a picture of me on my personal Facebook profile, there’s only few that people tagged me in.

So why don’t I like taking pictures?

It all comes down to me explaining you few main ‘issues’ that lead to my ridiculously low self-esteem regarding my looks. No I don’t think I’m ugly, I just don’t feel comfortable with myself. Now let’s get to the first issue.

1. My weight and body image

I was born prematurely, 3 months too fast and all my life I was the tiniest, skinniest, weakest and most quiet person in the room (well for most of my life). People always teased me because I was so skinny. I had around 40kg till the end of the elementary school and most people never realized that I used to puke out every single meal till the 7^th grade. Obviously not on purpose, my stomach just didn’t agree with ANYTHING I ever ate. After 7^th grade things slowly turned better and I could eat without puking. That’s when I turned into a really skinny and a quite picky foodie. I still have stomach problems if I eat too much or something that irritates my stomach. So gaining weight always seemed like an impossible task.

So thought my whole life people teased me about being skinny and kept asking me if I’m anorexic or even try to force me to eat. I can’t say schoolmates’ remarks bothered me, at least not consciously, but subconsciously, that’s a whole different story that turned into a HUGE problem for me. I now hate to wear anything that would “show off” my body figure. I always wore only big hoodies and preferably baggy pants/yeans. In secondary school the teasing got worse, even though I somehow managed to rise my weight to 45kgs till the final school year. Yet people still kept asking me if I’m anorexic. Even though most of my schoolmates noticed that I always munched on something, even during classes.

The most dreaded moment of my life was actually my prom. Oh goodie, aren’t proms supposed to be the second best day in a girl’s life? Well since it was a prom, everyone insisted on me wearing a dress (and of course I also wanted to be properly dressed for the occasion). But a dress is something I feel the most insecure in (besides while wearing, shorts, swimming suit or changing my clothes). I was so nervous I nearly puked in the hall, even though I managed to find a dress that kind of made me feel pretty and it fit me without some odd fabric flapping around. And to make the things even worse, my friend asked me why I didn’t wear a knee long dress and that, based on my body type a long dress looked really weird. Like… Gee, thanks.. Friend. And there goes my self-esteem out of the window again.

However I went to college, where no one cared how skinny I was anymore and things got a bit better. I even started to wear other stuff besides hoodies and oversized t-shirts. Yet, things went downhill in my 3^rd year. I was stressed because of everything, home issues, college issues, boyfriend issues. And that stress lead to massive change of my body. I rapidly gained weight, I gained 6kg in 6 months. Now you might say that this is actually not that rapid, but for me it is. All my life I struggled to gain it, but not like that.

The gained kilos obviously showed, so instead of a ‘perfectly’ flat stomach that I was used to my whole life I now have a slight flab of fat on it. It’s nothing major, I mean most people have a lot more visible layer of fat and they’re okay with it…. But to me, well it turned my life upside down.

My friends obviously had nothing to say about it, since they lived the “transformation” with me and they most likely didn’t notice it. But my family on the other hand, who only saw me every once in a while, their reaction was catastrophic. They told me that I got fat and I need to start exercising and lose weight or I’ll soon end up with a “beer stomach”.

Of course that was not the spike of it. The final blow of this part of my tale came from my boyfriend. We had a bit of a falling out at the time, so we didn’t see each other for a long time. But once we did met.. The first thing he asked me, was if I’m pregnant. Obviously at first I took it as a joke and told him that I’m pregnant with food and fat if anything. But I soon realized that he wasn’t joking, since he stared to accuse me of cheating on him and stuff like that. Not only that his idiotic behavior caused him  to lose his girlfriend, it also completely shattered my self-esteem.

2. The summer issue

Flat out, I have stretchmarks EVERYWHERE. On every part of my body that grew, ever. Also I had them since I can remember. They are on my hips, on my legs, behind the knees, on elbows, on shoulders (Yes you read that right!), stomach, back. Even my boobs have stretchmarks. I look like I survived a lion attack and they had to sew me together. So I guess you can imagine why I’d dislike wearing swimming suit and/or shorts.

3. Make up

I don’t wear make-up, unless it’s a special occasion and I have to dress up. I don’t see the need to wear it, after all the only thing I actually liked about myself is my face. Even though my face haven’t changed in about 8 years at least. The pictures of me when I was 15 look exactly the same as those now (I keep my ID pictures and yeah, they’re the same, only difference is what I’m wearing).

Apart from being completely okay with my face, there’s the thing that I can’t actually do make up, unless it’s a little tweak of mascara and a lip-gloss. But of course even my face had to get ruined by people, especially my mom and aunt (and some other female specimens), who keep nagging me to wear make-up and make myself look pretty. Basically they’re constantly giving me a reminder that they don’t think I’m pretty enough to be without make up. Well I know they’re only trying to help, yet the result is everything else but helpful.

4. Picture perfect?

And I got to my final point… I don’t like taking pictures, because I can’t pose for a picture. Seriously, if I force a smile, it looks weird as hell. But if I don’t smile, I look like I’m stoned.. So yeah. Picture of me is far from how I actually look like and I don’t like that.

 

Anyway, thank you for reading and sorry for misleading. Actually I’m not sorry for a misleading title.. But seriously I had to write this one out. It honestly took me two weeks to write it, because it’s the first time that I’m actually sharing something personal. However I do think this little ‘confession’ helped me realize some things. I should stop giving a shit about what people think of me, even though I can’t say that I’ll take a picture of myself any time soon. But if I do or better said, WHEN I do, it will kinda be a huge deal for me.

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