(no subject)

[neverwhere]

Sometimes I wonder how other people see me.

When I look in the mirror, I see alot of different things. Sometimes I see a cute, curly haired Hobbit lass, with a bright smile and dimples, and I like her. At least, I do until I look below the neck, and see my body. Then I rarely like what I see, and even when I think 'I'm not so bad' I still don't feel comfortable.

Sometimes when I look at myself in the mirror I see a happy, cheerful person, who's content with her life and feels at ease in the world. But most of the time I see a scared, lonely girl, who constantly lives in the past, unable to forget all the terrible things that happened to her, and can't move on to have a better life in the present.

Sometimes I think when people look at me they still see a frightened teenager, afraid to even look at people for fear of being ridiculed or attacked. Or they still see someone to attack, that I'm still an easy target for mockery, and that everywhere I go people are whispering about me, laughing and pointing like they used to do.

I wonder if people see my body as better or worse than I do -- is my bum bigger through their eyes than with mine? Do I really look like a Cabbage Patch Doll?
Do people think of me only as a fat person, instead of just a person?

I don't know. And I really wish I did.

Comments

*LONG POSTING AHEAD*

[lady-aquila.livejournal.com]

I always wonder that myself, how do people see me? I used to feel that I needed to know the truth so that I could act from it and not from false assumptions. But when I talked to the two or three people I considered my closest friends, I could never get any straight answers. I kept asking: What do you want from a friend, why do you prefer those other people to me, how do I do to make friends like you do? But this is probably the biggest reason for all of humanity's problems: we can't communicate clearly enough; we can never share how we think or feel in an unambigous way.

I totally understand how you feel, except for me the problem is social inadequacy instead of weight. I kinda addressed this in Irix' LJ too; where does all this guilt, all these percieved demands, all this trying to live up to somebody else's ideal of perfection come from? It's totally destructive really, but I find I can't free myself from this kind of thinking. We always have to compete, be compared, to get what we want, whether it's a job or a boy-/girlfriend. It's the way human society works, and I wish I knew how to fight it because it's needed. It destroys so many wonderful people with lots of potential.

I think you need to find balance in your image of yourself. You mention all these things that you sometimes are, sometimes aren't. If you try to integrate all of the sides into how you picture yourself ( except "fat"; you aren't "fat"! ), accept that the scared little girl is a part of your past and as such will always be a part of you, but at the same time you're also an optimistic, fun, talented, artistic and interesting person. Then you can focus on the things you ( and your friends ) like about you, strengthen and develop those strengths and use them to counteract the aspects of yourself you don't like.
*scratches head* Do I make sense here?

And, if you wonder how people see you, I have to say it probably depends on whether it's a first impression / casual aquaintance or a collegue / friend. People tend to put everything they percieve in categories to be able to organize their world. It would be total chaos if every thing, person or event was totally new. This is not necessarily bad, but it can be bad if you can't look beyond these categories. It also depends on how you meet the person in question, is it in person, over the phone, or over the internet. I tend to feel that the less "physical" stuff involved, and the more you get to know the "mind" of a person, the better it is. Other people can't relate to somebody they can't hear and/or touch. So, yes, some people may see you as a "fat girl", others may think you're very pretty. But this is only the first impression, albeit important, it's not the "truth". I'm sure the people who know you think you're a lovely, pretty person, based on a combination of personality and physical traits. Ignore the people who can't see beyond predjudice!

And, as somebody mentioned above, love yourself ( or at least accept and appreciate, "love" sounds a lot like Lockhart! ;-) and find strength in all of your positive sides, and people won't be mean to you. OK, there will always be some nasty people, but that happens to all of us. Normal people respect a nice person with a healthy self-confidence, but some of them can easily be drawn into bad behaviour by some "rotten apple" if you show too much vulnerability / lack of self-confidence. And then it easily turns into a bad circle. I know that from personal experience. Accept yourself and you will find strength in that. Don't let some nasty people's whispers behind your back hurt you too much. They will stop when they see they can't hurt you.

Yeah, this is all very easy to write, but to do it? I haven't succeeded yet myself. But I've been pretty lucky; nobody has bullied me for over ten years now. Sometimes people in general are nicer than we give them credit for...