Monday, November 13, 2006
I don't know whether I'm simply sad, or if it's SAD (seasonal affective disorder).
I'm also not sure how much I can respect a condition when it's obvious the strained name ("affective"?) was carefully selected to form a cutesy acronym. A REAL doctor would have named it something like Photosensitive Depressive Syndrome, but PSDS isn't cute enough, I guess. ("SAD" sounds like it was named by an action committee, or computer salesman.)
Whatever.
I think much of it might be that I've been in a lot of photographs lately. I don't look in photos like I think I look. I'm not disappointed when I look in the mirror - usually I'm even pleased - but when I look at a photo, I cringe. My skin hangs on my arms and lower face in floppy folds. The scars on the left side of my face are becoming more obvious as the skin loosens. My eyelids are sagging again, hiding my eyes. I look so thick when I'm sitting - I can't imagine how bad I must have looked 40 pounds ago. I thought my hair looked nice when I left the house, but in photographs it's dull, fuzzy, bushy, shapeless, and thin. I've been straightening it lately,carefully using the lowest effective setting on the straightener, and all of a sudden I've got splits and breaks. I also seem to slump a lot more than I think I do. And my nose has gotten huge.
Sigh. I look at the photographs and think "This is what people see when they look at me", and I almost don't want to leave the house. When people say "a distorted body image', they usually mean that the person thinks they look "worse" than they really do - like anorexics who think they're fat.
It's just as bad when you think you look better than you do.
Someone even SAID to me last fall, "You know, I think you think you look better than you do". We were snarling at each other at the time, and I thought he was just reaching for an insult.
The few photos I've put in this blog don't count. They've been carefully gleaned from the pile of compost. About one in fifteen photos looks like "the real me". The rest are ... somebody else.
It's hard to accept your own appearance when what you see in the mirror is a lie.
1 comment:
That's a horribly mean thing for him to say. 40 lbs is a lot of hard work, and you should be proud of yourself.
I was in a bit of a funk for a few weeks there, and although I'm not sure what changed, I'm starting to feel a little bit better. I hope you find your way out of it soon. The increasing darkness is depressing, and at least here it's been rainy and glum during the day, too.
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