Feeling ugly

[ballet]

I’m a few years out of an abusive relationship, but still struggling with memories of things he said and did to me. Lately a horrible new sensation has arisen: the belief that I’m ugly. This is connected to something that happened just a week or two before he cheated on me and discarded me for someone else. I’d been away for a short while, and during my absence I went to the hairdresser. I came back home with the same style I’d been getting for years. I looked no different from usual. My ex opened the door to me, looked at me with a completely flat expression, told me I looked ugly, and slouched back into the apartment. No greeting. No hug. No ‘welcome back’. Nothing.

I’ve never thought I was an incredibly attractive person, but I never thought I was ugly either. I was comfortable with my appearance. Now, for some reason, that incident with my ex keeps surfacing in my brain. For the past few weeks whenever I’ve been in company with other people – in class, at work, in restaurants, on public transport – I’ve felt conscious about being ugly. I don’t know why it’s happening now, of all times, but it’s making me feel low and I wanted to get it out.

[freedomtochoose]

Thanks for this. And thanks for sharing. Don’t know this feeling exactly but I do know that my ex didn’t touch me physically for years, not even a hug and when I have felt brave enough to tell someone they were shocked at how awful that is to do to someone.

Nowadays I know I am a bit overweight but am gradually recovering. I think self-compassion is very important and especially with ageing as self compassion is a good motivator.
Small steps this board helps me a lot and thanks for sharing
ftc
x

[Aliceinwonderland]

I too am struggling with bad feelings about myself. Me ex had specific insults about my features, would one min tell me I was beautiful, the next joke about my big nose, wonky tooth. Tell me I should watch what I’m eating, maybe I should go to the gym. He paid for personal training sessions to try to improve me – this bit back fired because I realised there were people who can be nice to you without demanding anything in return and emotionally I left him long before he realised it was over.
Words hurt a lot, and these words he used to belittle you before his actions too were used to hurt you. It was abuse and you have every right to feel upset by that. The problem is these people carry on with their lives like nothing happened and we are the ones left with the emotional rubbish. It doesn’t seem fair. I have been feeling utterly worthless in fact last time I went out with friends I proper dressed up hair make up etc. I know on the outside I look confident etc but inside is not the same at all. But feelings change and I’m hoping these pass too. I’m sorry if not much help but you are not alone sending kind thoughts, and I hope you can be kind to yourself.

[fridges]

@alicewonderland
I can relate to your feelings about yourself.Many people do not understand how I can be not confident in myself. Most of the time I was faking that I’m confident about me – when underneath I do not feel it.
When I get dressed – I have the looks, she can have the world. But inside me there is so much pain, hurts, scares.
Most of the days I want to be invisible, because you feel so little.
I try very hard to heal and putting effort to it, learning, educating myself.
Replacing all the wrong roles what was given and labeled by men to me. I do not want these labels on me, I want to stand on my own feet and have control over my body, life.
Of course very hard to learn feel good about yourself, specially when you were abused so much. But these abuse is not you, it what was done by other person.

[fridges]

@ballet – you need to know that, what he thought about you and did to you, does not mean that you are ugly. It is his opinion – it was one of the ways, to strip your personality, your self respect and self love . By stripping us like this – we are easier to control and abuse.
See yourself with your eyes, not with his eyes. You are not ugly!
What is beauty? Beauty is when you are happy, when you are smiling, when your heart is at peace, when it is full of kindness and love, self care, self respect. We all need to learn to grow this in us, so we will be unstoppable.
What ever he said, you need to take away from your system, do not make his words stick to you.

After my first abuse – I felt so ugly, I had so much hate . for my look, for my body, for everything in me. I could not see the mirror without crying it and feeling really disgusting about myself.
I was constantly shamed for everything, it seemed like nothing is attractive about me and I was the most ugly woman in his life.

Coming out of it – with time, I even did plastic surgery, as I was still feeling so bad about my body and about myself. Now – I would not have touched anything, I’m serious. I was not perfect, but who is?
Even models are not perfect.
In France there is a new law for example – if on the photo model is photoshopped, they need to put the note it was retouched. So women stop to compare themselves to unrealistic image and feel about themselves.

Look at your strength, think about what you like and love about yourself, nourish it and treasure.

I know it is hard – it took me long time to take from me away – whatever I heard every day. My body was treated like a trash and I was treated too.

Not anymore – I grow, I choose to not to give up and I try to learn how behave healthy.

[fridges]

some words from the song of beyonce – flawless

We teach girls to shrink themselves
To make themselves smaller
We say to girls
“You can have ambition
But not too much
You should aim to be successful
But not too successful
Otherwise you will threaten the man”
Because I am female
I am expected to aspire to marriage
I am expected to make my life choices
Always keeping in mind that
Marriage is the most important
Now marriage can be a source of
Joy and love and mutual support
But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage
And we don’t teach boys the same?
We raise girls to each other as competitors
Not for jobs or for accomplishments
Which I think can be a good thing
But for the attention of men
We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings
In the way that boys are
Feminist: the person who believes in the social
Political, and economic equality of the sexes

[KIP.]

It wasn’t his opinion. They were words designed to make you feel bad. That’s how he made himself feel good. I had saggy t*ts and cellulite according to my grossly overweight balding ex. Intrusive thoughts like this can be a sign of PTSD or anxiety. Speak to your GP and get some good counselling. Try an elastic band on your wrist and ping it when this thought comes. Google mindfulness. I found it great. His words mean nothing. A sad pathetic dysfunctional individual who terrorised women.

[ballet]

Thank you all for your comforting words. I’m diagnosed with PTSD and I know that recurrent intrusive thoughts are a big part of it for me, but it’s only lately that I’ve been having this particular thought. At the time I was hurt that he obviously wanted to upset me, and frightened about what might happen next (when he started being cruel there was no telling where it might go), but I didn’t feel ugly. It’s frustrating for me that those words are suddenly bothering me a few years later. It’s as if he planted landmines in my brain, and I don’t know when the next one is going to go off or what it will involve.

I think part of the problem is that this summer has been full of weddings. Many of my friends are married now. I’ve only ever had two relationships (one good relationship, and then the abusive one). I didn’t even go on dates or anything when I was in secondary school because I was just too shy. My ex is also a shy person (or so he seems until he’s behind closed doors) but he just goes from one relationship to another, and never seems to have a problem with attracting women in spite of his awful behaviour. So this makes me wonder what’s wrong with me.

[KIP.]

There is nothing wrong with you apart from the trauma you’ve been left with. Relationships with men doesn’t define you. That’s the battered self confidence speaking. You could try some therapy or courses to improve your confidence. Sometimes when my PTSD was bad I also would become obsessed with something petty he had done. I mean petty in the grand scheme of things and I believe I focussed on this one thing to distract myself from the overwhelming reality of all the other much worse horrific things I’d been through. As painful as that memory is, I’m sure your ex did much worse. I think it’s just your brain trying to cope. I can now look back and laugh at some of the ridiculous things he said. He was probably in a bad mood and his way of improving his mood was simply to ruin ours. My ex couldn’t stand to see me happy. There were times when I would come home in a great mood. Tell him about something great that had happened and he would simply pull the rug from under me. How dare I be happy. I wonder if he knew you’d be happy after a trip to the hair dresser and was ready just to pull that rug.

[brokenputty]

Hi there
I am so so so sorry you’ve been made to feel this way, it’s just awful. Whilst my expartner hasn’t belittled my appearance it’s just everything else like the way I am, my personality, so that feels really sad and I’ve really lost who I am as a person and find myself taking on his opinions and I hate it. I can’t wait for it to fade away and I’ll just be me again ( hope!)

What I will say is that when your confidence is at an all time low, you won’t realise it but you will probably act like you don’t want attention or anyone near you. What you need is something to make you feel better and as sad as it sounds, just going off to get your nails/hair/tan/etc done can make you feel so much better, but beauty is as they say, skin deep! You need to do something for YOU, take up a class doing something like art, cooking or dancing or… anything! Something to give you satisfaction and your confidence will come naturally. It’s so easy to stand in the mirror and just self-loathe, I do it a lot, but it’s so much more damaging than getting out there and doing things for yourself.

Also – there is nothing wrong with you! That was solely his problem and his way of making sure you had no confidence – it’s working so don’t let it stop you from having that confidence now! xx

I need to take my own advice! I know it’s hard x*x

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