Self Image

[Jan W]

Dear girls,

Have you ever taken a big backward step with regard to your self image as a woman?

I was reasonably happy with my presentation until a few months ago and now I am not satisfied at all.

A few recent pics taken by my friends at social functions have left me unhappy with my image.

Not looking for sympathy I assure, and I will come back (hopefully improved) soon.

Has this happened to you?

If so what did you do to improve the situation?


Thanks ladies,

Love,


Jan

[Amelie-Laveau]

This is an easy one Jan,, Don't have friends take your picture.


I have had this happen to me as well. Just recently I had a friend take pics at a club and on the street. They were dreadful, they all went into deletion. Out in the public my photos look like the photos on drivers licsenses, awful. And it gets me down as well. I think that photos taken by others make us nervous and we tend to stiffen up and pose to rigidly, like a soldier. And photos taken at home, one is more relaxed to pose in a way she might not do out in public. GGs have good and bad photos as well, so CDs can have the same.

To improve the situation, I go back to my first sentence, don't have friends take your pic, well not when you go out. Go out to have fun, don't make pics a top priority, leave the camera at home.

[Stephanie H]

Leave the camera at home.
Go shopping select a few nice outfits, try them on with the staff assistance, have them complement on the style, form. Select a few pieces of costume jewlery, make sure it / them complement the outfit. Buy them, go home.
You will feel like a million bucks.
Always remember, Shoping is the answer to looking and feeling good. Do it more often when down in the dumps or if you do not appreciate your look. I get that feeling mostly when ever I wear and offit to many times

Shopping is the answer.

[DonnaT]

Only briefly. Last week, when trying on outfits to decide what to wear out Friday night, I didn't like the way any of them looked on.

Now, running around the house, in any of the outfits, I never think how it looks on, so I was surprised I was having these thoughts about appearance.

Friday night, however, I never gave my appearance a second thought, and just enjoyed the evening out.

[Daniel]

I think for many of us, the feeling we get in the clothing is more important than our actual appearance. While I am blessed with being skinny enough to earn the nickname "Heavy D" at college, since I dress from the neck down I still can't really look great. I don't worry about that, my height or my Adam's apple.

[Merinda]

Hi Jan ,

I had a session of photo's taken recently at the Christmas light display one evening , these were digital images that I was going to upload onto the gallery section of this sight .

However!!

When checking the images by zooming in a bit you could see every line and mark on my face , they looked like a really fake woman so I didnt post them .
This has prompted me to think about going back to using film , high definition images are useless in this excersise.

Use all of the 24 exposure film keep the good shots , rip and bin the bad ones.

[Elizabeth]

Hi girls,

We call it self image because it can not be blown up and printed out. It is the image we carry of ourselves and it can not be quantified on photopaper or in a digital file.

I take pictures all the time of myself that I do not like. Sometimes I even post them here or put them up on my site, because regardless of whether or not these pictures live up to my own image of myself, they are in fact me.

Pictures allow others to get an image of us, and when the photographic image does not match our own self image we sometimes find it upsetting. I personally don't allow myself to be guided by the photographic evidence of my existence. Because if I do, then I have to care what others think about how I look. If I have to care what others think about me, it would be impossible to be me.

Ever watch a swimsuit issue photo shoot? Or any high fashion photo shoot? Ever wonder why they take 20,420,428,285,298,489,375,298,720,945 pictures? It's because even the most beautiful people in the world don't look great in every shot. If fact they don't look great in most of the shots, which is why they take so many. To make sure they get just one good shot.

Now you are going to upset your life, and beat yourself up because in a certain moment your photographic record does not match the beautiful girl you see on the inside? You, me and everyone else are exactly the person we think we are. It is your choice, but looking good in a picture does not make one beautiful and looking bad in a picture does not make one not beautiful. I have seen lots of these so called "supermodels" in interviews and they look very average or sometimes not attractive at all.

Pictures lie, but our own self image is what we really become. I choose to be beautiful because it only matters what I think.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Hayley]

Hiya Girls,

Some extremely valid comments have been made in this thread in particular what Elizabeth had to say. Honey I couldn't agree with you more. But may I also add. A picture tells a thousand words and most of them are lies. I, like our beautiful sister Elizabeth, have photo's here at home that reflect back at me an image that I feel is not true to who I see within me.

I have a series of pics that include close-up and distance, believe it or not the close-ups are fantastic in my mind, but the distance shots darken my make-up and I can't identify with the woman within.

Now this may sound silly to some but we have many facets to our look, some days we see a glamorous woman, other days it's a guy in make-up. I prefer to be seen as who I am, not what other's perceive me to be. My loving SO, Carmen, is brutally honest and if she thinks I need to redo my look I get told in no uncertain terms. And her daughter, who is studying make-up and beauty, can be even more brutal, but in a loving way. God Bless them both.

The person I most identify with, stands before me in the mirror not in my pictures.

Just yesterday Carmen gave me a white singlet top, here I was thinking ugghhhh, but after putting it on I saw a woman in the mirror. My shoulders looked softer and curvier than normal. My whole look surprised me completely. And all because I saw in the mirror a true reflection of the person standing there facing me.

We all have good and bad days, be us CD, TG, or GG.

Love to all

[SilverLady(SO)]

Well said, ladies - and I couldn't agree more! There have been many photos taken of me that I absolutely hated, because it did not coincide with the image that I had of myself. On the other hand, I've had photos taken where I looked better than I imagined!

In that same line of thought, I've never particularly cared for the sound of my voice, which changed because of various allergies - I always thought it being too husky or masculine sounding. However, one of my best friends just told me that I have a 'sexy, feminine voice.' Who knew??

Hayley, your comment about the clothes is dead-on, too - - some clothes just have to be put on and seen before dismissing them out of hand as being 'not suited' for a person. I'm glad that you followed Carmen's recommendations.



- SL

[Lorna]

Hi Jan,

I've gone thru the exact same thing about 2 years ago. I had put on a signifigant amount of weight at that time and the new wig I had purchased right around then was just not a good fit for me. Hence I suddenly felt "ugly". Fortunately I have since shed the extra weight & purchased better wigs, but from that experience I have since come to realize that how you FEEL you look is by far more important than how you look to others.

And I have to say that Elizabeth's post was magnificent!! To me she is a beautiful person, you are a beautiful person, we are ALL beautiful people!! Every last one of us here in this thread, inside and out... I truly believe that.

I will also add that the camera can in fact be a cruel device from time to time... which is why Photoshop was invented! (Hey, we drool over celebs all the time, but we forget that their pics are airbrushed, enhanced, and Photoshopped like crazy - if celebs can do it, why not regular folks like us?)

Don't be too hard on yourself, hon. From the photos I have seen of you, you look beautiful. What happened a few months back that you no longer feel good about yourself?

Perhaps you ought to do what GGs do when they go thru this. Treat yourself to a new hairstyle (new wig in our case, LOL) or a new outfit! Shopping is always good therapy...

Feel free to PM me as well... just keep that beautiful head of yours up - and YES it IS beautiful!!

[Merinda]

I generally put my photo's in 3 catagories

A GRADE ( Excellent , good & passable ) , these go into my albums

B GRADE ( overstock , undecided & fair) , these are stored for future decission or cut & used in multiple scrapbook re-photo's , Merinda art etc.

C GRADE ( blurry , mistaken exposure , bad stance , look like a man in womens cloths , bad makeup lines or shine etc ) , these are put under the house for cutting up into small pieces and trashed.

I have trashed the entire photosession from time to time because I've been highly disappointed with my failed effort , you feel down for a while but I correct the mistakes in the next session.

As Elizabeth said " even a supermodel will only look good in a certain number of photos.

[Bernice]

The vast majority of my self portraits go into Merinda's "C" category. Scarcely 1/20 of 1% of my pictures get posted in our forum gallery. Most I reject because I cannot trip the self timer and then frantically get into the desired pose in time. Many have cut-off essential parts like my head or whatever. Some just have a bad expression, many have too much facial hair showing through, and some prove I am just plain fat, or have hairy arms, or broad shoulders.

So, I have a bowl of ice-cream, and revel in the ones that I did think enough of to post.

Hugs,

Bernice

[CJ]

Hi all,

Interesting thread. This may be off-topic but I do, in fact, often step back and try to take a good, long, objective look at myself... but as a person, not necessarily as a man or as a "woman."

As far as photos go, I've put up all kinds on my gallery--even those that I think make me look like a man in women's clothes (after all, that's what I am, isn't it?). When I first started coming here (or even online, generally), I posted pix of myself that I thought were as flattering as could be. Obviously, they were slightly "reworked"--call these my "fantasy" or "mood" shots. However, as time went by, I became more preoccupied with projecting an image (or a self-image, really) that was more in keeping with who I believe I truly am. I then posted a few boy mode shots as well as pix that weren't necessarily particularly flattering. They were just, well, "me." I sometimes still post "reworked" photos, just because I enjoy working on them and I enjoy the result; still, I never kid myself that I can look this good whenever I go out there, in the real world. And that doesn't bother me one bit.

Like many of you said here, self-esteem should depend more on how you feel about yourself than it does about how you look. Beauty, to me, depends more on confidence than the other way around.

Love,
CJ

[DeeDee]

I've been so darn busy lately..I haven't posted at all in weeeks..which is good for you all. But I had to respond to this thread...Many times after doing makeup and all..I get depressed when I see myself....often swear I'll never go out again. I'm not a beauty at my age. I do take pics to see how I'm doing, but...and this is what this thread was about...I think pictures are way to critical, and how we look at them. Posed pics for me...ahhh a few are ok. Ones taken by others, at affairs, seem more casual and better, but of course thats just my view. LOL..if I went by pics..I'd never go out again. And remember this..not too long ago it was poloroid for us...how many wasted many dollars with heads cut off!!!! So we go on..and heck girls..don't be too critical about yourself..you look better in person!!!!!

[Stephanie W]

Appearances are everything...or so they say. I think we all get hung up on appearances at some time or another. It's important for many in building self-esteem. The old saying, "You can't expect people to love you until you can learn to love yourself" is very true. Unfortunately, we can become too easily critical of the reflection in the mirror. I'm as guilty as the next gal because, hey, who doesn't want to look pretty and enjoy having others tell you that? I remember when I first started going out, I would have rather stayed home if I didn't think (at least in my mind) that I looked like a million bucks - even though others (the reality) may only see a crumpled old $5.00 bill, it didn't matter because I was happy with how I looked, despite still having a lot to learn. Of course if I had heard the $5.00 bill comment back then, then yes, my world would probably have come crashing down around me.

Nowadays though, I worry much less about that than I used to. More of a shrug and.."oh well", if my look is less than my pretty best. That's not to say I still don't try hard, but the important thing is how you feel inside and that goes to attitude, which in turn will radiate a confidence to others. Even if we don't look our best, I think most folks will see past that if you have a good attitude about you and the aforementioned confidence. If someone is so hung up on your appearance, then they're probably not worth spending time with anyway.

Yes, sometimes those photos can be our worst enemy. We all like to see nice pictures of ourselves because it validates the image we want to project. However, a bad one will play havoc with that self-image because we are inherently more critical of ourselves. That's only human nature. It really doesn't matter whether we're wearing a dress or dressed in a pair of baggy jeans and sweatshirt en homme, it is just a brief moment in time. Unless you're amazingly photogenic, few people will look good in every picture (as Merinda alluded to). That's just reality. When we're en femme, it's natural to be even more critical because we are paying far more attention to detail than we would ever do in drab.

Most of us have to put in a lot of work to achieve even a passing grade (pardon the pun) as we strive for the right look. (A tip of my hat to all those who have no trouble at all. ) With acceptance being important to many of us, it's only natural that one should feel their appearance, if not perfect, is a detriment to that goal and our self image. But it needn't be!

I think having a good frame of mind and realistic expectations about your appearance is key to how we feel about that reflection in the mirror. If we're feeling down because we had a bad day or are troubled by something in our lives, it shouldn't be a surprise if that has an effect on how we perceive that gal staring back at us. Depression, sadness or melancholy will highlight those unsightly bulges and accentuate those male characteristics we're trying so hard to hide. When we're in a positive mood and happy, I find we're less apt to notice things like that or simply less bothered if we don't look like the perfect woman - whatever that is. Even if wearing the same outfit on a different day.

Attitude is everything in my opinion but maintaining realistic expectations about the finished product is also important. I know as we age, it seems to get harder to put our femme selves together like we used to, but that's the time to re-evaluate those expectations. If we don't, then our self-image will suffer and sometimes that's a state of mind that’s hard to break out of.

Just do what makes you feel happy and your better self-image will take care of itself.

Stephanie