The Graveyard of My Self-Confidence

Whenever I see a bunch of pictures of myself, I always cringe and think, do I really look like that? And we all know that the evil invention of facebook made this problem so much worse, because, well, everyone and their mother can now look at all these pictures. I cringe some more. Then, after the initial cringing is over, there are three possible attitudes that follow. 

Number 1: Denial. I pretend that those were just bad pictures. This is ludicrous, because you would think that out of 30 pictures at least a few would be good. But no. They must all be bad, because I clearly do not look like that. Then I look back at several good pictures of myself to reinforce this. 

Number 2: Acceptance. I say to myself, That's just how it is. I decide to accept that, although I didn't realize it, I look worse than I thought. Then I move on and don't think about it anymore. Because I still have friends who think I'm normal and plus, I have schoolwork and work and many other activities to keep me busy other than worrying about how I look. 

Number 3: Small emotional breakdown. This is where all my self-doubts pop out of thin air and begin pestering me about those pictures. My soul becomes a graveyard for self-confidence. It dies. I feel as though everyone is watching me. I want to wear a huge coat that covers from my chin to the bottom of my toes - except that I would not hide my shoes, because I always think my shoes look nice. Then I furiously grab my planner, write in unhealthy expectations like exercising every night (ha!), look in my email and find all those spam-like emails from some magazine that tells me all about how to eat right over the holidays and read them as if my life depends upon it.  

Then, after several days, I eventually forget all about those pictures, except for the random Exercise! written in my planner. I stare, puzzled, at that entry, wondering why I wrote it in there. Then the moral dilemma overtakes my soul about whether or not I should exercise . . . but let's not get into that.

For the sake of my mental, emotional, and physical health, I think I'll just refrain from looking at pictures of myself from now on. Good? Good. 

m(r)