I don’t know if I have the words to help you feel any better. I don’t know if I’m the right person to be responding. To be honest, I tend to be blunt, which people don’t always respond well to even though I generally have the best intentions. I’m also sure you won’t believe anything I say because you don’t seem as if you want to change your mind, even though you say you’re tired of feeling this way. I don’t know if I will even be able to make a response that makes any sense, but I’m gonna try anyway.
I feel like you looked into my soul and ripped all of the feelings out of me and stuck them in your post. I know how you feel, because of my experiences. I realize that my experiences are probably different than yours, but they’ve made me feel this way all the same. Or at least they made me feel what you’ve described in your post. I was bullied in school, from the day it started in kindergarten until the last day of my senior year and school was over. And to be honest, even for a few years after that, because I worked with some of the people I went to school with. Being bullied for so long is something that’s going to stick with me for the rest of my life, and I know I’m going to struggle with side effects from it for the rest of my life. Some of the things the kids said to me are stuck in my head, and some of the things they did to me make me not want to be near other people (people I don’t know and even a lot of the people I do know) for fear of it happening again. I also don’t show people pictures of me. No one needs to see me. I know I’m fat and ugly and I don’t need anyone to tell me that again. I can see what I look like. I have a mirror. I don’t trust anyone else to handle my food. I’m going to leave that part at that. I feel no need to explain that part any further. I’m in my 30’s. I’m never going to date or find someone who will love me for the rest of my life. I don’t believe there’s anyone out there who can love me in that way and even if there was, it would be devastating to find someone only to find out they changed their mind because of all of my emotional baggage.
Maybe you’ve had experiences like mine and that’s why you are so hard on yourself. Maybe you haven’t and it’s for completely different reasons. The thing is, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That’s not just something people say. It’s the truth. I know you don’t find yourself beautiful, but that doesn’t mean someone else won’t find you beautiful. Everyone has a different definition of beauty. Beauty isn’t just in what someone looks like. It’s in the things they do and the way they treat others.
You’re not giving most people the chance to see your true self, and so it’s no wonder you don’t believe anyone who tells you that you’re beautiful. It may be safer to keep people at a distance, but it’s a very lonely place to be. I know you’ve noticed this as you’ve mentioned it in your title and in your post. I also know that it’s much easier to say to give others the chance to get to know you better than it is to do. But that’s a lot of what life is about. It’s about taking chances on things that you aren’t sure about. It’s nice to stay in the same place if you like where you’re at, and a lot of times it’s ok to stay in the same place. But if you don’t like where you’re at, the only way to change and to grow is to take a chance on something different. Sometimes the outcome is positive, sometimes it’s negative. But you won’t know until you try. And if you find you get stuck and can’t try, then usually it’s a good idea to find a therapist who can help you move to the next step.
Also, it’s not really up to you to define what beauty is for other people, which is what you’re doing when you say someone is lying when they say you’re beautiful. How would you feel if someone told you that you had to hate something when you like it? How do you know that they aren’t seeing something in you that you don’t see? You can’t know when you aren’t really listening. You aren’t in their head to see what they’re thinking. Maybe they are only talking to you online, but that doesn’t mean they don’t see something in what you said to them. You’re not giving people a chance to prove to you that you’re worth their attention. I don’t understand why some people want to be around me, but they do. It’s weird to hear someone say they want to be near me or be my friend or whatever when I spent my childhood with people telling me they didn’t want me around. It’s something I struggle to accept. But… These people have their opinions. They’re entitled to them. And I just have to take whatever they say at face value, unless I find out something that negates that.
I hope one day you give someone a chance to show you that you’re worth seeing yourself in a different light. There’s so much more to you than what you look like, but you won’t be able to find out what it is with the mindset you have right now.
