Low self esteem thanks to crooked jaw

[mia0621]

You will do just fine. Treat yourself to a new haircut and some new clothes and step out. Have a good time!

Mia

[in need of a friend]

can i ask how old you are?

[piranhaman]

I have been reading this post with quite a bit of interest.

At the age of 15 i was bullied by almost my whole school on how ugly i was. i was very tall and skinny with a very very large head. apparently i had huge eyes and bouncy castle lips and big ears etc.

I went through a lot of depression and contemplated suicide on a number of occasions.

All my future dreams and career plans went out the window and i became very very very shy.

I resigned myself to the fact that i would be single for ever and so joined the army.

15 years on i can look back over all of this and i see how much it has changed my life.

I became obsessed with attracting the opposite sex and being a young man that meant being like the lifeguards on baywatch or the soldier in some war movie etc etc etc. Before you know iwas a body building nut who did martial arts etc. i went on from that and became an outdoor pursuits instructor and lifeguard. I then bought a flashy car and yet i still wasnt happy.

When I finally left the army i got together with my best friend in the world. She was wonderful and i was sooooooo happy. Within 6 months i started thinking that if she fancied me perhaps other girls might like me too.

I went from a shy insecure yet nice guy to an arrogant insecure man who cheated on his girlfriend any chance he got.

I still felt ugly but instead of comparing my self to the average guy in the street, i focused solely on male models and aesthetics. If a girl said i was goodlooking, i had to know how goodlooking and if it wasn't the answer i was looking for, i would go in to months of deep depression.

As i have aged and learnt from lifes lessons, i can see i had a bad case of body dysmorphic disorder. I realise now, there will always be someone taller, slimmer, more intelligent, better looking and happier.

My nickname always ends up as SHREK even if i have only just met some new people yet you soon realise that looks aren't the be all and end all at all. Infact my current fiancee is an ex model and she cant see why im called shrek by people.

My point to all of the above waffling is, i wasted a large chunk of my life trying to change the cards i was dealt. I feel lucky that i have finally seen sense. am i good looking? i dont know! what i do know is this. i love who i am, i feel the traumas i have been through have made me stronger and wiser and help me cope with life a lot better.

And if i do look like Shrek at least i can say i look like a movie star!!!!

At 19 i know that being attractive to the opposite sex is very important so what i would say is this.

[piranhaman]

When i did a psychology module on self esteem as part of a degree iwas doing, I came across a piece of work.

A psychologist back in the 1970s i think chose a school and conducted some interviews.

He found the most unpopular person in the school who turned out to be an overweight girl. Apparently she was bullied a lot and was very shy.

He also found some of the most popular children in the school.

His test involved the popular children showing that they liked the unpopular girl and hung out with her. This was all without the overweight girl and the rest of the school being aware.

Within a few weeks, not only did the popular children genuinally like the overweight girl, most of the school also classed her as one of the popular kids. On top of this the overweight girl became less shy and even lost weight.

The point to this is, how you see yourself is also how other people see you. If you believe that you are ugly and unpopular with women, that does have an affect on how they will behave. If however you focus on your great points and see that people will accept you for all the great things you are, People will see you accordingly.

At the end of the day, the average looking but confident man will win out over the goodlooking but arrogant one.

I really hope that makes sense to you as i do have a tendency to waffle mate.

[boy]

Wow looks like you've been through a lot Thanks, that helps And by the looks of it I'm a borderline BDD as well, crikey Never contemplated suicide but everything else sounds right!

[Jonathan]

I have displaced the cartilege in my nose and have a very noticeable cleft in the end which has destroyed my confidence, it looks horrible. It's very noticeable and because of it, I stay indoors as much as possible and feel that I'm disgustingly ugly and that people couldn't possibly like me because of it.

[Peru83]

I was bullied right through primary school for having a big nose [V]. Was never physical but still hurt all the same! I was called Pinnochio, Gonzo, Big nose, snuffles (mamoth in seseame st) ect. I was that miserable that my mum took me to the docs to see about Rhinoplasty (nose job). The doctor agreed and when I was 12 I went in for the surgery, my doctor wasnt' keen as your nose is still growing at that age, it's better to have it done after the age of 16, but I was insistant. For some reason I thought that having this surgery would change me completely and make me beautiful!

Well a fortnight later when the cast came off, I looked in the doctors mirror and cried, cause I was still the same!!! When I went back to school I had people coming up and talking to me who hadn't given me a second look before. One girl even asked me 'is your nose plastic now? are you like cher and can't go out in the sun?' ffs lol!!!

After a while I came to realise that these people that were now talking to me weren't talking to me cause they liked me or thought I was prettier, but just cause they thought it was cool and exciting that I'd had a nose job! I had a few of the girls I'd made friends with comment 'your actually quite sound', well why in hell wouldn't I be?! Does a big nose inhibit your personality!!

What I'm trying to say is, whats on the inside and who you are matters sooooooo much more than what you look like. If someone is that shallow as to not be able to see past your big nose, big ears, squint jaw, spots, frekles, birth mark ect then they aint worth knowing! Even the shallow people must have something that makes them feel bad about themselfs! no one is perfect!


Take Carexx

Claire

onwards and upwards

[modelgirluk]

Ive just noticed this post! How weird, I typed it in. Im a model and so VERY conciences about my look.

It first started with my bags under my eyes, I say bags, more like circles.

Then it was my nose, then my eyes one being bigger then the other and now my chin, which i actually thought was my chin.

As it is slightly further down on one side. It makes me feel bloody inbred lol!

I then after a few years looked at my jaw, and Its not aligned. I was really upset as I new there was nothing that could be done.

But... My teeth are not alighned at the bottom and I was meant to get 4 out when I was younger and didnt and wondered if this is why this has happened and if there is I get them out now itwill change my jaw.

Its really upsetting me and doesnt help my chin.

[NeverThink93]

[quote=boy;10620] Yes I have a wonky jaw. It makes me feel like complete well you know what. Im 16, I've never had a proper boyfriend and same about the kiss thing which feels very horrid to admit.
I know how it feels, I constantly feel ugly. I hate smiling, I'm a generally happy person which kinda makes it suck for me.
I've been told I should model because of my height but my crooked jaw makes me feel so insecure, im not as confident around guys as I used to be. I think my jaws getting worse. I would like to feel pretty but I cant.
I've been told I cant have braces to sort it and must have an operation - which I dont want, because if something went wrong, it would be worse and I would feel more ugly than already do. And also I wouldn't be able to eat or talk properly for months.
Someone on here replied on here and said nobodys perfect. Ok, thats true, but if it makes you feel so down and makes you feel like nobody could ever love you for the way you look, then if you can do something about it, why not do it?
Reply to me if you agree.
I dont know what to do about it either.

[Galatea]

I too have very low self-esteem due to my crooked jaw... it doesn't help I had other self-esteem problems growing up that beat down my confidence, but my spots have gone, I got braces on my teeth, now the only thing that bothers me is my damn jaw.

It's so crooked that when I look at myself the whole right side of my face is malformed compared to the other... because I had 3 teeth congenitally missing that bone didn't come in (bone grows in your face as your permanent teeth grow) my right eyelid droops, I smile crooked, my back teeth don't touch, my jaw clicks and pops, everything. I feel like one side of my face is pretty and the other is ugly. Forgive me for offensive use of this word but I have no other explanation.. I feel like I look like a retard with my shoved to one side. go look in the mirror and move your lower jaw as far right as you can and tell me how you'd feel posing for pictures. And no. Manually forcing it to the left when I want to smile doesn't hide it. :(

I look okay in the mirror to myself but I was told once that most people are used to seeing only mirror images of themselves and a photograph is not a mirror image, thus everything's reversed and we look totally different to ourselves. similar to being freaked out hearing out voices on tape recorders. When I see me in pictures... I want to tear the picture up.. and then if god willing tear my flesh apart, i get so angry

I've had people ask my friends behind my back what happened to my jaw... was I in a car accident? I wish I had an excuse like that

I thought getting braces would fix it... i thought getting a second opinon from the best ortho in the city would.. when he told me my problem could not be fixed without surgery it was the hardest thing in the world not to burst into tears in front of him

The simple thing of it is that I want this surgery badly... so badly.. and you are right... it may only truly matter what's on the inside, and **** anyone if they judge you otherwise so superficially, but all of the complications and risks, and for how paranoid a person I am about my health, seem a damn small price to pay for crying myself to sleep every night.

30 minutes from now I walk into the oral surgeon's office for a consultation. I hope my dreams aren't crushed.