How do you see yourself? I suppose that like most folks, I don’t see myself very often in a full-length way, or if I do, it’s for a second as I walk by a window or mirror.
I’m watching the raw footage of the wedding video I am editing. I let my son use one of the cameras and so I am seeing footage of myself. It’s pretty sobering.
It’s one thing to have a perception of what I look like and how I might appear near others. It’s quite another thing to see videotape of myself standing near family members, and realize with absolute horror exactly how fat I am. How much taller I am than all of them. ( Short family ). How I slouch, and how out of place I appear.
Sobering isn’t even the word.
Ever had one of these moments, when you see yourself either on tape, or in a photo and realize that your inner image of yourself has almost no connection with reality? Is this common, or do most folks not have such moments of shock and surprise when confronted with video of themselves??
Funny that you bring this up, because I was just thinking about this last night.
I know that I’m overweight, and have been for the last 9 or so years. Somehow though, my brain is still stuck in the mode where I’m in decent shape, and that’s my general self-perception of myself. When I see pictures of myself, it’s a terrible reminder that the body I once knew is long gone (at least, until I get it back).
When I was thinking about it last night, I wondered if it’s the opposite of what anorexics and other people with eating disorders go through. Despite the fact that they’re clearly dreadfully underweight, their perception of themselves is of a fat person. Mine just works the other way around.
About 6 years ago, perhaps 7, my adorable husband bought a digital camera and was playing around with it. He took a picture of me, a side view that was really enlightening. Two years later I was 65 pounds lighter, and had obtained my certification as a personal trainer.
To say I was shellshocked at the sight of a side view picture of me was to put it mildly. I had no idea just how fat I was, from the front I didn’t look that bad, from the side and back :eek:
Never again. Now I keep my weight in check and workout and eat right.
That happened to me after being photographed in a friend’s wedding. I thought I looked great that day, then the pics came back. I was looking at them and I said, “God, whose big ass…OMG, that’s me…Arghhhhh!!!”
I had been drinking a lot that summer and had put on a lot of bloated weight. The day I saw those pics I stopped drinking anything at all for two months, then I slowly began to drink occasionally again. It was like the immediate diet. It took no real hardship to lose the weight because I was so appalled at the sight of myself in those pictures.
So, now I have my boyfriend take the occasional snapshot of me just to be sure what I’m thinking I look like is true. Thankfully it’s all better now. And I weigh myself once a week just to make sure I’m not letting pounds creep up on me. It really works.
I saw a videotape of myself about a year ago wearing what I thought were my best pair of jeans. They looked like clown pants! The wind was blowing and the denim was rippling around my little toothpick legs.
Then there was the time I found a swimsuit that fit me perfectly in the little kid’s department. I looked in the fitting room mirror and thought I saw someone with a wasting disease.
I weigh about seven more pounds now than I did then, and I’m hoping to put on a bit more so I don’t frighten people.
“A mirror doesn’t usually get any message across because it’s like a picture that’s been hanging on the wall for as long as you can remember. You really don’t see it anymore. . . . have your best friend (or your most critical acquaintance) take some candid snapshots of you from all angles, dressed just as you usually appear . . . The same hairdo, the same makeup, and of possible, the same expression on your face. Be honest! Be sure to have her take rear views, too. An 8 x 10 will show you the works—and you probably won’t be very happy with it. Sit down and take a long look at that strange woman. The shock of taking a photographic inventory may send the average woman to bed for a week. But it could be the best thing that ever happened to her.”
S’trewth! I see myself—in my mind—as an Erté fashion drawing. Then I see a photo of myself, and I’m a Helen Hokinson cartoon.
My first shock came when I stayed in a swank London hotel for a business meeting. The huge bathroom had marble everywhere, a giant tub, separate shower stall, separate WC, and lots and lots of mirrors so I could see myself at every angle. Not good. I always thought I looked a little chunky when looking head-on, but from, say, a side or 3/4 view all I could think was ‘damn’.
Then there’s video that my wife shoots sometimes when I’m playing with the girls. I’m a lot balder than I can detect by looking in the mirror. Not to mention the heft. Super.
Eve, dear, I see you denigrate yourself from time to time in threads. Imagine my shock at how attractive you are when I finally saw a pic of you in one of the recent threads. Maybe you’ve taken a cue from SEC football coaches and set the bar low so we can be pleasantly surprised by the real deal. But if you really see yourself as you say, then I have to say you are mistaken. You are an attractive woman.
I lost some weight recently and it still throws me when a medium or even a small fits. In my mind’s eye, I’m still quite round. The good thing about walking around, thinking I’m still overweight, is that my reality checks are generally pleasant. Bad reality checks, where it turned out I was even bigger than I thought, could put me in a funk for days.
I’m 6’5", 165lbs. That’s not as skinny as it sounds but it’s skinnier than I’d like to be, and pictures do remind me of this somtimes. I’d like to be about 175lbs.
My mom took a family picture of the three of us 2 years ago.
GAH! When did my face get so round? And who stuffed all that padding into my pants?!? I have never been skinny since the onset of puberty, but dang, I never thought of myself as being as big as that picture…
However…
The past 2 years or so I’ll glance in the window as I walk down the street and think to myself "oh my gosh is that what I look like?’ Because gravity sucks (literally) and living for 30 years in this sunny arid climate has not done a lot for my skin.
Sooner or later, we all have our little moments in which we realize that all is not as we would like to think it is.
Ah well. I’m getting used to it.
I’m much thinner than I used to be (see my story in the recent tell me your weight loss thread, which I am too lazy to link to). I still hate pictures though - not because of the weight, because I know I am at the right size (and even more toned now than a month ago) - it’s because in my head I am much prettier than the pictures show.
[QUOTE=Eve]
The shock of taking a photographic inventory may send the average woman to bed for a week. But it could be the best thing that ever happened to her."
[QUOTE]
Unless you’re Gloria deHaven, in which case it’s perfectly okay to supply a production in 1990 with a studio glamour still taken in the 1930’s.
I shot the job. She showed up. Before she arrived, they showed me what the “talent for the day” looked like.
Good lord. 60 years ago, with properly gauzy lighting and filtration, she was pretty… hell, 20 years ago with properly gauzy lighting and filtration I was… 24.
The way I look at it is I could go back to the gym, work out hours upon hours a week, drop the few extra pounds and do that for the rest of my life. Join the members of the Treadmill of the Damned. You know those people. They often progress to Aerobics, Pilates and other buzzwords of the perky.
The fact is after having a couple of kids, the belly situation will be even flabbier and the tits just don’t hoist themselves.
I’m not fat. I’m not skinny either. As my four year old put it best, “Mama, you’re squishy.”
Or, I could maintain what I have now, stay healthy, active and work on being emotionally happy.
Remember, kiddies, fat is easier to maintain than skinny.
I’m a lot skinnier than I think I am. I only weigh about 100 pounds, but I didn’t really think I was that skinny–until I saw a photo of myself, and thought “Haha, someone has little toothpick arms…oh, that’s me.”
