Why do I look so bizarre?

[hmpf]

(Not ugly, mind you. Just... really, really odd. The proportions of my face are weird, and the face as a whole is just disproportionally huge, as well. And in at least half of all photos of me I look as if I'm *just* this side of manic. How am I supposed to find an appropriate photo for my application papers if I can't look 'normal' in a photo?)

(No, I'm not going to post a picture. But, for the curious, here's some puzzle pieces: *huge*, slightly non-symmetrical eyes; *huge*, oddly shaped nose; rabbit-like front teeth that, obviously, show very much when I smile or laugh; and very thick, dark eyebrows. Which probably makes me sound a bit more bizarre than I do look... The main problem is the eyes, really. I often look as if I'm seeing angels and demons, or something. As I said: just this side of manic. *Not* the first impression you want prospective employers to get...)

Comments

Oh, way to make me feel better:

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

use an icon of the most gorgeous woman on the planet... :D (Kidding. I do appreciate your trying to reassure me.)

Thinness isn't a problem with a portrait like this. The fact that I always look as if I'm about to get out a knife to disembowel the photographer does. Seriously, you haven't seen photos of me trying to smile an 'application papers' smile... they're *always* bizarre. Either they look really tense, or they look as if I'm crazy.

Re: Oh, way to make me feel better:

[stabbim.livejournal.com]

Thinness isn't a problem with a portrait like this.

Of course it is! Your cheekbones and your eyes look hallow because you're underweight, anorexic even.

Anorexic?

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

(BTW: the eyes don't look hollow, they're just kinda big. They always were, even when I was a baby. So, I kinda doubt that has anything to do with my weight, especially since I was a chubby baby.)

Also - at the risk of sounding like an anorexic *g* - I'm not anorexic. Underweight, yes, but a) I couldn't care less about my weight; no obsession going on there; if anything, I'd like to gain some (I don't enjoy constantly being suspected of anorexia); b) my weight has been more or less stable my entire grown life, i.e for the last twenty years ('more or less' because I don't really know the exact weight I have now or had at other points of my life, as I don't weigh myself; I just know that I've always been able to wear the same clothes for years, which clearly would be a problem if I was losing weight. Also, I've been consistently underweight since my early teens, so if I'd been losing weight since then, well, I'd probably be dead now.) c) all females in my family (mother and aunts) were underweight well into their thirties, so I suspect this is just a genetic thing; d) even when I eat prodigious amounts of food for a period, I gain very little weight. At sixteen or so I purposely tried to gain weight, and ate a lot of 'fattening' stuff for several months, yet even on that 'diet' I didn't reach normal weight. (49 kg was the most I could manage.)

A few years ago I *did* hit 50 kg (which is still underweight, of course, but is more than I'd ever weighed in my life, I think) for a while (while in England, where I ate lots of chocolate) - I found out because my trousers didn't fit anymore, so that when I went back to Germany for Christmas, I decided to weigh myself for once, to find out what was going on there. Since then it's gone back down a bit again, though, simply because here at home I don't tend to eat a bar of chocolate per day.

Oh, and regarding my body image: I have never, ever thought I was 'too fat'. When I look into a mirror I see a very thin person.

I've never dieted, either. Except for that one attempt to gain weight.

I do realise that an anorexic would probably invent stories like this, so yeah, I can probably never really 'prove' to anyone that I'm not anorexic. I'll just have to live with people's concern and suspicion until I'm old enough for 'old age fattening' ;-) to set in.... (this does happen to the female parts of my family, so there's hope for me yet. *g*)

(Yes, I've been tested for Schilddrüsenüberfunktion.)

Sorry if I overreacted...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

It's just that being suspected of being anorexic does get old if it happens to you again and again over a period of nearly twenty years.