What I look like

[mbw]

When my therapist suggested that she tells me what she sees when looks at me, I agreed to it because I've come to trust her from talking to her so many times this year. I have talked about how unsure I often am about the way I 'really look' and how I've found myself staring into mirrors for hours trying to get a better view, like many people with BDD who aren't sure.

I was shocked when she told me that she finds me "very attractive". She said it would probably be easier for her to convince me that I was in fact ugly rather than tell me I'm the opposite. She's the first person who has said something positive about the way I look whose opinion I trust, so this is huge for me. You see, people have said things to me like "most guys your age would kill to have looks like yours" and "you could get pretty much any girl you wanted" and "you're gorgeous" and "you look like Taylor Lautner" and "if only you could see what we see" and "you look perfectly attractive to me", but I haven't internalized their views of me because after hearing them say these things I think about whether they really mean what they're saying and whether they're just saying these things due to them knowing how critical I am of my looks. Also, I tend to stare into the mirror after hearing these things and look for a view which supports what they're saying, and I never find it. It's just seemed inconceivable to me that people could actually see me like this.

Now I wonder (and I feel really stupid for never wondering this previously): if people were going to make up a lie to make me feel better, would they really pick one so far-fetched as saying I'm attractive? I mean, wouldn't they say I look "fine" or "perfectly normal" if I actually looked freakish?

I've been thinking a lot lately about the interactions I've had with girls my age too, and I've probably actually misinterpreted their behavior around me. I realize that their looks at me, their eyes darting away when I look at them, their quietness, their rigidity, their awkwardness, the way some of them point me out when I'm in public, the way some of them say hi to me when they see me, the way some of them blush and smile, is actually evidence to there being something about the way I look which attracts them to me.

But the confusion comes from the fact that most of the things I mentioned, except for the smiles and the blushing and awkwardness, could be seen easily as evidence for me having something defective in the way I look. It's so difficult to know what most girls are thinking about you unless you ask them and they tell you the truth. It's hard to be sure what is and what is not.