Topic : Self Image

I on a daily basis battle depression.....so my self esteem is always LOW!!!!! I deal with underlying problems that do not shut off or on at the flip of a switch. I love everything this show helps us with. I watch daily in hope of the topic to be mine so I can get advice like Dr. P is talking right to me...Nothing.

 

Amy

Hello, I read your life right now and I feel for you.  I'm sorry that you have to endure these conditions daily.  I just wanted you to know that if you want Dr. Phil to hear your story you need to e-mail him directly or go to the page that says you want to be on the show.  This is just a board where everyone can share their stories and recieve encouragement and support from eachother.  I wish the best for you and hope to see you on the show.

 

ivy27

Im 17 years old, and im from Newfoundland, Canada! and I have a HUGEEEE problem with "body image" . See I hate myself, sounds pretty harsh, but I wish I oculd just have plastic surgery to look like Fergie [sounds foolish I know] but she's beautiful, she's what everyone considers to be sexy, and I wanna be! everyone says im a beautiful girl, but I don't think I am, and that's just me. I look at myself in the mirror daily and I literally fight a war aganist my mirror cause I REALLY can't stand the person staring back at me [as pink said in her song] I feel the same why and it's the same ritual EVERY morning. I think Im fat... now I only weigh 115 IBS. and my only fear is forming an eating disorder, I don't think I would. cause Im totally not like that. But my sister was anorexic when she was my age, now she has three children and is very healthy! but what people gotta realize is that young teenage girls [mostl] and boys to, but mostly girls are watching tv, and seeing all these beatiful, sexy models and celebritys, and we think to ourselves, is this the imageim supposed to potray? is this who Im supposed to be? Is this what im supposed to look like? Im not nearly as hot as she is. I know I say that to mysellf everyday! I mean.. God love Fergie. She's a beautiful girl, and she is my favorite singer, besides Nicole from PCD and Martina McBride and Carrie Underwood and Faith Hill! but I mean... im not Fergie. and I want to be. but as I said. these celebritys... were "supposed" to live upto, were "supposed" to look like. I mean C'MON! Im never going to be like Fergie. and it kills me cause i know im not nearly as beautiful as her, or Faith,Carrie,Martina... I mean.. I don't even know what to do. They're my idols. they're amazing artists! two more are Paula Abdule and Sass Jordan, amazing woman both with alot of potientail and talent. two beautiful woman as well. How are people my age and older and younger supposed to react when we see this??  [ check out my site --> http://xo-music-is-love-xo.piczo.com ]  it's soon to be ipdated with blogs, diarys, and stories for all to leave, comment, and well a Message board to talk back and fourth! bye now! BEE YOURSELFFF

I find myself wondering why you think how you look matters to this degree.  Appearance isn't what makes someone happy OR desirable.  Truly, some of the most successful, popular, happy men and women I know aren't technically beautiful.  What makes them attractive is their joie de vivre--their love of life.  They are passionate about what they do and it shows.  Their enthusiasm is infectious and people want to be with them.

 

What do you love and care about?  How are you making it or how could you make it part of your life?  What are you going after in life?  What do you want to achieve?  What good can you uniquely bring into the world?  How can you bring joy into other people's lives through doing something you love doing yourself?

 

Looks, money, power aren't really about those things at all.  They are about how we hope achieving them will make us feel.  But often they don't.  What is far surer and more powerful is to find what we care about and what we love doing and choosing every day to do things that make us smile--even if it's only for a few moments at a time.

 

If none of this helps and these feelings persist, you may want to talk to a counselor. 

Like everyone I go through ups and downs with  the way  I feel about my self-image but I've found that it helps me a lot to constantly think about who I am and who I want to be. 

I'm always trying to improve which keeps me motivated to move forward.  If I don't like something about myself I'll ask myself why and if it's a valid reason.  If it is a valid reason then I ask myself what I can do to fix it.  Do I need to exercise a little more for example or just change my perspective?  If I'm having an "ugly" day sometimes I'll give myself a little make-over or pamper myself a little... a new hair cut or just sitting infront of a mirror playing with my hair and make-up sometimes makes me feel a lot better and more confident about myself.

Whenever I look in the mirror I smile and tell myself I'm beautiful even if I don't really believe it at the time but I say it anyways.  It might sound a little silly but if you say it enough times you begin to believe it, and when you believe it, it becomes real.  I personally think the mind is extremely powerful and can allow for the things you think are impossible to become believable and to become reality.  If you hate yourself it's because you've decided to but you can always change your mind... it's hard and takes a lot of time but it's definately do-able.

My Advice: Don't allow anyone (including yourself) to make you feel worthless because you are wortheverything you believe yourself to be.  Surround yourself with peoplewho make you feel valuable because you are priceless and no one has theright or the ability to tell you otherwise except yourself.  Tell yourself you are amazing everyday because you truly are.

I'm 19 and i have alot of stretch marks it is very embarrassing and i was wondering if anyone knows anyways of fade them so they are pretty much gone.

I have a very low self image.  I am 34 yrs old and I have always had a very bad self image, but as I get older, it gets worse. My looks are very important to me, and I have tried to keep up with my looks, but it's almost more than my looks. About 4 years ago I had 5 porcelain crowns put on my front teeth($6000.00), but other than those 5 crowns, I only have 12 other teeth....makes chewing a little difficult and now I don't have the money for partials.!!! I think that I am a good person, but I wish that I looked as good as I feel about myself as a person.  I hate my body.....HATE!!!.. and my husband of almost 7 years has seen me naked maybe 10 times...usually if I had some alcohol in me...lol..!!  If I am in the bath and he comes in, I sit up and try to cover my body.  I would never wear a bikini and I have only worn a bathing suit on VERY few occaisions.  I lost 50 lbs 2 years ago, but I still HATE my body.  I need an extreme makeover!! lol What exactly is the difference between self esteem and self image.  I think both of mine are in the dumps!

 Stretch marks are the tearing of your inner layers of skin. They are with you forever, even though they will fade in time. There is nothing on the market that really works (to my knowledge) to fade them quicker. 
However, if you want to avoid getting more in the future, avoid trans-fats, which are man-made fats that replace the kinds of fat your cells need to function with rigid, brittle, unhealthy fats. They were invented to add to the shelf life of foods. There's no conclusive evidence that they contribute to stretch marks, but I believe it's only a matter of time on that.
To identify what are known as trans-fats, look on the ingredients list. Anything listed as "partially hydrongenated" is a trans-fat.  You will find it in most  boxed, prepared foods.  Even foods erroneously labeled as free of trans-fats (like some peanut butters) have it if you look on the label. 
Trans-fats show up as scaley, dry, gray patches on those that consume mass quantiites of the stuff. You'll usually see it on elbows and knees first.

The longer I live the more I've come to believe that appearance matters only to the extent that we believe it matters.

 

Don't get me wrong--it can be a useful tool if we know to dress according to the situation we will be in so that it adds to the impact we want to create!  The problem comes when we mistake the tool for reality.

 

By that I mean we can be happy, we can be successful, we can be attractive to a potential partner no matter how we look. 

 

Not that I was always able to see it this way.  I used to hate my body--feeling as if it had betrayed me.  I was afraid of looking too good for fear of the attention it might bring and afraid that I was horribly ugly. 

 

The irony is that as I worked on being happy, on doing things that made me smile, people started commenting on how good I looked.  I also began to realize that having a purpose in life would do far more for how I felt about myself than any change I could make in my appearance.  I began to realize that money spent working on how I FELT about myself would have a far greater impact than money spent on how I looked.

 

I know men and women who are not "beautiful" and yet people flock around and want to be with them.  Because they CHOOSE TO BE happy, they chose to find a purpose in life.  And happiness is a choice--it's a matter of choosing what we will believe--about ourselves and the world around us.  All healing, in my opinion, is rewriting wrong beliefs--often beliefs we did not consciously know we had.

 

So maybe look at what makes you smile--and do more of it.  Look at your strengths, your interests and think of how you can use what makes you happy to help others.

 

The truth is that you are, deep inside, beautiful.  Once you are able to believe it so will the world.

When I was 13 in grade 8 i litarally had B cup breasts.  In the summer going in to grade 9, my breasts grew in to a D cup.  I had horrible stretch marks all over my breasts. I went to my family doc. [because they were VERY sore also, my doc sent me to a Dermatologyst [skin docter]  and I was perscribed a cream that gradually fadded the stretch marks, it took aproxamitly 3 months in tottal.  The only problem is that I cant remember what it is called, but if you get in to see a skin doc. they will know.  I want to go back and get some more of it because i have had 2 kids and i'm 20, so I know how you feel, I have stretch marks all over my hips and stomach.

 

What I will do though, is go through my perscription records and find out what it is called, and I will get back to you ASAP.

 

                                                                                       Mandy : ]