What do you see when you look at yourself?

Nic Nac Paddywack profile picture

It's all about the optics -- until its not. 

 I just had a lesson in optics -- about myself. I recently changed my profile picture on Facebook to this picture above. I changed my cover photo and I wanted a profile pic that sort of matched. I'm goofy like that... you can laugh at my neurosis. Its okay.

Since Facebook is a giant snitch - (laughs) - as soon as I changed the pic, I started getting these likes and comments from my friends. The picture change was in their news feed. So, they just commented. Same way I comment on their picture changes. Usually no big deal, but today... it became an entire head game that I didn't completely understand at first.

My friends are really lovely people who give me a very inflated sense of self sometimes. 

The comments were very complimentary. However, the voice in MY head was anything but. I remember the day I took the picture. I cropped the head shot from a larger full-length picture of myself. And I had torn myself apart from the top of my head all the way to my feet. Even now as I'm writing this, I am critiquing myself and seriously wondering why the hell I'm sharing this gawd awful picture.


*sigh*

At any rate, someone asked to see the entire dress so I posted the corresponding black/white version of this picture and more compliments followed.

*I'm starting to believe my friends all need glasses*

I looked at the black & white version of this picture. I looked at the color version -- which to me was even more horrific -- and I just sat there staring for awhile. I could explain all the things I see wrong with the picture... but it doesn't honestly matter. The truth is that it comes down to me being incapable of seeing in myself what others see in me.

All I see are flaws and imperfection.

I rarely look at myself -- in pictures or in the mirror -- and like what I see. I nearly always feel marked as flawed. You know how you can go to outlet stores and purchase discounted merchandise because it is irregular? That is what I see stamped on my forehead when I look at myself. IRREGULAR. I know that it is both incongruent and not helpful but I see myself breasts first. And it is not a good look.

If I were to talk to another survivor about these negative self-thoughts, I would probably laugh and tease her (to get her to laugh as well) about how beautiful she was. Tell her how her scars (both real and mental) did not define who she was or how her beauty was interpreted by others. Flawed things are still quite fabulous. The uniqueness that a flaw or a scar brings cannot be replicated.

Scars, flaws, imperfections... make us all unique and beautiful. I know this... and yet I still spent about an hour ripping myself to shreds for no good reason.

Buy a shirt. Seriously. Now.

The comments from my friends brought me back to center. They reminded me that when people look at me they don't see my story... they just see my face. My smile. My eyes. The confidence that my short hair conveys. They see a woman who seems confident of herself, her life, her body, her size. They don't see my insecurities, my worries, my fears.

My friends blessed me by reminding me that I am not what happened to me. Today, breast cancer lost another battle to steal a piece of me from me. I may not be as perfect as I want the world to see. But the picture of me that the world sees is actually quite perfect. Just as it is. Just as I am.

 Flawed & Fabulous.