I’m really insecure about my body and face and I feel like I’m deformed even though the doctors never said I was

[Soph22]

Recently I’ve been noticing weird things about my body and face like how unproportional my body/face is (like I have a big nose but small lips, big shoulders but skinny torso), or the fact that the lashes of one of my eyes is longer than the other, stuff like that. I feel like God created me just throwing random parts together and made me. All my features are mismatched and I genuinely feel deformed, subhuman, and like a freak of nature. Literally every other person I see looks normal, but I feel like I look inhuman and it makes me feel disgusting. Another big contributer to me feeling this way, is the fact that my joints are like really large and bulbous, I think it’s because I’m double jointed, and it makes me look so weird. I don’t see anyone else at all whose joints look like mine. Everyone else looks like all their features were given to them purposely, but for some reason mine just look like they were thrown together. I’ve always felt ugly, but now I feel inhuman, deformed, and disgusting too. I just can’t stand not knowing if other people see me like this too.

[Logan W]

Hey there Soph22,

Let me just start off by saying that everyone's body is different. And there is no standard that bodies need to follow - we are all unique in our own way. I

noticed you mentioned that everyone else looks "normal". Can I ask what normal means to you?

[Heather]

I do want to just pop in and add that we actually know that asymmetry is the norm with bodies, not symmetry. What you're noticing not only is common for people, period, it is probably even the case for some of the people you are looking at and idealizing. We are all usually much more intense and constant observers of how we look, and all the details involved, than we are of other people.

Too, there are sometimes periods in our development where we really do feel out of balance, and being in early or middle puberty is very commonly one of those times where some parts are growing while others are not, and everything can physically feel or look a little (or a lot) out of place that often will eventually change in a way that feels more4 balanced. <3

(Just a little P.S. on your post, too: some of us do have deformities, and that's just a fact rather than something that's...well, used as a slur, a put-down, or presented like it has to be a tragedy. So, I understand you're having some hard feelings, but please also be mindful in a community space when you choose your words, okay? I'm myself one of those people and have been since I was a kid, so if you also want to have a candid talk about what it means to have deformities and how many of us with them are able to still have a positive body image with them, I'd be happy to do that with you. I'm pretty unflappable in this regard.)