Growing Up "Ugly"

GreenGrass Wrote:
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> This thread reminds me of my mom, who taught me
> that being beautiful was the most important thing
> in life. She was skinny, blonde, with fake boobs -
> a perfect trophy wife. She would pick on me as a
> child because I had overweight friends, and even
> made comments about my body when I was a teenager,
> even though I was normal body weight but not a
> perfect size two.
>
> Guess what? Today she is on her fourth unhappy
> marriage, her 52-year old skin is sagging, and is
> one of the most unhappy people I know. Superficial
> people make me sick, but you know what? Usually
> they're not very happy people because they lack
> substance and meaning in their lives.

Yep. But you know, most people who were severely vain growing up don't realize that it's not all about looks until they're in their 50s and 60s. By that time, they don't care about anybody's looks, but just want someone to be with them. Hmmph...karma is a mofo.

I've always been the one who was called "ugly" and picked on because of my weight. We all know how cruel brats can be, so it was horrible most days for me to go to school. I grew up with very low-self esteem and never thought I was cute or attractive, when actually, I was an okay-looking kid. Actually, I still struggle with self-esteem issues, and only a few years ago did I really stop believing I was "ugly."

Nobody ever told me I was pretty or cute growing up, especially my extended family members. It was obvious to me that my extended family doted on my sister, and they divided my sister and I up fairly quickly, deeming my sister as "the pretty one", and me the "smart one." I had a pretty messed up early childhood thru teenage years, and to this day, the only thing that helped me to survive was my creativity - I sang, write songs, stories and poetry and watched a lot of T.V. and movies when I could.

Well, enough of my rambling, but y'all get the point...I hope!

this also happens to boys, maybe not as much.

i remember being 15 and asking a girl out, she just laughed. at age 21 i asked someone else out, they looked up and down and said are you serious, and left laughing. i have turned my self image into a joke, i say ah but i ama 2 bagger, turning a hurtful remark into a joke.. i was always the odd one out, i wasnt as athletic as the others, i was a 4 eyed geek/nerd and i was told it often. girls werent interested in me at all as i wasnt handsome, i wasnt much of anything. i tried to fit in, but it never worked.. i was always an outsider.

i dont see myself as me, i avoid cameras, and mirrors, yes i rarely stare at my reflection.. it worries me that its not me in the reflection. its as if i have a mask on all the time, or a set of masks, that all look similar, but they are not me. and can never be, i try to fit in with life, but i dont.

so now i celebrate my difference/ugliness, it makes me unique, and special, i look like this because i have the nerve and the guts (no pun intended) to be myself.

we get told so many times that we arent worth anything unless we are thin, or blond, or the current ideal of beauty. we are deluged in it, drowned in it, and we being the poor self concious people we are, we fall for it.

so i celebrate myself, i have fangs, i have a goatee, i am overweight, i wear glasses, got long hair, i could change all those.. but then i wouldnt be me anymore. i would be someone i would hate.. someone so obsessed by looks, that i would turn myself into the type of people i hate with a passion, those self centred, shallow, people, who didnt care about people.

i retreated into my own head, i still live there mostly, when the world gets too much, i sit or walk to my quiet place, and i fade, i cease to exist, sometimes i do become so still, that people dont see me, i am unnoticable, i fade into the background. this is why i read a lot its my retreat

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

Check out any John Water's movies (the more recent ones are more watchable - Pecker being the best) and you will see a glorious celebration of all that is ugly and ignored...and by default beautiful, wonderful and rare. Check out http://www.lesliehall.com/index8.html for more proof that there are indeed people out there who not only celebrate their "uglyness" but revel in it. Hell, check out the comedy stylings of Phyllis Diller to know that what is "ugly" is truely wonderful in the eyes of the well-educated beholder.

marty feldman, was much better.. .. (i am a martin or marty to some)

*********************************************************************************************************************************
I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

I didn't grow up ugly, but became ugly in my 20s when I got fat. It was extremly painful the difference in the way I was treated cos of some pounds of extra weight. People who were so nice to me before just ignored me. Others went, 'WOW, you've gotten so BIG! What on Earth HAPPENED???', when they saw me after a long time, or 'You are totally unrecognisable, are you sure that was YOU???' when ppl I met when I was fat saw my old pictures.

I often think how different I would be treated if I had never gotten fat. It's amazing how ppl who saw me as a PERSON before, or who would see me as a PERSON if I had never gotten fat, now see me as a lump of fat. Just the other day, my dad's friend came over, and out of the blue started in on me about how she had bariatric cos she was where I am now, and how great bariatric is, and she's not so hugely obese anymore like I am.

I'm damn tired of being treated this way. I am a human with feelings, just like they are, but all they see is extra pounds of FAT, FAT, FAT. It's gotten to where I don't even care to socialise in this country. People need to realise that others are human beings, no matter how they look. Respect and kindness are not just something afforded by the beautiful. They need to get thier heads out of Hollywood's, and Maxim's arses, and learn some REAL values, like respect and integrity.

but luckily you have someone who adores that extra weight, and you.. and everything about you.

to my eyes you are far more attractive than any so called model,

*********************************************************************************************************************************
I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

Oh, My Love, you are so wonderful. I am the luckiest woman in the world to have you, MY Merc. I Adore You, too.

I was a skinny kid but was considered "ugly" by these horrible classmates in San Bruno, a nasty little Stepford Wife suburb of San Francisco. It was a culture shock to move to that bedroom community after going to school in the City where I had friends of different backgrounds. I was verbally picked on. I never complained about the clothing my mother got me because I was grateful for the decent life she gave me despite being a divorced parent with no support from my "father". More than once, I was physically assaulted by the other 8th graders for wearing "dorky" clothes. That year was Hell.

From 2000 to 2005, I was 40 pounds overweight. I had been dealing with depression over personal issues. I just was not happy. By mid-2005, I started to shed the weight by taking on healthier eating habits and doing yoga. Most of all, I learned to love myself in a larger body. I knew I would never be happy even if I was a "perfect" size unless I could love myself unconditionally regardless of weight. My husband (don't even ask about him) looked at me differently even though he loved to cook and heap on huge servings. In 2004, he even leered at a much-younger friend of mine who is very beautiful when we went out to eat.

What I hate about attitude since losing the weight is how a neighbour woman across the courtyard makes these stupid comments of being "jealous" of how I look. I asked her to please not be jealous. Jealousy is so petty. I am still the same person but in a smaller body. I do have better self-esteem but that had to be built during my stage in a larger body.

Rowan, both you and Mercurior are beautiful people. Do not allow shallow people to steal your joy.

VLM, your experience of being the "smart sister" while the other one was labeled the "beautiful sister" reminds me of the Young & the Restless soap opera I have watched as a guilty pleasure. Ashley Abbott, the vain older sister, was always labeled My Beauty by her father while the younger Traci Abbott felt ignored by her family due to her weight. Traci always looked on longingly while John Abbott, the Daddio, fawned all over the "beautiful" Ashley.

"FUCK WORK"

Ugh, isn't growing up such a BITCH? Kids are terrible. I would never go back to being a kid for anything!

Apart from being one of my biggest inspirations for being CF, my family is proof that education, beauty, and money don't mean squat unless you have solid character and a sense of ethics. My dad is a respected small town physician on his third marriage, with an "oops" from a staff nurse that I'm not supposed to know about, since I don't even know if his wife knows. When my parents divorced, he told me and my younger brother that our mom was a whore who was going to die from AIDS (I was ten). My mom - a total EntitleMoo because, you know, she deserved it because she was born BLONDE - refused for years to get a full time job after the divorce, had her mostly unemployed younger gigolo boyfriend move in, and complained about how poor we were, while refusing to sell her $25K engagement ring because "it made people respect" her to have a big rock on her finger.

On the other hand, my husband comes from what a lot of people I grew up with would consider "white trash". His dad is a working class retired truck driver, his mom a housewife. They have been married over fifty years and are just good old-fashioned values honest people. They own their own modest home, and his father - at 85 years old - takes care of his wife, who has Alzheimer's.

I guess my point is that truly, what's on the inside is what makes a person beautiful. I learned that from first-hand experience!

The Miss USA "scandals" show the double standards regarding beauty and young women. The Miss Nevada USA lost her crown for racy pics showing her kissing another woman and showing her thong. Yet, these same women are required to show their bodies in bathing suits and parade their bodies in front of people who judge them by their looks and body parts. Can we say the word "hypocrisy"???

Green Grass, your father sounds like a lot of physicians. Staff nurses throw themselves at any good-looking or even not-so-good-looking doctor who has the money. The "oopses" are very deliberate to get The Doc to marry them or ante up money as extortion for abortions or to keep those babies a secret from the wives.

I would like to see the junior high and high school girls I knew who were mean to other girls due to the looks issue. I wonder how many of them are saddled with children and husbands who are jerks. How many of these once-popular girls are single moos with stretch marks? Beauty does fade with most people. Inner beauty cannot be faked.

I've known of divorced women with children who refuse to work believing that the ex-husband owes them most of their pay for the years of being a wife. Tom Leykus is right how many marriages are similar to prostitution. The man is paying for use of a vagina. Many women think they are entitled to a "settlment" in the event of a divorce even if they did not work at all because they are "paid" to be a wife. That is akin to prostitution. I call it as I see it...

"FUCK WORK"