insecure about my look

 My first insecurity was about my looks; most of us have this insecurity in us. We are not born with insecurity. We develop it over time. One thing is clear, we don't bother about our looks until someone tells us that something is wrong with our appearance from their perspective or we are reminded by others that we do not have the IDEAL FEATURE of good looks or beauty. My first encounter with this was when I was a child. I don't remember what my age was. I was playing with other children. When a boy got out, I shouted "you are out". In no time he replied, "shut up nakbaithi(flat nose person)".I didn't like that word. I hated it. I never wanted to hear that word. At that time, I felt that there was a defect in me. My negative takeaway from that moment was that I chose never to argue or confront anyone because the other person could mock me using that word. There were many moments when I was reminded about the shape of my nose or simply about my defect by many people in a different way. But there were two of them that affected me, like the first encounter, by adding other negative assumptions. Once, my aunt came to our house. The day she arrived, she told me that she had seen a couple on a train with a flat nose. She would find a guy with a flat nose for me. My negative takeaway from this situation is I hated meeting new people, after that thinking they might remind me of my defect or laugh at me like she was laughing. After this incident, I avoided meeting new people. Gradually, I started walking by keeping my head down. The third incident which made the case worse was when I was in 9th grade. I was in my Sanskrit class. Our teacher hadn't come. My friends were cracking jokes and I am the kind of person who when starts laughing and don't stop easily. Suddenly, our teacher came. I was laughing at the last joke my friend cracked. Our teacher saw me and thought I was laughing at him as many students used to make fun of him. Then he sat and said that if Sita were a nakpichki(flat-nosed girl) then Ram would have never gone after her. Of course, the whole class was laughing, including my friends. But I was shocked. You can understand the feeling when you don't do anything and someone still retaliates. My negative takeaway from this incident was that I started feeling worthless. The statement made by my teacher made me feel good for nothing.

 I am not blaming anyone here. I just explained the incidents as they were. Every negative takeaway with lots of negative self-talk made me a person who was not able to interact freely with people, had low self-esteem,  feared meeting new people, avoided eye contact, always felt ugly, was conscious about how I looked, avoided going to stage, was fearful of hearing chapati(flat) word, always wanted to do nose job so that no can mock me or make me feel defected. I was like this till the second year of my graduation. Many of us do go through something like this in our lives, but some of us let ourselves be affected by others' perspectives, like me, and some of us never let others' opinions define us.

 Now, I don't want to do a nose job. I don't think about appearances all the time. I accepted myself and my appearance. Let me tell you, it is not a one-day job. To get out of insecurity which has affected your personality brutally takes effort. Believe me, if I can, anyone can. In the next post, I will share how I started processing it. Before that, I want you to write about your insecurities and also why you have them when they started, which incident affected you negatively and how can you get out of them organically.