Pictures of me...

[SoVerySad]

I've never been a huge fan of pictures of myself, but have especially shied away from them since T died. Pictures of the kids and me just look so strangely incomplete now. Anyway, I went to get new glasses last week. I am really almost blind without my glasses, so picking out new frames is always hard since I can't see how I look in them. So I had my daughter take pictures of me with her cell phone with frames on so I could see them.

 

I was honestly horrified to see those pictures of myself. I look in the mirror every day to get ready, put on makeup, do my hair, etc, but I guess I really don't see myself (well, I often have my glasses off then as well). But, oh those pictures. How unsettling to really look at me. I'm not speaking from the standpoint of beauty. I've never been a beauty, but hey I'm alright (nod to my favorite Springsteen song) was fine with me. Then I met T and he made me feel beautiful.

 

I'm speaking of just how haunted and listless I look. Not really even so much older (thank you hair dye), but just so beat down, dark circles, and no sign of sparkle at all. I truly hardly recognized myself and had a hard time keeping it together to finish picking out my frames. I made my daughter delete the pictures right away. I can't imagine what people must think when they look at me. Apparently the mask I've been using isn't doing its job very well.

[Mrskro]

SoVerySad  I feel the same way you do.  But I'm beginning to think its partially how I see myself.  I know what's behind the mask.

 

Someone posted a picture of me on facebook during a night out and I thought it was the absolute worst picture ever.  Bags under my eyes.  I looked sad to myself.  Empty.  She said I was crazy and based on the comments I'm the only one that sees it. 

 

For me, anyway, my mask is holding up.

[CJF]

I feel the same way about pics of me.  I have dark circles and look like I am worn down.  No sparkle either.  I often wonder is that how others see me as well, or am I just too hard on myself.

[Tatianakm]

I feel your disappointment, SVS. I always liked to put myself together, makeup, hairstyle and all. Now I could care less how I look like and what I wear, thank God I am not going in public in my PJ. I have not applied mascara since, what's the point, I cry constanly anyway. And then there is a notion of who is going to look at me anyway? The only person who constantly told me how beautiful I was is now gone. I went to have my hair done yesterday just beacuse I am going back to work and have to look half decent. It was a comforting experience to have a scalp massage and feel warm air of a blow dryer, but when I came home there wasn't the usual " wow, you look hot, shatz (German for sweetheart)!", not that I am all that exceptionally "hot". It is truly as if the part of me, fun, care-free, life-loving part of me, died together with him. As if I skipped adulthood altogether: I felt like a young girl with my DH and overnight became an old woman, even though I am in my early 40s. I guess this is what depression feels like...

 

Hang in there, SVS, hope you picked some great stylish frames to bring you a glimpse of feeling beautiful again.

[SoVerySad]

I really hope you are right and it is more just how I am feeling affecting how I see myself.

 

Tatiana, I actually let my 16 year old daughter make the final decision on the frames as I just wanted to get out of there quickly. Hopefully I'll like them. BTW, I've had to go only with waterproof mascara due to the crying issue. Otherwise it would have been pointless to put on at all.

 

Hugs to you all...

[Trying]

I have never been photogenic and the few pictures there have been of me in the past 2 1/2 years are very depressing.  I've gained weight and look so old, there is no sparkle in my eye.  I'm working on the weight issue but the rest I hope will come in time.

[jennybug]

To this day (8 years later) it just doesn't feel right having my picture taken with my daughter and son.  For years when I looked at the pictures, I just looked blank.  My smiles come naturally now, but I had to force the smile in the earlier years. 

[Guest TooSoon]

I've always tried to stay out of photos - especially since my daughter's birth when I became official family photographer and I intend to keep it that way.  But as she's still little, I do try to make sure we get a couple of pictures together when we're traveling, just so that when she's older she remembers that I didn't suck ALL of the time.....but I've become super-camera shy.  I attribute this to the "cloak of invisibility" I assumed at some point during Scott's illness (much of which I spent behind the filter of a camera in fact; in documenting it, I had critical distance, or so I thought) and after he died. 

[MrsDan]

I made a very concerted effort to avoid having my picture taken after Dan died. Not because of how I looked, but because I felt like as long as Dan's life had stopped, I didn't want documentary evidence out there that mine had not. Almost as if if there was no record I had continued, it meant I didn't have to.  There was one time DD was sleeping on my lap. It was so sweet I decided to take a picture. I was pretty shocked at what I saw. I knew it had affected me physically, but the change was startling. I had always looked very young for my age, and suddenly I looked so, so old.

 

It became difficult when I started online dating, because I had no recent pictures and when I tried to take some, they just didn't look like me. Finally I had a friend take a couple that looked halfway decent. My boyfriend told me on my first date that my pictures didn't do me justice. I thought it was just a line, but he told me later that they really didn't, and he was glad they didn't, because if they had, he might have been too intimidated to contact me. I still think I look far older than I would have if Dan had not died. I'm a little self conscious about it, because my boyfriend is five years younger than me. But it's interesting, because he constantly tells me how pretty I am, how beautiful. And sometimes I think, if you think I look good now...

 

 

[Taurus]

I've never been a huge fan of pictures of myself...

 

I too hate getting my photo taken, as did my beloved, which is regrettable as we don't have too many photos of us, except for our wedding photos which now hold pride of place in the house.

 

Most of us have some idea of what we look like - until we see ourselves in photos, then all sorts of self-conscious awareness and doubt creep in! We all look how we feel...and we all tend to be too critical of things which are not that important, although the young ones populating Facebook and other social media would beg to differ!!

 

My avatar selfie was an unintentional snap taken on the day my beloved departed when I was fidgeting with my phone with a lot of visitors arriving at 8:am to pay their respects and to comfort us. The dark glasses did a great job of hiding the tears and what must have been the haunted look from lack of sleep over 2 days..

[SoVerySad]

Taurus,

 

I have tons of pictures of my husband with our kids. Because I was always behind the camera. I'm not in many of the pics. It will someday look to my kids like they were raised by a single father. Everywhere I go now, when I see parents taking turns taking pics with their children, I stop and offer to take one of them all together. It makes me feel good to know they'll have those pics of them all in them.

 

I do really treasure the pictures I have. I made two display boards of photos for his memorial service. I was struck by how happy he looked in all those pictures. I felt like he had lived a really happy life, despite it being cut way too short. There is only one picture where he wasn't smiling. It was from Disneyworld, apparently later in the day. My son appeared to be throwing a fit, my daughter was in a too much Disney daze, and he had a look on his face that seemed to be questioning me if we could please go home. It was such a contrast to all the smiley ones, I had to include it. I framed the boards and they're hanging in my hallway. They are a daily reminder of how blessed I was and I've reached the place where I rarely cry looking at them now.

 

When I went thru my husband's wallet after he died, I found these aged piture strips of the two of us from a photo booth on the boardwalk at the beach from when we were just dating. He had carried them with him for close to 30 years. I wish I could go back to the day they were taken and lives our lives all over again.

 

 

[Trying]

SVS my husband had the same thing in his wallet, a photo strip of us from the boardwalk in 1989.  What I wouldn't give to go back there too.

[SoVerySad]

What a sweet coincidence, Trying. It touched me so much when I found them.

[kjs1989]

I so understand this. Had my driver's license renewed last summer. Wow, what a difference fours years makes. My previous license was not amazing (who's is?) but it was perfectly acceptable as these things go. I looked... well...ALIVE. This one....I have a zombified stare emanating from a hollowed-out face complete with puffy dark half moons under each eye. Lovely. It ruined the day...week...month and almost the past year for me! I whined to my teenage daughter about it and she was as empathetic as a most teens...which is not very. I still cringe whenever I am asked for ID. So, since it has been eating at me for a year, my plan is to "lose" that  sucker right around the time of my next hair appointment. Spend extra time on my makeup that day and pay a visit to the DMV! I can only hope for some improvement!

[jennybug]

Wow...just noticed my original reply to this post last month.  It's over nine years for me (and I said eight)...widda brain still (sometimes)!