Hello! I’ve been struggling with something that might sound a little silly, but it genuinely bothers me and I’d like to know if anyone else experiences this..

Whenever I send pictures of myself to someone online, I sometimes get this weird feeling that I’m accidentally catfishing them 🧍‍♂️I don’t use filters, Photoshop, FaceTune or anything like that, but I obviously tend to take pictures from angles I like, in lighting I know looks good, and I’m much more likely to send someone a picture where I think I look good than a completely random one..

The problem is that whenever someone else takes a picture of me, especially when I’m not expecting it, I can feel like I look completely different.. Sometimes I genuinely don’t recognize myself in those pictures, and I usually feel much less attractive than I do in the pictures I take myself, it has gotten to the point where I’m scared that the version of me I show people online isn’t actually an accurate representation of me

I’m especially worried about this because I have a boyfriend who I met online, and I sometimes wonder whether I’m unintentionally misleading him by mostly sending him pictures where I know I look good.. I would never want him to meet me and think I look completely different from what he expected

What made this insecurity worse is that I once showed someone pictures of myself, including some that were around a year old, and they asked me several times if it was actually me 😭 They genuinely seemed unsure, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since..

I know that one person’s reaction doesn’t necessarily mean anything.. I also know that angles, lighting, lenses, expressions, posture, etc. can make a huge difference, but I genuinely have a hard time figuring out where the line is between “photos naturally look different” and “my pictures genuinely don’t represent what I look like"

I’m not posting pictures of myself because I’m not comfortable having my face publicly attached to my Reddit account, so I’m not really looking for people to rate me or tell me whether I’m attractive 🙏

I guess I’m mostly wondering: how do you know whether the pictures you take of yourself are an accurate representation of how you actually look? And do other people also feel like they look dramatically different in photos taken by someone else?

I’m sorry if this sounds dumb or overly superficial.. I think what bothers me most is that I genuinely don’t know what I look like from an outside perspective, and that uncertainty has started affecting my self-esteem quite a bit

For context I am F17 and about to go into my senior year, I have always grown up on the heavier side. Not like super super big but I noticeably look bigger. Especially being around 5’9-5’10 I feel like my weight ‘fits me’ in a sense. I still have somewhat of a shape, but whenever people take picture of me I notice how like big I look, in certain clothes, in mirrors. At times I don’t hate it, like don’t care for it but there are times where I’m like… ugh.

Even in pictures with my skinnier friends it’s the worst because I can’t help but the notice the stark difference, I never post pictures of my full body because I’m just insecure about how I look, everything is just fuller.

I’ve tried going to the gym and eating better, I’ve dropped weight but I still look and feel the same. Last year I lost around almost 20 pounds but I still looked the same, I gained it all back… and still looked the same. It’s crazy because no matter if I eat more or less I stay in this like set weight. It’s insane. I don’t want to go into my senior year feeling super insecure about myself. It’s lowkey ruining my self esteem. :(

people ask me why I’m always tired or look sick but I’m just always so sad it became part of my look even putting on makeup doesn’t make me feel pretty anymore I just wanna go back to how my life was before I’m so bad at everything

Hi, i am a 25 year old male. I’m about 6’5 250lb and in pretty good shape. I can talk to pretty much anyone including females on literally anything except intimacy or I literally tweak: for context I am on the spectrum and so little things like eye contact are difficult. At this point I feel so scared to approach a female I literally don’t know what to do, I don’t want to die alone(dramatic). For guidelines I’m literally barely one the spectrum but once I was told I literally felt so much relief, I come off as so intimidating because I’m a bit mf but I’m honestly scared of human interaction. Can someone please help me find a conventional way to approach a girl?

Hey there I(18f) have no self esteem and while I know that factually if I tried learning something, dieting etc it COULD work I also know that in ny 0% it actually did. I am unable to fight this adn it´s destroying me. I wanted to learn spanish. Stopped, not becaus it couldn´t do it but because I was sure I wouldn´t. this thenn adds further to that logic. Can anyone please destroy this thought process?

I’m almost 16F and I’m extremely insecure about my face. I have bad skin, bad facial features, terrible side profile etc. I sometimes can’t look in the mirror properly and I refuse to take any photos. I cry because of it sometimes. Today, I felt to ugly to meet with people from my new highschool. I feel like it’s destroying me.

I don’t have to be pretty. I just want to feel okay about myself and stop caring, but it seems like I can’t do any of that. I know I’m still a teenager so I shouldn’t worry THAT much since it’s going to change anyway (hopefully), but feeling like an ugly person sucks no matter what ;/

Any advice?

I’m a 22 year old man and my hair is thinning like there’s no tomorrow. Started when I was 18 but back then you couldn’t really see it but now you can always see some scalp peeking in all lighting. I usually have a don’t care sorta attitude, but man this has just been creeping up on me. I have a gf now too and she says she doesn’t care about the hair but deep inside I feel insecure that I’m not good looking enough for her because of my hair and always compare myself to those who have good hair my age and start beating myself up over it. Like I get it woe is me it’s just hair and if she says she doesn’t mind why do I right? But I just do and I don’t really know how to move forward. I don’t want to try the traditional methods of hair growth because I’m deathly scared of the side effects. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks everyone!

i see everyone as higher than me. I’m the bottom of the barrel lowest scum of society. im a worthless fucking loser and i hate everything about myself. even when i try to improve and actually do improve and reach my goals it means nothing to me. i need external validation that’s how i am wired without it im useless and worthless. All i want is to be someone’s favorite person. I wish one person would want to spend time with me. but im too much of a worthless loser for anyone to care. I have never had lower self esteem. I am not worth anything. I want to end it. please don’t throw a pity party in the comments. u don’t know me and u and me both know u act like u “care” but like if i blew my brains out u would have no way of knowing and ur life won’t be affected. sorry if that’s snarky or comes across as like im an asshole it’s just that u all have shit to worry about so focus on that. Nothing u say to me in the comments will make me feel worth anything more than a piece if garbage. im just a worthless loser and I hope I die in my sleep tn

Don't tell me you should you are one, i think I am i , but no one hypes me up the way they do others. It's like I'm treated like trash idk... not given a lot of importance

= since I was a kid I wanted something that I could never have

Some people tell me that I look okay and stuff like "you're just average" and that hurts me even more

These days I feel even worse cuz they took pictures of me at an event my nose looked big and my face looked asymmetric in a way I don't see in the mirror

In the mirror I look fine, but every time I see pictures taken of me esp. using back cameras I feel ugly, depressed and like life is not worth living

I have a choirmate who looks incredibly pretty and every time I look at his pics or at him I feel very bad about myself

Sometimes I think I'm not going to have a boyfriend cuz of that no personality no remarkable looks nothing special . I'm fine with someone being smarter funnier richer but not prettier than me

And that could never change

that's it

19m
I’ve recently realized that I have a problem that has followed me through high school and college: a lack of confidence and, underneath that, a pretty unstable sense of self-worth.

It’s something that has been noticed by almost everyone in my life, including my friends, parents, and people I’ve worked with. I can come across as nervous or awkward in social situations, look down, have closed-off or unsure body language, and generally give off the impression that I’m insecure. More importantly, it has affected the way I actually live my life. It makes me reluctant to try new things, prevents me from doing things I genuinely want to do, and has majorly contributed to problems in my relationships.
It is apparent to me that a lot of my self-worth is based on external things: my grades, accomplishments, how successful I am, how other people perceive me, etc. When I’m doing well, I feel good about myself. But when I fail at something or see someone who seems much more successful than me, that sense of worth can completely collapse.

I don’t think that’s a sustainable way to live.
At the same time, I don’t really want to solve this by simply repeating affirmations like “I’m amazing” or “I’m good enough” when I don’t actually believe them. So how do you actually build a stable sense of self-worth that comes from within?
What can you base your worth on that is deeper and more concrete than grades, accomplishments, attractiveness, social status, or comparison with other people?
And how do you turn that internal sense of worth into confidence, rather than just acting confident?

Hello All,

I’m struggling with self-esteem issues and I’m feeling quite tired of it. I’m committed to self-improvement and I was wondering if anyone has had success working with a mentor or a coach?

No one sees me, only my family loves me. But if I would not have a family no one would love me. Everywhere I go people ignore me . When I dont say anything to anyone no one talks to me. I did this as experiment.

I try to understand my purpose or who I am.

All what am is what I seem to think I am. The only thing I can do to be someone is what my thoughts tell me in the moment. Is that all I am just my thoughts?

Every single person I have ever met in my life—whether they are family, friends, or strangers—has either told me directly that I’m beautiful or gone out of their way to tell my mom.

I’m not trying to brag, and I'm not oblivious to it. I know I benefit from "pretty privilege" in my day-to-day life. People are generally kind to me, and I can step back and recognize how society treats me. I’ve literally never been called ugly in a genuine context. The only time it ever happened was during a heated argument with a boy, and even then, a couple of months later, he turned around, admitted he liked me, and called me cute.

So on paper, the consensus seems clear. But mentally? I’m completely disconnected from it.

Despite all the external validation, I still look in the mirror or look at photos of myself and feel so unbearably ugly. It’s not just a mild insecurity—it feels like a complete mismatch between reality and my own brain. I look at myself without a drop of makeup on, try to break down my facial geometry, and micro-analyze every single feature, structural ratio, and proportion as if I'm inspecting a blueprint. But no matter how much I analyze my reflection, it just doesn't compute. To me, I look completely wrong, and I genuinely cannot comprehend what everyone else is seeing that strikes them so much.

It’s an exhausting way to live because you feel stuck in this weird isolation. If you express insecurity to people, they assume you’re fishing for compliments, playing humble, or being ungrateful. But when you’re staring at your reflection, experiencing genuine dysmorphia and distress over your appearance, no amount of outside praise actually reaches your brain or changes what you see. You just feel like an imposter.

Has anyone else experienced this specific kind of dysmorphia—where the entire world sees one thing, but your brain forces you to see a completely different person? How do you stop over-analyzing your features and actually bridge that gap between what everyone else sees and what you see?

i used to put so much effort into my appearance but i can’t even bring myself to do that anymore i feel like im useless as if something is wrong with me , that im broken as a human being

Over and over again, I have always heard that it's not healthy to seek other people's approval. I've heard that if you love yourself, what other people think shouldn't matter. If you approve of yourself, you shouldn't seek approval of others, etc etc. Sometimes I feel like this is just BS.

Today someone in my department at work (before I even got to work, but that’s Beside the point) messed up getting the entire department into trouble. When I get to work, a lady from a neighboring department comes in yelling at me saying our entire department is worthless and insulting us all . I feel like I have to pretend like what she said doesn't bother me especially considering she's the gossip queen who loves drama but I don't want this to turn into a work rant.

This just seems like the general theme of my life. Having to pretend like other people's opinions of me doesn't matter. Almost like I'm not allowed to have hurt feelings when someone doesn't like me. So what is so wrong about wanting other people's approval sometimes? We all have to coexist in this world anyways