Has your mental pain altered your outer appearance?

[noname223]

I lost weight 3 kilogram. I have some few grey hair but not that many. I think with my mental pain that might be a miracle.

What about you?

 

[VoidBlessed]

It depends on where I am.

I set myself a challenge to overcome my mental struggles by trying to build a life I could truly enjoy living. I've begun to go out to bars and museums and really take care of my appearance. I've lost the last of the weight I need to, my makeup is flawless, and to anyone outside my house I am beautiful. I've been told I have a beautiful smile and bright eyes.

Once I get home and take off the mask, sometimes the weight of the pain is so much it's hard to even raise my head. I see all the little tensions in my face from trying to hide the pain, and overall I just look dead tired.

 

[Pluto]

 

[Forever Sleep]

Limerence encouraged me to lose over 5 stone, make an effort to exercise, dress better, become more feminine. My periods stopped for over a year. I could see the vertebrae sticking out of my back and the top of my rib cage on my chest. I felt constantly cold. My Dad says I went a weird orange colour! Perhaps unrelated but, many years later, I developed gallstones- they are more likely to develop with big fluctuations in weight.

So yeah- maybe not mental pain exactly, although limerence can be very painful. But yeah, my obsessive crushes led me to be obsessive about food and my appearance. I'd say in a few directions, I was bordering on eating disorders. Both binge eating and excessively cutting out carbs and anything bad. I pretty much ate vegetables and protein with a very little carbohydrate for a few years. I felt better though!

 

[lemonbunny]

yes, i stop taking care of myself when my depression gets really bad

 

[Hollowman]

I've lost muscle and gained fat.

 

[pulleditnearlyoff]

Gained a lot of weight, have several small skin-pitching wounds all over my body and my face, cuttings on my arms, look shabby.

 

[avalokitesvara]

Yeah, I have a lot of grey hair for my age. I think you can see it in my eyes as well, I feel like they tell you all you need to know. Don't know if other people can see it, though.

Scars of course.

Recent bout of depression has also made me lose my appetite/not desire to eat so I've lost some weight. Before I was more of an "eat your feelings"-type so I'm not mad about this change lol

 

[Custos]

BMI of 14 and scars

 

[Cyber4ngel!]

The eyes dont lie

 

[nogods4me]

My face - which used to be universally appreciated during my youth - has gotten puffy and lost part of its normal jaw contour, I have developed wrinkles and my eyes sockets are darkened. My body has become less muscular and lost its proper shape in the abdomen. Happiness will change peoples physical appearance for the better...unhappiness for the worse. I've seen in on myself and others.

 

[kitkat9234]

My appearance went to shit. Gained 50lbs due to heavy psych medications. Used to have beautiful curly hair and skin yet can't afford the products anymore. Barely even shower due to my depression. I look like a balding overweight man when I used to be so attractive. It's so depressing. I don't even want to look at myself in the mirror or go out in public. I hate when I have to go to the office and dread talking to anyone because I look so gross now. It's awful.

 

[ploppington]

I lost weight 3 kilogram. I have some few grey hair but not that many. I think with my mental pain that might be a miracle.

What about you?

I hate not looking and feeling pretty, especially when I live with someone I love. It's just hard. He's been great with being so kind and still loyal to me, but I feel like he doesn't think I'm this beautiful out-of-his league person he's always mentioned before. He may tell me when I ask, but only if I ask, really. I can't blame him. I still feel so highly of him.

 

[MidnightCat]

I guess it did...

The scars and the dark baggy eyes mainly..

 

[Arachno]

Not much actually, I already am underweight (But I still suspect I might have lost some weight) and my scalp gets bloody at times, but not much else besides that. The way it impacted my body on the inside is a different story though, my body aches a lot.

 

[nattys5thtoenail]

My acne is terrible, I can't even look at pictures others take of me, I've gained 50lbs, my sense of style and love for fashion is gone.

 

[outatime_85]

I have stopped eating and just drinking water and electrolytes.

Don't know if this has or will change my appearance or anything else, but it is where I am at now.

 

[areyousafe??]

I have scars on my arm that are noticeable, has been there for years. Last year reached a BMI of 16/17

 

[HereTomorrow]

I'm incredibly lucky my self harm scars on my arm are almost invisible, but they were very much there.

Main thing was weight gain. Ever since I got treated by mental health professionals I went from 130lb to 190lb. Of course correlation does not always equal causation, but I ate my pain away to cope with forced therapy, it was my only coping mechanism I could depend on. I've been losing the weight though, 160lb now! Hopefully in a year or two I should be normal for my height.

Also, just oily skin. I used to shower only once a month. I used to only brush my hair on special occasions.

Yellow teeth, barely brushed. Somehow never got a cavity.

Basically, to sum it up, I was an obese girl with messy hair and overall looked very self-neglected.

Now that I'm in my 20s, I'm doing better, I'm less of an outer mess, but I'm repairing my near decade of messups, and eventually, I'll look and maybe feel better, I don't know.

 

[BlendedHeart]

I have a lot of grey hair for my age. Baggy eyes, pale skin. I'm already dead, I think.

 

[TheShadowKing]

I had lost 80 pounds due to my eating disorder and drug use which honestly I don't mind cause I was way too fat I used to weigh 250

 

[33-vertebrae]

Years of depression, stress, anxiety, and being a recluse has nuked my olive skin, making me whiter than my white father, morphed and misaligned my bone structure, given me cortisol belly, made my hair shed, given me hormonal acne.

 

[Higurashi415]

I hate not looking and feeling pretty, especially when I live with someone I love. It's just hard. He's been great with being so kind and still loyal to me, but I feel like he doesn't think I'm this beautiful out-of-his league person he's always mentioned before. He may tell me when I ask, but only if I ask, really. I can't blame him. I still feel so highly of him.

Damn, that hurt. I feel the same.

I've eaten properly and worked out regularly for a couple of years, in no small part thanks to depression. I was trying to fix things.
Now I've lost 5kg of muscle, I hate myself so much.

 

[ShatteredSerenity]

Severe depression has nuked my will to live, let alone take care of myself.

Zero exercise and a sweet tooth made me chubby. I'm planning to ctb before I become truly fat.

I don't shave regularly so my face is usually a mess of unkempt stubble.

I'm constantly sad, I have few facial expressions and don't react to anything positive.

 

[DisillusionedDruid]

I lost weight 3 kilogram. I have some few grey hair but not that many. I think with my mental pain that might be a miracle.

What about you?

Amazing miracle. Well done. Great work.

I am a blimp of a man, because of my mental pain. My hair has gotten a lot greyer, a lot sooner than it should have in life.

 

[hail]

eyes have the deepest circles, teeth are horrible and are likely going to need extracted, hairs a mess and my skin is corpse-esqe

self harm scars too, if that counts

 

[J&L383]

yes, i stop taking care of myself when my depression gets really bad

I take care of myself okay but just about everything else has sort of been neglected.

 

[DistraughtWolf]

Some scars here and there but i swear to this day that my aggressive balding was definitely sped up by everything i've gone through in the past 4 years, lol.

 

[struggles_inc]

Depression fucks up my weight. I either lose it really quick or gain it all back. Got selfharm scars.
Had an incident once, failed to take care of the wound. It got infected. Now there's a scar too.
Eye bags. During worst seasons also got hair loss and/or acne due to malnourishment or only eating trash like instant noodles.
Smell like cigarettes and alcohol.

 

[SnowLeopard21]

I have some grey hairs before 30 and it's physically hard for me to smile. My face shows premature aging but that's just the cigarettes. At least I don't have a baby face anymore and the outside reflects what I feel on the inside somewhat.