#women who are horribly insecure and unsatisfied with themselves | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sttoru · 6 months

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Hi. ✌️ I'm writing this as I'm feeling very low, so I'm sorry if it doesn't really make sense, but I've been struggling with my body image lately. 😓😓

Tw: body image struggles, sadness, negativity, bullying, mentions of being underweight.

For some unknown reason, I've been feeling very unsatisfied with the way I look. I've been struggling to accept my face and body. I used to feel like this when I was like, twelve or something, and then it got better, but, sometimes, like now, I get hit by so many insecurities... 🥲

The beauty standard, for women, where I live is to be curvy (because people love having something to grab).

And I never cared about that until I started going to school and my classmates would talk behind my back about how I was way too thin, way too flat, way too boney, too underweight. About how nobody would ever want me. Saying that my skin was too ugly (because I have freckles and I'm always covered in bruises, my skin is very thin, so it's easy to be marked), that nobody would like to hold me because it would be like hugging a pile of hard uncomfortable bones and then they'd point out "imperfections" that I never even noticed - my stretch marks around my thighs, my asymmetrical nose, my uneven knees, my dimples, my big front teeth, etc.

Having your body trashed by others is so hurtful, even when it isn't directed to me. 😣 Why are these people judging other people on the way they look? In such a superficial way? They didn't choose to be born this way. They are just. There. Trying to live their lives naturally. Why does it bother people so much the way you look? And then they make you hate yourself too, because no one likes having their "flaws" and insecurities called out and made fun of. And the worst part of it: if someone else has the same "flaws" as you, you won't think it looks that bad on them. 😐

Growing up was hard, and I grew to, not love, but accept myself as me. Still, those words linger in the back of my mind. Those are the things I keep on thinking about before falling asleep, while shopping for clothes, while eating, while staring at the mirror. I hate that their words are affecting me until now. I hate feeling so miserable about how I look. Do you have any advice on how to love yourself? On how to heal better from years of receiving hate?

I hope you have a great day and I hope I'm not bothering you. 😅

hellloo! sorry for the late response, i was quite busy :< i’m also very sorry to hear that you feel like that and i surely hope that what i’m going to say helps you somehow. in any kind of way, hopefully.

if your struggles get unbearable, please contact nearby (mental) health care services or friends. remember that there’s always someone out there who care for you for who you are <

first of all, no one deserves to go through such a thing. it’s horrible — that people call others out on things they can barely have any influence on, like how someone looks. never ever should anybody comment on another ones’ looks. shouldn’t ever be considered okay.

unfortunately, nowadays it’s like its normal. i see it every day, people and especially women getting trashed by thousands of unwanted comments from both men and women about their body. being too fat, being too skinny, being too dark skinned, having stretch marks : it’s literally impossible to be a woman, like america ferrera said in the barbie movie (saying the latter assuming you are a woman or identify as one). people will always feel like criticising someone else’s body or face, no matter what you change or try.

there’s lots of reasons for that; some just like to project, others tend to focus too much on the beauty standards that are institutionalised into their brains due to all kinds of social media platforms. you also have some people who love to hate because they want to feel better about themselves; aka insecurities. if they see someone who they think is less attractive than them, they tend to instantly downgrade them to make themselves feel better. it sucks — really does. but that says a lot about them as a person (trash LOL).

so those people who said all of those horrible things to you when you were young, probably did it due to one of the reasons stated above. and let me tell you, all reasons stated above do NOT justify their harsh words. it’s childish and immature to say all those words to you — they’re immature and need therapy themselves to grow out of that mindset of needing to bring other people down.

thus i can promise you that the right (mature) people do NOT care about how you look. the healthy & healed people who learnt that harsh words can easily influence another’s mind for years on end, do not ever trash you for your looks or insecurities. EVER. nor do people who actually realise just how harmful beauty standards are to the average human.

it’s unfortunate that those weren’t the people who were around you during your childhood and i’m sorry for that.

i’m sure you’re just fine. i hope you meet people who love you for who you are, people who love you inside and out no matter what or how you look. there are people out there that i’m sure you’ll meet one day whom will help you heal those open wounds from your past.

but, you can’t just sit around and wait on those people to come heal you. at the end of the day, it’s your body, your life, your thoughts. it’s tough to heal alone — but that’s a good start. slowly starting to learn to love yourself again will bring you all the peace you need.

it’s not a quick journey, believe me. it’s gonna be tough, you are going to slip and fall, but remember that your future is in your hands. not in the validation or words of others: your future is yours and so is your life.

my advice on how to love yourself after all those draining years is to spend more time with yourself. i know it sounds harsh, but getting to know your mind and self can put yourself at complete ease. what can you do to improve your understanding of yourself?

- keep a journal. don’t have to write in it every day, but each time you want to vent — write in it. if you feel too lazy to write, let off your steam in your notes app. or too lazy to type? talk out loud to yourself or voice record it.

- reflect on your journal. think about your feelings — ask why? questions. search for the possible problems behind your feelings. dissect those problems and search for possible solutions.

example: you feel sad again, because of your remembrance of what others had said to you in the past -> accept the situation; understand why you feel the way you feel -> think of those people and realise and accept that they’re in the past and you’re living in the future (as impossible and harsh as that sounds)

your future is in your hands — your future is something that you can CHANGE. the past is unchanging, you can’t undo what they said. you can’t undo the experiences. once again, as harsh as that sounds. accepting and moving on is a life long process which starts with teaching yourself exactly that.

a fresh new start = a fresh new chapter in your life. in your future. your present.

- learn to live in the present. againnnn, sounds impossible, but it takes time to accept this. you cannot undo what has happened nor can you undo that it has influenced you. that’s why people HEAL: you heal from your wounds, you don’t undo them. why? because you can’t undo them. you get hurt and accept the pain and the fact you got hurt. then you can start the process of healing, which you can only do if you move forward.

try your best to not hang in the past and focus on the present and future which lays in your hands.

- whenever you think back to whom or what hurt you, consider the value of it for your personal growth. is it negative? think about it if needed, accept it, nod, shrug and ultimately leave it behind because it will not help you personally in the future; you have no need for that stuff that will only get in the way of your journey to love yourself.

think about it for as long as you need, but make sure the thoughts get left behind. if you do not accept and do not stop thinking about those negative things, they will stick for the rest of your life and only make it more unbearable. (i call it the TAM method: ‘think, accept, move on’)

i know it sounds impossible, but trust me, it works once you get used to it.

of course, it doesn’t always work. and it is not bad to sometimes be unable to, it’s a looooong progress and journey, but as long as you keep doing what i said above — it will eventually come to you naturally. (i hope.)

- self care days! or mental health days, they call it. take some days for yourself, where you do your favorite things and just try to relax the best you can. example; take a walk with some music on, draw, watch your comfort series etc. etc. to get your mood up!! do this weekly. i do it on fridays after school/work because that’s when i feel best. but its always up to you to choose when to do them (can just be whnever you need a break from life).

lastly, i recommend (if you are able to afford it) to see a therapist or psychologist. they can give you the necessary tools and advice to help with your problems properly. it can also help if you talk it out with someone.

i’m always here to listen more to you. always here to help. my dms are also open and i will try to respond asap. remember that beauty standards do not define you for who you are: everyone’s unique, special and beautiful in their own way.

i myself may not love myself or accept myself fully yet, but the more i realise why other people say or do hurtful things, the more i accept that life is always going to be that way. there are always going to be people who criticise you no matter what. it’s a harsh world we live in — a harsh industry with lots of people whom haven’t healed or have gotten out of their institutionalised toxic mindsets. mind you; some never do.

that’s why associating yourself with such individuals will only bring you down. learn to disassociate yourself from them and that includes anything they’ve said to you — leave them to rot away in their own unbearable and toxic thoughts. live your life. it’s yours and no one can change or lead it for you. not their words nor their actions can change your present and future; only if you choose to allow them to.

focusing on yourself and wanting to love yourself and grow as a person gives you autonomy and authority about your own life. take that path and remember that it takes time to heal & accept yourself <3

LOVE YOU!

#sttoru responds.#THIS GOT SUPER LONG BUT #let me know if this helps in any way even if its a crumb

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anneapocalypse · 5 years

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Anne watches MCU: Captain America through Age of Ultron

My trek through the Marvel Cinematic Universe has continued but I really slacked off on making posts about it after the first, uh, three, so here's a catch-up post!

And as a note, I am watching the films in release order, but for simplicity's sake I'm grouping some origins and sequels together here.

Spoilers for everything through Ultron, as well as some mentions of Civil War and Captain Marvel.

Crossposted from dreamwidth.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) & The Winter Soldier (2014)

Captain America to me marks a turning point in the MCU, the moment when these films reach a level of sincerity and groundedness that will become a standard in superhero films. And as such, the Captain America series is one of my favorites within the Marvel universe. World War II has also long been an interest of mine, so it's no surprise that I enjoyed the first film so much.

And when Steve reawakens in the modern day and becomes one of the Avengers, carrying on the ideals that made him who he is, I love that too. I would say Winter Soldier is as much an Avengers movie as it is a Captain America movie (the same has been said of Civil War) because once Cap enters the present day, you can't really have Cap without the Avengers.

In the hindsight of having recently seen Civil War, think this is partly because Steve, more than any other Avenger, is defined by his relationships to other people. His friendships, his rivalries, his loyalties—these are what make Steve Rogers who he is, both in the past and in the present. Steve's whole life is shaped by his friendship with Bucky Barnes. His first thought upon waking up in another time is not of the world he has lost but the people he has lost. And his new friendship with Sam Wilson is easily one of the most delightful moments in The Winter Soldier.

I will say that my primary disappointment with The Winter Soldier was that it wasn't really an origin story for Bucky Barnes. There is not a lot of character development for Bucky himself—it is still very much Steve's story. But the focus is again on Steve's relationship with his old friend, and his refusal to give up on Bucky ultimately saves them both.

And I think that focus on relationships is also what makes Captain America a favorite for me.

The Avengers (2012)

I really wish I had written about this movie when I first watched it, because my memory of it is now very much colored by having seen Age of Ultron and Civil War since. Attempting to set that aside, I did enjoy this movie when I watched it, though not quite as much as I enjoyed Captain America.

The Avengers is absolutely not a standalone film. This is definitely the point at which the MCU truly becomes a shared universe, and the origin stories we've had so far are really not optional for understanding these character dynamics.

The tension between Steve and Tony does make sense, both for the characters themselves and as a kind of meta commentary on the evolution of the Marvel universe: Tony Stark's layers of defensive irony set against Steve Rogers' straightforward sincerity.

There are other character beats that work for me in this movie as well. We get the best character development for Natasha, given that she doesn't get her own movie. (CRIMINAL.) That she successfully plays Loki, out-tricks the Trickster, is a truly beautiful moment. Ruffalo's Bruce Banner establishes pretty clearly that he is not Ed Norton's Bruce Banner. And Tony/Pepper manages to grow on me a little bit.

Loki as a villain is... okay. I think it's pretty clear by the end that his plan was never really about dominating Earth, but about causing chaos—which he does, pretty successfully, and in the hindsight of Civil War, said chaos has some far-reaching effects. That part works for me. On the flip side, I really hate mind-control MacGuffins; I think they're a lazy means of getting characters to do whatever the plot requires without having to justify the characterization in any way or deal with the aftereffects, and in my opinion Marvel overuses this trope to death.

Hawkeye as a character is absolutely wasted in this movie, as we have no idea who he is before he is controlled by space magic.

This ties into a larger issue with the Avengers series that, again, feels much more prominent after seeing Civil War: the Avengers aren't a team. Not really. They're a group of solo superheroes attempting to work together. This would be fine for a first Avengers film if the plot were about building them from a group of loners into a real team. But this film isn't about that. It's about dividing them before we've really seen them united. We are told, and not shown, that Natasha and Clint are close friends; beyond that, who on this supposed team actually have a reason to care about one another? And by the end, what has this film really accomplished in terms of building a rapport and making the Avengers feel like a team?

I think the fact that they end the film sitting around a table eating shawarma in stone cold silence says it all.

Iron Man 3 (2013)

The third Iron Man movie begins to bring Tony Stark a little more in line tonally with the other Avengers. Tony loses none of his distinctive character, but his experiences are treated more seriously in this film, with Tony suffering from PTSD. It also explores how the events of Thor and The Avengers have challenged Tony's arrogance as a former lone-wolf superhero driven by technology and his own extreme wealth.

By this movie I'm pretty well over Tony/Pepper. Pepper loves Tony, she cares about him—but she never seems happy with him, only constantly stressed, and as a viewer who loves Pepper, it's honestly not fun to watch. This is something I think Nolan's Batman series better understood; there's a reason Rachel doesn't wait for Bruce. The genius billionaire superhero is a terrible boyfriend. Marvel, unfortunately, doesn't really want to acknowledge that. For Pepper to be happy with Tony, Tony needs to change, and Marvel doesn't really want to change Tony. For Pepper to leave Tony means the hero doesn't get the girl, and Marvel doesn't want that either. So we're left with this tiring, unsatisfying relationship, and I'm super over it.

To add insult to injury, Pepper gets superpowers and doesn't even get to keep them.

The MCU has a Women Problem, and it's really, really obvious in this film. I do like parts of it very much; it's undeniably enjoyable to watch, and I like a lot of what it does with Tony. But it's also representative of some of the cracks in the Marvel fresco as a whole.

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Darcy is the most fun character in the Thor movies at this point, and to be honest I kinda like her more than Jane.

The Dark World is another fish-out-of-water story, only this time it's Jane that's the fish. I didn't hate this movie, but it didn't make a huge impression on me, as evidenced by the fact that I can't find any notes for it. :P I enjoyed the stinger of Loki being alive at the end (I knew he was going to be, but it was still fun to watch), and I was pissed they killed Frigga (one of my favorite characters in the Odin family).

And once again, we have a female character infused with a force of tremendous power and she isn't even allowed to keep it. Are we noticing a pattern here, whereby with men, superpowers are celebrated no matter what kind of horror they went through to get them or even how much they hate themselves for having them (hello, Bruce Banner), but for women, superpowers are a horrible curse they need to be rescued from?

Yeah, Marvel has a women problem. NEXT!

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) & Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (2017)

Along with Captain America, Guardians is tied for my favorite series within the MCU. It is unapologetically fun, yet still sincere in its own way, striking a fresh and unique tone for the MCU.

These two movies are excellent and in my opinion, do a much better job of showing a band of loners becoming a team and building a rapport and learning to trust one another than Avengers did.

There is no character among the Guardians I don't love, and the restraint with which Quill and Gamora's relationship is handled (in that they build a friendship, rather than making Gamora Peter's prize for becoming the hero) is damn refreshing. Drax is simultaneously hilarious and sincere—in fact his humor comes from his innate sincerity. Rocket Raccoon exemplifies the kind of insecurities all the characters must overcome to work together. And both Gamora and Peter show self-reflection and growth in the second film, Peter by facing down his own ego, Gamora by acknowledging what her sister Nebula went through without denying her own suffering.

These films, especially 2, are all about relationships, including complicated and troubled relationships, and that's probably why I love them.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Age of Ultron was a weird watch for me.

There were things I liked about it a lot, Natasha's relationship with the Hulk and Clint finally getting some long-overdue character development especially. And yet I came away from this movie feeling more tired than anything else. There were some good character moments, but the story did nothing for me.

Most of all, though, I think my exhaustion stems from how deeply formulaic the Marvel films have become at this point. They're just really, really predictable. I'm already tired of AI-centric plots not thinking of anything more creative to do with their premise than "It tries to wipe out humanity/take over the world I guess." This story feels utterly phoned in.

And even in terms of relationships, this film doesn't really hold up. For one thing, the whole setup of the film is the continued tension between the Avengers, most prominently Steve and Tony, which has never really been resolved. Tony going rogue and activating Ultron isn't so much a betrayal of an established trust as it is simply highlighting the fact that there isn't any.

Meanwhile, Natasha and Bruce are bungled... badly. Much has been said about the conversation in which Natasha seems to be saying that being infertile makes her a monster. A generous reading can attribute this to bad dialogue, appearing to frame the "monster" remark around Natasha's infertility when she is meant to be remarking on the fact that her greatest strength is as a highly efficient killer. But in light of Marvel's Women Problem, that reading really isn't any better. In some ways it's just as bad or worse, as it once again frames power in a woman as a curse rather than a gift. Either way, it's not really a valid comparison to Bruce's specific angst, which is unique to him: he is possessed by a power he not only never wanted, but cannot control.

(No wonder people are confused when Carol Danvers doesn't have to be brutalized to become powerful, or hate herself for being so. It breaks the rules. And thank the gods for it.)

One bright spot in this film is the introduction of Wanda Maximoff, the most powerful heroine we've yet seen in the MCU. Vision, by contrast, feels like a fairly pointless character to me. I feel like everything he did could've been done by someone else, and he's only here because he's in the comics.

I’ve also watched both Ant-Man and Civil War this week, and took copious notes this time, so expect posts for those films soon.

#anne watches mcu

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