Social anxiety caused by appearance

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Hit the gym. Get onto a decent beginners strength program. Nothing will boost your confidence more than seeing yourself getting stronger every week. Weight lifting will not only make you look better, it will make you feel better.

There is nothing you can do about your nose, but there is plenty you can do to work on yourself in the gym.

Well you could get a nose job, but it is very unlikely that it will make a difference. It is all about what you feel about yourself inside - and that is something you can improve every day without having to get chopped up!

Have a read of Psycho-Cybernetics. The chap who wrote that was a plastic surgeon who realised that his patients were not actually any happier post surgery. He realised it was their inner attitude that determined their happiness, so he set out to work out how his patients could fix that.

plootark,

Thank you for the reply, I appreciate your advice, but the gym is not for me right now because I am in the final year of university and I don't have time because of coursework. However, because exercise obviously provides a lot of health benefits I plan on doing this more after I graduate in April.

In the last few days my social anxiety has been even worse than usual because of a change in my routine when I mistakenly said to one of my flatmates out of guilt of never speaking to them that they are always welcome to knock on my door if they want to play a 2 player xbox game. I actually cannot do what I said because I would just feel too uncomfortable. Now that I have established that I should do what I feel most comfortable with instead of trying to prevent guilt, I will try and get my anxiety level back to where it was a few days ago before I asked them. I have therefore found that what stabilises my anxiety is keeping my daily routine consistent, so going to the gym would be more for the health benefits and not for reducing my anxiety.

I agree that a nose job can basically be ruled out because there are so many risks:

- It might be botched
- You might regret changing your natural appearance after doing it, and you might suit the nose more as it currently is.
- The surgery itself is a risk because of both the implementation and healing processes.
- It can lead to difficulty with clearing sinuses.
- Most importantly, some people report breathing problems after which affects sleep quality. I think it fair to say that no one would like that.

I would say this makes the need for exercise more important than ever! Exercise helps to boost your alertness and concentration. Doing say 20 minutes a day will help your course work more than anything else... apart from maybe diet. Going to the gym may take more time than you would want. Why don't you look into doing some body weight exercises, you can do them anywhere, and in a short space of time. Look up the 7 minute workout.

Yeah, don't get a nose job. You are already beautiful!

I don't think your anxiety is really caused by your appearance any way. I look great - so a lot of people say, but I also have a lot of social anxiety.

I think anyone having social anxiety about their appearance to the point that they don't want to go out should seriously go to counseling. There are tons of terrible looking people in the world. Most of them feel great about themselves and no one cares that they look like a dumpster. Seriously.

<--That's me there, the one who is a human. A few people have tried to bully me about my nose over the years and I have laughed with delight over the attempts. I've always been bursting with pride that I was the only one of my siblings to get our dad's nose and that I passed it on to my son (our dad was a Cassanova type, acclaimed for being handsome). I wish you could see the looks that have been on people faces when they see my reaction. Imagine someone trying to bully someone for being rich or for being a genius- that's what they realize they just did because it's obvious from my dancing eyes how proud I am about my nose.

I mean, these are just my natural feelings- I'm not suggesting that anyone else can turn something they feel bad about into delight. I think what happens is that people will toss out a random insult and see by your reaction that it connects. You really aren't ugly, but it's just something that gets to you and people can tell so they pick on you about it.

SocOfAutism, Plootark

Thanks very much for your replies, I honestly appreciate them, but I should say that when my mind is set on something I struggle to change my mind, which is probably consistent with Autism. I think that if your comments don't stop my anxiety then basically nothing will, because of how positive they are. I am honestly sorry for wasting your time because out of respect I think I shouldn't have created this thread. In future I will probably post my thoughts on my anxiety on another website like Reddit because I understand that people on here with Autism and other mental health difficulties already have too many problems and the last thing they need is to hear mine. It is probably best if I instead annoy neurotypicals on another website with my thoughts on my social anxiety.

I have been called ugly to my face as well, by a really ugly old man when I was quite young. It hit me hard but I realise he was just seizing on my obvious discomfort and lack of confidence.

I'm a tall guy and quite overweight but my ex girlfriend was into my appearance. Now we've split up I feel like a big fat unattractive mess, it's not healthy to rely on other people's approval to feel good about yourself.

This post isn't helpful at all is it? Some ugly people are conventionally attractive, some beautiful people are unconventionally attractive, outside appearance really doesn't count, it's what's inside. If someone wants to be with you due to your appearance, that relationship isn't real.
Sounds trite, but it's true.

I also agree.

I too have also been called ugly, usually during my GS years by the d-bag basketball coach who coached the team. He told me that if I didn't practice with fellow teammates, he would send me to the principal's office. Given that I was only nine years old at the time, what I didn't realize was that he was taking advantage of my low self-esteem and my fear of bullies.

I'm 5'9'' and like my GF {who I attended grade school with}, I am overweight. When we reconnected a few years back, we both knew that we had to fight off our fears in order to move forward. Even though she was in a relationship at the time, we both realized that we had to help each other to overcome a poor sense of body image.

Even though I'd like to meet my GF's family {My GF and I didn't actually begin dating until the beginning of this year}, I have a strange feeling her family may not take me seriously because of me being overweight.

Beauty counts more on the inside rather than physical apperance.

Hector Scorn, AnonymousAnonymous

No question about it, personality is what is important, I don't think that is the issue here, the issue is how to deal with it if someone mocks my appearance again. I suppose I could try reporting it to the police if it happens on a street or a public place. If it happens when the person is at work I suppose I could try going to a newspaper so that they get fired. Or I could confront them...I don't know what to do.

Sorry man, I didn't mean to appear patronising.

How often has this happened to you? You need to give less of a f**k frankly, but that's a lot easier said than done and I know exactly how you feel, my confidence is very low just now.

It happened various times before I first got my anxiety last year. I would say 12 times and counting but I might have forget some other times. I just cannot understand why someone should just not care when people treat them like they are nothing.

Why do you think they are drawn to attack your appearance? I've had people openly laugh at my awkward and ungainly appearance in the past, I look a bit smarter now and appear more confident, it hasn't happened in a long time.

It's impossible to not care, stuff like that will probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

There could be various things, but it is probably because my nose is probably slightly bigger than average. I say 'probably' because I obviously don't know what the average nose size is. So you think that reporting someone for mocking my appearance is a bad idea?

If it gives you some vindication go for it. It may further the victim complex and makes things worse however.

My features are all over the place, my hands are small but I'm tall and big, I have a huge head and a small face. There's not much I can do about it, the only fix for both of us is working on our confidence I believe.

Yeah definitely, working on solving confidence issues is the only way that things can get any better.

Good thing you aren't like me, 5' 2" weighing 110 lbs.
I'm good at doing stuff so I don't have your confidence issues.
While being short is bad for a guy in terms of appearance, I also
realized I couldn't fix it--so I just ignored the issue and did other
things.