A struggle for me has always been how I see myself: self-image. It's nice when people say that you're this and that, but what has always mattered to me is how I see myself. I am never satisfied with what other people tell me I am. I want so badly to be able to look at myself every day and feel like I am worth the compliments I receive. The reality of the situation is that I don't always like what I see in the mirror; sometimes my face seems to actually blur itself into the wall behind me so that I can see nothing but a fuzzy outline of my head.
Is that bad? Yes.
It's just very difficult for me to see how anybody could be satisfied with what they see in the mirror. The thought of an untouched-up image of myself going out into the world is sometimes terrifying. But there are those times when I am so far past caring that I will take a picture of myself and post it just because I want people to see what I actually look like.
Typical United States female, I'm sure. There are so many people willing to take a bunch of pictures of themselves and post them all over the internet because they want people to envy their looks or whatever it is that they are doing at that particular second. That may be why I have an issue with looking "normal" in pictures: I almost don't want praise to come my way, but at the same time there is a part of me that craves the validation of others... which would make sense- I am an actor after all. Actors want to connect with their audience so that they know how to alter their performance in accordance with what the audience wants.
It's sad that I have such a difficult time with actual pictures of myself, but I think there are people exactly like me out there wishing that they weren't the only ones who have a hard time looking at themselves.