Lately, a lot of people have been mistaking me for someone they know. I walk down the halls of Utah Valley University, where I work, and complete strangers look right at me and wave. I stare back at them in confusion, squinting to see if maybe I really do know them? But then they look away sheepishly, and we go on our merry way.
Something has bothered me about these instances, but it's taken me a few weeks to figure it out.
I look like an alien!
What I mean is that I'm inherently surprised that people would mistake me for people they know, because I think I look like an alien.
I'm not trying to be shocking or funny. I'm not even trying to put myself down, because I don't think I'm unattractive, necessarily. I just don't think I look quite human. Everyone else on the planet has their nose and their eyes and their cheeks put together in a certain way, a way common to all of them. And then there's me. My face looks similar to the way human faces are put together, but there's something different about it. Just a bit off.
And since this fact is so obvious to me, I figure it must be obvious to others. So how could anyone see my alien face in a hall and mistake it for a normal human face?
My body image has improved a lot during the past year, which I'm grateful for and proud of. But just when I'm resting on my laurels, this happens, and I realize that negative self talk is a nasty little bugger that I can't root out that easily. Just when you think you've improved, you realize that you still somehow believe that everyone else is a human and only you are an alien.
So this is what I try to tell myself: Whenever you feel like you're the only one, you're wrong. Hate to break it to you, but you're not that unique, Rachel. It's, like, statistically impossible for you to look that different from everyone else in your species. Your self-loathing is actually pride—pride from the bottom up. Don't fabricate a wall of enmity between you and everyone else.
Because we're all just as beautiful and worthwhile and imperfect as everyone else. No aliens here.
-Rachel M from http://www.suchagoodfeeling.com/