Hi everyone, it's been a while, but I've been trying to do some healing and self care for the past few weeks. As part of my journey of self love, I have been addressing some issues with my self-esteem in therapy that I want to share with you. So, let me tell you a little story about my hatred of my face, yes you heard that right, my face.
Since I was in elementary school, I had a lot of issues with my teeth because I had an underbite that needed to be fixed. My mom took me to a dentist who she knew very well and that was almost like family. During this time, I had to take a lot of x-rays among a lot of things to try to figure out how to best fix my underbite and I was told by my dentist that my face was crooked.
What she meant by crooked was that my jaw bone was longer on one side than the other, which might not be the biggest deal, but as a young impressionable and insecure girl it was a big deal. My dentist would constantly suggest that I get surgery to fix my crooked face, she would say "it's not that bad, it just feels like a train ran you over, but it's not that bad." Keep in mind that I went to the dentist regularly, so I would hear this from her on a weekly basis, how my face was so crooked and I needed surgery to fix it.
This has followed me around my entire life, I am not a fan of the way my face looks. I look in the mirror and the only thing I see is my crooked face, and pictures are even worse. I used to like taking pictures, and now pictures are a source of anxiety for me. All I see when I take pictures or someone takes a picture is an ugly slanted face.
Now that I am an adult and in therapy, this is something that my therapist and I agree I need to work on. Embracing my face and realizing that it is not ugly or bad by any means, that I need to own my face the way it is and find the beauty in it.
This is how I ended up taking a second chance at taking some pictures with my friend Antonio Villaseñor-Baca. We had taken pictures before and because of my face I didn't really like them, so this time around when he brought up the idea I decided to say yes. So, we decided to go to different places and take some photographs (yes, we socially distanced, wore face masks, and made sure there wasn't a lot of people around).
I really want to say that I really am grateful that I have friends who are patient with me when it comes to the way I feel and talk about myself in pictures (Ask my friends, I always say I look really bad and that I hate pictures of myself). Antonio was super patient and encouraging me and I had a really fun time taking some pictures with my friend. I am going to include some of the pictures here, mostly of my face, because those are the hardest for me to share with the world.
For a lot of you, this might seem insignificant or maybe even vain, but for me, this is one of the hardest things I have done.
Lastly, go follow the super cool mijo Antonio Villaseñor-Bana con Instagram @elbilinguey and Twitter @thebilinguey
Carnal, gracias por tomarme fotos, decirme que me veo bien, y tenerme paciencia.
!
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