YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I have a lot of shame around sexuality. Lately I discovered old "selfies" I'd taken at ages 14-19 (I had no friends except online) and felt 2 things: 1)I was desperate for attention and knew the only thing I had going for me was my looks and 2)I really was quite stunning.

Looking at the old pictures, I'm simultaneously disgusted and enamored. My skin is flawless. My hair, beautiful. I'm so symmetrical. I really mastered the perfect picture angle. It's so gross. I remember I woke up at 5:30 every morning before school so I had an hour to pluck my eyebrows to perfection (body and face hair were my huge paranoia as I had a mustache, unibrow and dark thick hair and kids made fun of me for this constantly), a half an hour to shower, an hour for makeup and dressing and 15 minutes to walk to school every. Single. Day.

Isn't that disgusting?

All this so that people wouldn't make fun of me. Once one of the (recognized and popular, I had different preferences) prettiest girls in my class complimented me on my perfect eyebrows. Well, they would be, I tortured myself for them.

I don't take pictures of myself anymore and as I don't ever go out, there aren't many pictures of me in the world from the last 4 years. I don't groom myself often, maybe once a month or two I will pluck my eyebrows. I never wear makeup. My hair has gotten long, I brush it once a day (used to always have a brush and brushed my hair about once an hour) and wish it was short again (boyfriends, sigh) which in high school my mom would not let me cut my hair because she lived vicariously through me and I looked "so much like she did". I used to have about 5 different lotions with me at all times, I don't even remember the last time I put lotion on! Wow, I didn't realize until I started listing this stuff how crazy it all was. And how crazy standards for women are.

I'm probably an opposite extreme now. I take care of my dog, he is my priority. I cook and clean, I don't have or make time for maintaining looks. Exercise, sure, but not often enough, my boyfriend won't get up earlier to help with the dog so it really eats into my usual workout time. I still think I look good but I really resent the attention I received and fed off of. I know logically it wasn't my fault, but I craved attention so much I put myself in risky situations (I also fully believed men wanted to "hang out" as friends when they said it and took me a long time to figure out this was code) and felt really stupid for being in an obvious sexual assault situation.

I still have body image issues with hair but have been told multiple times even by an electrolysis that it actually isn't that bad. I guess I waxed my brows so much that a lot of the hair stopped growing back. I don't see what they see but I understand that a lot of it is in my head and have let go of it as an important thing, like my body hair is really important in everyday life, I am the only person who cares about it. Except my boyfriend, I guess he has a right to his preferences.

Does anyone else have this experience, either going through it now or overcoming it? Or linking your sexual assault to your skills at "advertising"? I'm still not over those thoughts.

I do think most of these issues stemmed from insecurity, trying to prevent from being harassed in school and then not having any friends or feeling like I had a personality at all so all I had was myself. Now with selfies being a big craze, I roll my eyes. This unhealthy habit in my past became widespread and accepted. What does that say about us? Kind of scary to me.

Please don't find a chain of events that makes you the cause of your own assault, because that is not the self-loving way and that way might lead you to deny yourself support that you need and deserve. You had some past behaviors that helped you cope with past issues, and now you have more wisdom that only comes with age. Please take care, all the best.

I'm amazed that you spent nearly two hours getting ready before school every day. What were you getting out of it? You mentioned a girl complimenting your eyebrows. Were you looking for approval from other girls? Were you trying to get boys to notice you? I also wonder if, back then, you ever said to yourself, "This isn't worth all the time I'm giving it."

I have body image issues too. I'm 5' 6" and 167 pounds. I'm overweight, but not by a lot. Still, there are people in my life that give me a hard time about my weight, exercising, and diet. I'm pretty good about those things normally, but when I'm stressed, sometimes I just want a piece of chocolate or a juicy hot dog. My health matters to me because health is one of the biggest blessings you can ever have, but I don't want to spend a lot of time worrying about calories.

I understand about the calories thing. You know what? Some foods that are good for you are also high in calories, and I have a life, I'm not going to waste it counting calories.

I wasn't looking for approval necessarily and for the most part I didn't receive it. My goal was to just stop the bullying. I thought if I looked perfect they couldn't say anything to hurt me. But then the boys started talking about wanting to rape me. As I was told by girls who were JEALOUS of this. I didn't make any friends from my looks, and wasn't looking to. I never felt that it wasn't worth the effort. I was socially awkward and hideous as a child, I just wanted to remake myself I to a different person. Which I basically did and continue to do.

I wasn't interested in boys really at all so getting their interest was nonsensical to me. If they noticed me, they harassed me. Boys are so uncomfortable around boobs I guess. The girls who were jealous, I didn't understand, what was so great about those jerks? Plus I thought they and their small boobs were great, what needed improving? And to me they looked so great, i mean here I was shaving my whole body everyday because I looked like such a monster!

Health is what is important. I'm fortunate to genuinely enjoy things that are generally healthy for me and not enjoy many other foods, so even without exercise I stay around 120 pounds, about 10 lbs over my weight ten years ago but actually a healthier weight than I was. If you can't enjoy food, you can't enjoy a big part of life!

I don't think I've met a woman yet who has not endured body issues. Even if you had the supposed "perfect body", you would still find fault with it. We just can't be good enough can we?

Oh, btw, dark chocolate helps with weight loss and is good for you, so eat up! And once every few months, a hot dog won't kill you. I won't eat them anymore because my dad once shoved one down my throat, but I think that I'm not missing out on anything, lol.

Just suddenly felt like what I wrote was shitty and dismissive. Take care of yourself but you can still enjoy food. I hate this diet culture.