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Dislike for pictures of yourself?

M

marc_101

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
Hello all. A random question. When I was a kid, I hated to have pictures taken of myself. I used to cry and hide. I still don't like to see or have my picture taken (nope, don't cry; just don't like it). I'm still not sure why.

My question is, has anybody else experienced such a strong reaction? If so, do you know why?

Thank you so much.
 
Oh definitely. Don't ruin a perfectly good photo by putting my face in it. :p

I am NOT photogenic, and I am always quite disturbed at the differences between what I see in the mirror vs. how I am photographed.

Perhaps there is some degree of dysphoria here. Could be, but I don't seem to take a good photo, almost to the point where I don't recognize myself in photos. They're that bad, in my opinion.
 
I didn't mind photos taken when I was a child, but now I get self-conscious because even the cameras with the best quality show up the features on my face that I don't want to show up. My eyes are often bright red in photos even if the flash is off. My teeth glow if I smile with my mouth open, but if I smile with my mouth closed it makes my chin look crinkled and weird. One time I tried a photo with the "duck face" like other people do, but it made my face look really long like scream but with a stupid dot for a mouth pulling the duck face. And whenever I open up my phone camera the self-facing way I look like one of those really unattractive convicts that show up in the newspaper. Absolutely shockingly ugly. I hate my look. I look too much like my father, and he's good-looking for a man, but for me to look way too much like him doesn't suit me as a woman. I worry I have too much of a masculine face.
 
Yes, I hate that. At school, once a year, a photographer came to take photos. I hated it and never saw the point of it.
 
marc_101 said:
Hello all. A random question. When I was a kid, I hated to have pictures taken of myself. I used to cry and hide. I still don't like to see or have my picture taken (nope, don't cry; just don't like it). I'm still not sure why.

My question is, has anybody else experienced such a strong reaction? If so, do you know why?

Thank you so much.
Click to expand...
When i was younger I used to be so critical particularly of my size when I went through puberty.
I maybe thought I was ok looking but when i thought I saw the photos, I thought I looked a lot uglier.
But in my 20s I was really stunning. However I was still nervous about body shape and thought I may need to put on a bit more weight. And I was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, not to be arrogant but I would take any few photo of myself and it would look exquisite, eyes like I had doe eyes, really clear and pale but it sort of looked like peaches and cream skin, really small nose, nice lip shape and beautiful thin but looked thick sort of wavy hair with a gorgeous colour and my eyes sparked and I was just stubbing but I was always nervous of women and their jealousy especially since i was so gorgeous and I thought I was tol skinny but did not really know how to gain weight and nervous as well. And I was really quiet especially about my appearance. And I really wanted to just do my own thing and live my life. But my family was nice about my appearance especially on cards. Like they would say I was beautiful, my brother was like I do not know why I did not get your beauty or brains, my niece was like you are beautiful like me and she would say it on cards and my cousin Jessica would say it as well.
But onto photo nerves, I can be critical especially when i think I look better in the mirror at times. Sometimes I am fairly confident at other times critical.
So self critical can exist anyway particularly for people with adhd and anxiety around appearance for both adhd and autistic.
My niece was the one who told me this...you look better in the mirror in your eyes than you actually are.
So...it can be so inaccurate, it is all to do with the way you perceive things and the mirror is backwards too.
I worried about that for a while but got over it.
 
When little, I just didn't like flashes going off in my eyes so much. Around middle school, I was just annoyed because I don't know what I'm doing or when I'm actually smiling proper, so it was a chore dealing with people trying to get whatever looks out of me. High school pics were just whatever happened. Adult to present, and the selfies and such are few and far between...mostly still pics of me are happenstance. I do have some professional headshots for entertainment purposes / resume requirements. I guess, I could update a pic on this site, actually. I just don't think about it, really. I certainly don't think that anyone wants to see one, haha.
 
I HATE having pictures taken of me!

I used to make excuses to get out of having them taken, but last year, I thought: look, it is going to happen whether I like it or not, so I might as well do my best, and so, now, I don't run away from them, but do utter: oh, no, not again!

I also hate it when the one who takes them, wants to show the final product.
 
I also hate it since my childhood. I have unusal posture and i am tall so i always look weird in photos
 
I haven't had anyone take of a picture of me in nearly 40 years. Not by choice...just happenstance I suppose. As a couple in earlier years yes, but by myself no one wanted a picture of me I guess. Except my mother.

But no, I was never really fond of my own image being immortalized for posterity...lol.
 
The last full body selfie that I took...on purpose...was to forward to someone else to critique my full wardrobe of the night...to warn me, if I looked stupid or not, haha.
 
Always hated them. If I try to smile it alwsys looks like I'm  trying to smile. If I remain neutral, I apparently have a resting "grump face". I never smile with my mouth open unless I'm laughing. A few shots of that exist. As a kid watching television, I always wondered why people showed their teeth when they smiled. It always seemed unnatural. When I tried smiling that way in a mirror, not only did it feel wrong, it looked bizarre.
 
Jumpinbare said:
Always hated them. If I try to smile it alwsys looks like I'm  trying to smile. If I remain neutral, I apparently have a resting "grump face". I never smile with my mouth open unless I'm laughing. A few shots of that exist. As a kid watching television, I always wondered why people showed their teeth when they smiled. It always seemed unnatural. When I tried smiling that way in a mirror, not only did it feel wrong, it looked bizarre.
Click to expand...
In my case as well. Guilty as charged. I'm like the terminator. Seems if I try too hard to smile it looks awful. I have pictures of me and girfriends, and in every case they look great. I don't. "The Odd Couple". :(

My bad! :oops:
 
I'm not keen. I used to be better about it, I guess, but never really liked it. I had a dream last night (this morning, really, I just woke up) that someone filmed me and I wasn't happy about it. I was accused (in my dream) of being hostile about it and I was like "I haven't even had my morning coffee! You can't expect me to be ok with someone springing a camera on me without even a morning cup of coffee!"
But really, I'm just uncomfortable being filmed in any way, still or moving.
I woke up thinking about a video on yt I saw recently, about Autistic people not liking to be seen, and how so many of us have gotten so much criticism since we were tiny and maybe that's why.
 
I was happy with pictures of myself as a child. Although I’d sometimes get annoyed when my parents would take pictures of me (they’d usually go ahead and point the camera towards me without saying they were going to first). I remember when I was 10 and my parents wanted to take a picture of me I’d usually purposely frown or make an unpleasant looking face, or make a funny gesture.

Today I never like how I look in pictures. I seem no longer able to do a nice looking smile (in my opinion). I’ve had some recent pictures taken of me that I use for my dating apps - my speech therapist helped me pick out the best ones. But I don’t like how I look in those either.
 
I realized that my choice since middle school more so to do the "AAHHH!" kind of face in pics has suited me better, anyway. It's kind of goofy, kind of a mask of uber excitement and later realized that Kurt Cobain among many other famous people always did the same thing. Autism for the win. Legion, for we are many...or something.
 
lovely_darlingprettybaby said:
When i was younger I used to be so critical particularly of my size when I went through puberty.
I maybe thought I was ok looking but when i thought I saw the photos, I thought I looked a lot uglier.
But in my 20s I was really stunning. However I was still nervous about body shape and thought I may need to put on a bit more weight. And I was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, not to be arrogant but I would take any few photo of myself and it would look exquisite, eyes like I had doe eyes, really clear and pale but it sort of looked like peaches and cream skin, really small nose, nice lip shape and beautiful thin but looked thick sort of wavy hair with a gorgeous colour and my eyes sparked and I was just stubbing but I was always nervous of women and their jealousy especially since i was so gorgeous and I thought I was tol skinny but did not really know how to gain weight and nervous as well. And I was really quiet especially about my appearance. And I really wanted to just do my own thing and live my life. But my family was nice about my appearance especially on cards. Like they would say I was beautiful, my brother was like I do not know why I did not get your beauty or brains, my niece was like you are beautiful like me and she would say it on cards and my cousin Jessica would say it as well.
But onto photo nerves, I can be critical especially when i think I look better in the mirror at times. Sometimes I am fairly confident at other times critical.
So self critical can exist anyway particularly for people with adhd and anxiety around appearance for both adhd and autistic.
My niece was the one who told me this...you look better in the mirror in your eyes than you actually are.
So...it can be so inaccurate, it is all to do with the way you perceive things and the mirror is backwards too.
I worried about that for a while but got over it.
Click to expand...
If that's you in your avatar, you're very pretty.
 
I didn't like it as a child, nor as an adult, I don't know why, I just don't - not a group photo, and definitely not a professional one where they might touch you to get the right pose - I remember when I was in school, one time they wanted to take a picture in our class-room for the school newsletter - I held a piece of wood from the chair next to me in front of my face because I didn't want my picture taken, it looked like my head was in a box :)
 
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