I am vain. Generally, I like how I look. Not beautiful, I am grateful to my mother (who was beautiful) for giving me a decent face. That face is now quite puffy and I can no longer fit into much of my wardrobe. I waver between extreme self-consciousness and forgetting about it until I look in a mirror or worse see a photo or video of my puffed-out, hollow-eyed self. The longer I live with the puffy face and body the more it’s become the new normal. Sometimes that just depresses me. Sometimes that helps with acceptance.
Illness & Treatment
Illness and its treatment can alter your appearance until we don’t recognize who that person in the mirror is any more. It can make you gain or lose too much weight, drain your complexion, cause dark circles under your eyes, make your hair thin out or fall out completely… We feel we look old before our time. Make-up is a girl’s best friend but you can’t hide everything under concealer and blush. All of it can do a number on our self-esteem because we are attached to how we look. That’s not being vain, that’s being human!
Supportive People!
What helps with acceptance? A huge thing for me is how kind and supportive people are. Family, friends, and clients let me know the change in my appearance doesn’t matter to them. In the last few months, I have heard several versions of “I know you are going through a hard time, I see it, but you are still beautiful.” Even when I am not in the mood to believe it, I feel their sincerity, the kindness. Allowing it to sink in makes me feel all warm and good inside.
How do you handle the changes in your appearance as a result of illness or treatment? Please share your wisdom or frustration! It’s all good!
Side bar! A friend who knows how my puffy face makes me feel bad told me about Ashley Judd. She went through some very public criticism for her puffy face, the result of having to take steroids for an illness! She is very articulate about how the change in appearance can be criticized by society and how cruel that is towards all women!
Elvira G. Aletta, PhD, Founder & CEO
Executive & Personal Coaching, Individual & Relationship Counseling
Life gave Dr. Aletta the opportunity to know what it’s like to hurt physically and emotionally. After an episode of serious depression in her mid-twenties, Dr. Aletta was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease that relapsed throughout her adulthood. While treatable, the cure was often as hard to bear as the disease. Later she was diagnosed with scleroderma, another chronic illness.
Throughout, Dr. Aletta battled with anxiety. Despite all this, Dr. Aletta wants you to know, you can learn to engage in life again on your terms.
Good therapy helped Dr. Aletta. She knows good therapy can help you. That’s why she created Explore What’s Next.
Today Dr. Aletta enjoys mentoring the EWN therapists, focusing on coaching and psychotherapy clients, writing and speaking. She is proud and confident that Explore What’s Next can provide you with therapists who will help you regain a sense of safety, control and joy.
716.308.6683 | draletta@explorewhatsnext.com
Very interesting and provocative, Dr.A. Thanks for including this Ashley Judd video here.
A close friend is slowly recovering from several months with a Bell’s Palsy diagnosis (in which half of her face drooped and sagged alarmingly, affecting her speech, her smile, her eye, but most of all her sense of self). She felt extremely self-conscious about her odd appearance, and started to limit her social life (the exception was going out to the movies in the evenings!)
For women especially, who are socialized to be focused on appearance from early childhood, any medical condition that affects our face (why oh why couldn’t this be in the ELBOW?!) can feel disturbingly life-altering.
Carolyn, I feel so much for your friend and understand completely. It isn’t right that we have to think twice before accepting an invitation to a party or just meeting friends for a coffee. I feel apologetic (“Sorry for my appearance, I usually don’t look like this.”) and then angry for feeling like I have to apologize. It’s so complicated in part because our society puts so much pressure on women regarding our appearance, in part because our appearance is part of our identity in a healthy way and in part because of the connection with loss and mortality it all implies. I tend to think we are way too hard on ourselves and see too much of what others don’t, droopy or puffy face, and not enough of what others do, radiant eyes, a sharp mind, a lovely voice.
WOW this is the best thing I’ve read in 3 years whilst suffering a chronic condition which was caused by an operation going wrong. I’ve been gaslighted galore and to top it off look like h*LL! Thank u SOOOO much for sharing it wisdom. I’m a sensible person and know that things shud not be the way they are in society but until someone actually says it (and great to see Ashley Judd who I love! …vid) and ur info and the other reply it helps support that niggly bit in my head that keeps telling me “women and girls” have to be young pretty etc… It’s not logical….. I want to be admired if at all! For being smart empathetic and doing good things in the world… But if you don’t look the part ur written off! It’s crazy