I am wondering how many of you look in the mirror and really cannot make heads nor tails of your personal appearance. You cannot tell if you are big or skinny. Your face seems to be different every time you look at it (same face but you focus on different aspects). If you are feeling negative, the things you do not like about your body seem exaggerated.

Men and women, Do you ask close friends or loved ones if you are fat, short, tall, skinny... Sometimes obsessively?

In a sense it is not so much body dysmorphia but an "amorphic body image." You simply cannot tell how you compare.


In my case, I have had this since I was very young. I could not even stand mirrors until I was in college... and even then I thought I looked strange. These days, I ask close friends if they think I look fat...they laugh at me and say that I am not at all... but I am acting like a girl :)

Still cannot make heads nor tails of my face, though...

Yes, I'm very bad about that myself. I'm way too overfocused about whether I've gained a pound or two,or if something makes me look fat, old, silly,or whatever. It would sure be nice not to be like that....

As a teen no matter how much weight I lost I still saw a fat ugly girl in the mirror.

At my lowest weight that I know of back then, it could have been lower but I stop checking, was 105. Before I realized if I didn't eat I'd be thin, I weighed all of 130 pounds.

Now I still have this problem but it's different. Now I am fat but I see myself as someone much fatter than I am, I find this very weird. My Dr. says is he sees this alot.

All my life I've heard what a beauty I am (my face). I do not see that, I see an avg. looking person with a big nose and fat cheeks.

I don't feel it's about self confidence, I'm not loaded with it but I've got a good share of some. ;)

So what makes those of us who think this way think this way?

So what makes those of us who think this way think this way?Well... My model predicts it... and I definitely have this and no lack of confidence.

In a nutshell, most cases of ADD = the inability to process things out of context.

All things need to be judged in context. Size of objects is judged in comparison (context) to other objects which in turn are judged in comparison to our size...if we don't have that other thing to compare to...it is very difficult to judge. We never see ourselves in comparison to other people. We look at ourselves in the mirror and it is out of context.

Most people have these non-context comparisons down pat. There is an oppositional view which is dysmorphia (this is actually non-context based)... I think most ADD people have amorphic body image. It looks like dysmorphia but does not have the same cause.

All this ties into....not being able to tell your left from your right without a contextual strategy :)

Hmmmmmm.....weird........ :)

It was pointed out to me that this poll could have negative consequences if a person had an eating disorder and just decided that the way they look is just ADD tricking them.


If you really do look unhealthy (I think that this amorphic body image thing is much milder than dysmorphia) Please see a doctor. If other people suggest that you are looking too thin... take them at their word.

I do think that if you have an amorphic body image...it really can lead to an eating disorder. I always think I look big in the mirror but other people tell me that I am not. I have dieted obsessively because of it.

Always get a second opinion than your own and if people are very concerned please see a doctor, ok?

while I know I'm not an ageless beauty. My mind finds it hard to coincide the aging woman I see and the youngster I still feel like. I have a healthy mental self image that is not exactly what everyone else sees though I don't really care either. for me its given me a freedom to be myself and I've never really bothered with diets and make up its all so not for me. I think I look great just the way I am. My looks have their limits I'm sure but I feel limitless.

I've never really had this problem. Actually, I had sort of the opposite problem over the last year and a half - every time people met me they though I looked very different. Of course, this is because I more or less wasn't cutting my hair, so every few months people would meet me and notice how much longer had gotten. I do ocassionally worry about some aspects of my apperance, but not in any way that's not appropriate or obsessive. Most of my worry has been brought on by my SO, anyway.

I am, however, completely and totally horrible at identifying traits of other people that I've met. So if I forget a name, and somebody starts asking me - was the guy short? fat? hair color? eyes? etc., I'm clueless. But show me a picture and I could identify right away. That, I think, is a learned behavior that has nothing to do with ADD. (or more that I never learned to mentally sort people into these categories.)

However, it is possible for me to get obsessive about my appearance, but only in a specific context. Just normal hyperfocusing, as far as I'm concerned. A related but similar example is that I can't really wash my car because it winds up taking hours and hours as I notice all the tiny problems (like a 2 mm paint chip), many of which I can't resolve and drive me crazy. It's usually better to just not look, because once I get started...

About the only identity problem I have is not worth getting into so much (here), but it's a little troubling - my idealized self has traits that are contradictory, and often I feel like my desires are similiarly contradictory. The issue of identity merits further discussion.... perhaps outside of the context of contextual mind and so on.

Nucking_Futs, I'd justs give anything to have your attitude! :)

Two additional notes: When I said "nearly killed myself", I meant in accidents... never felt suicidal or anything close to it. (Once driving, lost control into oncoming traffic, and once Scuba diving, paniced and swam 30 feet straight up to the surface - without air).

My brother is ADD, probably worse than me. He is is quite the social bee compared to myself, still has many of the problems you have described. He is a worse "motor mouth" than me, and was (especially in his younger years) incomprehensible to most people (I often found myself translating for him). It doesnt' seem to have stopped him from being an extrovert, but he still has problems, and took speech therapy when he was younger.

Even today... though he is definitely smart, his writing and speaking are both often very disjointed and hard to follow.

I am, however, completely and totally horrible at identifying traits of other people that I've met. So if I forget a name, and somebody starts asking me - was the guy short? fat? hair color? eyes? etc., I'm clueless. But show me a picture and I could identify right away. That, I think, is a learned behavior that has nothing to do with ADD. (or more that I never learned to mentally sort people into these categories.)
Actually...this would be predicted in contextual mind.... catagorization is the function of hierarchical mind...and I have the same problem with other people. I cannot classify them.

experiential context always needs comparisons on the spot and within the sense range...if a person is much bigger than us...we notice it, if a person is much bigger, shorter, taller than other people then we notice it...but it has to be almost extreme if we see them out of context...to store it in memory.

I lived in Japan and I never realized that I was taller than most everyone else until I went to the city and saw a sea of black hair...everyone seemed to be my size until then. Looking in the mirror is the same exerience...nothing without context and the mirror is a strange thing for me.

Other people can categorize and store the information...I do not know how they do that... but I do know it takes lots of processing power and I use it for other things...like building myself and my view of the world.

I am forced to come up with these models...I have no choice. I need to create internal context. It is what the psychologists would call "self" and it is fully context based.

HM relies on "ego" to function in culture :)

(BTW, the last post I made was intended for another thread. My bad. I'm past the edit deadline so I can't do anything about it :( )

Nucking_Futs, I'd justs give anything to have your attitude! :)

When I was younger I would get up at 5:00am so that I could get to school on time at 8:30am. It took hours to get every hair in place and my make up just right, sometimes I would have to start completly over because I had a bad hair day. I spent at least two hours painting my nails three times a week, fake baked, dieted, anything I could do to improve my image of myself I did it.

After a suicide attempt I realized that I was changing the outside and aiming for perfection on the outside because I didn't like my inside. If that makes sense. I slowly learned to accept myself to know what I could change and what I couldn't, how to use my strengths to overcome my weakness'.

Then I met my future husband and started all over with trying to be perfect. He did not ever see me without my makeup until I was about 3 months pregnant with our son and I became very ill and was put on bedrest I wasn't even allowed to shower for almost a week because I'd start hemmoraging. Now this man has seen me at my worst and seen me at my best but the way he looks at me is always the same like I'm some kind of tasty treat. :D

My kids love me whether I'm wearing windpants and a t-shirt or if I'm dressed to the 9's. I've just come to realize that those who love me...LOVE ME for what and who I am inside my body those who judge me by my outter appearance hold no interest to me, I could care less.

Actually I do have that problem-I look in the mirror some days and think "Hey, I don't look bad at all for my age-I'm skinny!" and then other days I think I look fat and frumpy. Maybe it's the mirrors I'm looking in giving different proportions? Same with my face-some days I look in the mirror and think what an ugly old hag I've become, and then other days I think I don't look half bad for my age.

Actually I do have that problem-I look in the mirror some days and think "Hey, I don't look bad at all for my age-I'm skinny!" and then other days I think I look fat and frumpy. Maybe it's the mirrors I'm looking in giving different proportions? Same with my face-some days I look in the mirror and think what an ugly old hag I've become, and then other days I think I don't look half bad for my age.
This is amorphic body image... with dysmorphia it always leans in the same direction...people who are dying of starvation see themselves as fat or men who are all muscle look in the mirror and see themselves as scrawny.

With the amorphic image...it changes depending on the context you are viewing yourself in (Often that can be feelings)...rarely is it the same.

One day I am a good looking guy...the next I am big nosed and elderly :)

How did you know I couldn't tell my right from my left?
This is relative to the misinformation we read in the mirror?

I have always disliked my image but that has never stopped me from looking. Staring, primping practicing anything from smiling to outright conversations.
Pretending..I think it might be similar to a child pretending in the mirror.
If you look the right way and feel the right way you can be a monster or a princess. You can look old, young, happy, sad and I wonder....I don't think I have a whole lot of control over what I see.

When I see photographs I always look different. I particularly like the picture on my driver's license, but have never had a cop compliment me.

Chain, I checked the first box on the poll, but I am not sure .....mine seems to be relative to mood.
Are you saying that we as ADD are unable to see our image as who we are and that our vision is biased because of who we are inside?

Would this also mean that we have the same problem interpreting others as we relate visually? For exampe, a statement...."my sister and I weigh the same...but to me she looks so much thinner"?