It's only been very, very recently that I've been okay with having my picture taken. I don't think it's anything close to a secret that I have really poor self-esteem; my self-image has pretty much always been the worst part of it. Having lost a lot of weight, changed my style completely, gained a lot of confidence, and moved to a new city all in the last five or so years, too, I've found that there are a lot of times that I don't really match up my mental image with the physical reality. So I have a kind of weird relationship with selfies. I (clearly) take them pretty often, but it's become almost a ritual to check in and have kind of... Physical proof of who I am, what I look like, how I seem. It's, interestingly, largely stopped the dissociation that I used to have as a symptom of what I now know is bipolar disorder. But I've been told people sometimes think I'm super vain and in love with myself when they first see me on social media, which feels really bizarre to me, since I really, really couldn't be further from that. The best part, though, is that @jengurniakphotography took this without knowing any of that; she just had seen something similar and wanted to b recreate it with me, and it was just completely accidental that it was a photo that I genuinely loved having taken (even though this particular pose was awkward) that looked like it was capturing a type of photo I take a lot but don't really love myself in. I just have a lot of thoughts about selfies and the large-scale demonizing of them, okay? #gpodrew #selfie #ish #bipolarlove #dissociation #mentalhealthawareness #endthestigma https://www.instagram.com/p/BoGQ0jghall/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=m67907yuq87l
