i have struggled with my self-image

that’s the summary if you wanted the direct answer to the question, which i don’t think is that surprising. i think that a lot more of it has to do with how the curation of one’s social media presence can result in certain perceptions from people that you don’t even know, and being in a society that encourages the use of social media, i’ve really struggled to come up with a good way of showcasing who i am. if i’m being honest, i think that it’s a lot harder than a dating profile, which in my opinion is supposed to be like a little vignette of who you are…all you care about is to have the essence of a person so that you can determine whether you want to get to know them in person, but i think that’s the key part that separates it from social media…it feels like there’s some pressure to create an entire life narrative about who you are, so that even those who are somewhat foreign to you and will probably remain that way can get a good idea of who you are.

i mean just thinking about it, i’ve seen a pretty wide range of things regarding that last point. some people will have 50-something posts that goes all the way back to their middle school days and shows them growing up over time to their young adult years. other people will create a really specific aesthetic that, while shocking, lets you know pretty quickly who they are with how uniform their profile is. other people are going to have only a couple of posts that showcases their latest updates in life, with many more things being archived into things like story highlights so that only those who are especially curious to get to know them can get an idea of who they are. and then there’s people like me who don’t really post anything but try to let people know that they are alive by posting on their story every now and then.

which begs the question, why not just be normal and post? i’ve obviously described that i have self-image issues, but if i’m being honest it’s going to be a lot more specific than that. i specifically have an issue with my face. i think it’s pretty in person. people have said that i can be photogenic. but it feels like everytime i try to post a photo, a memory, a record of a particular place and time that is supposed to capture my very being, things just feel incredibly wrong and i start getting awfully self-conscious.

oml again with the transition!

yes, again with the transition. i like to think back to a curious thought that my trans friend gave me regarding why she doesn’t want to actively date anyone. while i don’t really agree with these thoughts, her reasoning stems from the fact that she doesn’t want someone to fall in love with a false version of her, an impermanent state of being where she is frequently perceived as the wrong gender. in many ways, i feel like throughout my transition i keep finding places where i’m starting to get happy with my appearance becoming more feminine, and almost always i will keep moving the goalpost further and further back. in some ways it’s been helpful in actually ensuring that i pursue my gender goals, and so long as i keep my mouth shut i will somewhat pass in public to strangers. however, there appears to be a lag with how a photograph can flatten my entire being into something that doesn’t really align with how i perceive myself, and that’s where my friend’s thought from earlier kicks in: if i keep moving the goalpost more and more back each time, then i’m never going to be happy with anything that i post because i will perceive it as inherently flawed. it’s not perfect. my mannerisms could have been more feminine. my hair could have been a bit longer. the fat in my cheeks could have accummulated a bit more. my fashion sense could have been a bit better. my make-up is ok until you zoom in. it feels like nothing is enough and my brain tricks me into this very irrational line of thought that i think kind of harms me in the end: i don’t want people going back to look at a post, even though the idea of a post is that it’s meant to represent a particular time and place.

the idea here is that this happens all the time with people. they recognize that they don’t look as great as they do now in their old photos. they look different because they were younger. they had different hair back then. they were really struggling during that time. their posts aren’t necessarily representative of who they are in the current moment, and yet they are fine with it because they recognize that, like it or not, their posts and photos captured a particular time and place in their life. for me though, it always ends up feeling like the life i live right now compared to a few months ago is completely different, and while there is a partial truth to it because of the privileges that come with becoming increasingly passing (and you will notice how different people treat at you, or in my case, start staring at my chest and start shaking my hand really delicately and get confused when they see me in the men’s bathroom), this is an awful mentality that ultimately detracts from the very thing it means to live a life happily, at least in my dramatic opinion. i want it to be ok for me to be imperfect. i want to accept that i just looked a certain way in a particular place and time. i want to love myself for still being here despite having endured tougher times…but i just can’t, as if telling a partner that you love them but then refusing to be seen with them in public.

so why stories?

the simple answer is that stories feel a little less permanent. even though you’re able to technically store them forever for people to see in your profile in the form of story highlights, it’s not really something that people are going to pay as close of attention to as a post. oh yes, and to mention the obvious, stories only last 24 hours before people stop seeing them.

the weirdness of my instagram’s stories predates my transition. i have always struggled with my face in pictures (i should have known), but in an effort to want to be seen a little bit more, i started forcing myself to include my face at least once in my story. the only stipulation was that i could include it however i want, so long as i show my face. so you know what i started doing to circumvent the very challenge that i set upon myself? very simple: i started filling up the story with so much junk buried in it that you would never find my face in it. well, i sometimes tried making efforts to make whatever picture of my face slightly larger than the rest if i particularly enjoyed it, but for the most part this collage style of stories that i posted made it difficult for anyone to perceive me.

it’s contradictory, though. the reason i post stories is because i want to be seen, i want to be perceived. there’s absolutely nothing holding me accountable but myself when it comes to posting stories at least once a week, and it just comes from a place of loneliness that i’ve endured throughout my life. at the cost of making my biggest fear known to whatever adversary that is stalking my website, my biggest fear is loneliness. it was very difficult to make friends growing up as someone who has lived in suburban hell for a very long time of her life, exacerbated even more by the fact that i found it difficult to fit in (and in many ways it was my own fault and it forced me to grow as a person, but that being said it was certainly a very harsh way for me to learn). i don’t know why, but for a long time it’s been hard to just sit there and be content with myself with no one seeing me. call it a deep desire to socialize, call it extraversion, i’m not really sure what it’s supposed to be but my life doesn’t feel complete without being surrounded by people. i like my friends, i like going out to things, i like being in social situations when i have the time and energy. social media naturally feels like an extension of that idea, and so in a very twisted way my brain will connect socialization with story posting, which isn’t exactly super duper insane to connect these two concepts, but it’s definitely not the healthiest.

so in that way, stories allow me to get out that need to express myself and be seen while at the same time also being a more impermanent way of showcasing an already impermanent form of myself that is going to be subject to change. to be fair, the collages i create on my stories can be pretty cool at times, but nowadays i’ve definitely muted the noise a bit so that people don’t instantly click away from whatever visual garbage is filling up their screens. call it personality, call it weirdness, it’s fun to make those collages, but i also understand that some people are going to find it strange to post such things, and nowadays i’m a lot more content with my face than before so i’m fine with toning things down a bit. anyway gang, share like and subscribe and i hope this was some good food for thought.

Last modified on 2026-08-18