facingthesun Member Profile

Self-Objectification

OCD & Related Behaviors / by facingthesun

December 9th, 2025

...See more Hello everyone, I've been on this website before a couple of years ago now. I have been in therapy for the last 4 years and being treated by a psychiatrist for the last 5. I feel like I understand myself a lot better than I ever have, but still struggle to come to terms with my day-to-day problems. I was diagnosed with OCD and while it helps me make sense of things, I also cannot stop thinking about it. It bothers me so much. The biggest symptom/issue/mental health thing I've been dealing with still hasn't gotten better even with all the help I've received. So looonnng preamble short now; I want to ask people with OCD (or not! diagnoses I don't think really matter in the long run aside from getting stupid insurance companies to allow people to get the help they need!!) how they have dealt with self-objectification? -I'm going to give a kinda lengthy background on how self-objectification has been affecting me, but ultimately I don't have any positive or permanent ways to cope with it 😞 Since I was 4 years old I have been hyper aware of my body and my surroundings at all times. Pictures of people in photos, magazines, books, on the TV, social media, etc always seem to be looking at me and judging me. I know that they aren't actually doing that, but the intense feeling of being watched and judged still remains. The only relief I get is turning the photos around or covering them up. These are sort of 'general' issues I deal with. The specific issue that is related to this I deal with constantly is that I see a mask in the environment around me. Like, pareidolia, where people see faces in clouds and everything, but in this case its the same face (I call it a mask because it looks like the mask of ghostface from Scream- no eyes, just eye-holes, no mouth, just a mouth-hole). I see this face absolutely everywhere. Its in the floor, the trees, my clothes, wood paneling is a common culprit, and I see it regardless if its dark or not. I know this sounds like a hallucination, but after working with several therapists and psychiatrists over the years I've come to the conclusion that its not. I know its not real, it can't speak or move, and anti-psychotics don't alleviate it. I think my obsession with perceiving myself since I was very small has made this face a permanent part of my brain. I am always trying to appease it or ignore it. Whatever I feel is easier to do in the moment I guess. It hears my thoughts, judges me, listens to everything I think, and moderates my behavior. God its like I have a cop in my head that looks like a monster. When I was in elementary school (ages 5-11) I used to have the constant thought and feeling that everyone could hear my thoughts and know that I was bad and crazy. I used to think my classmates and teachers would watch me go to the bathroom, shower, change, eat, or anything I else I thought was really embarrassing all the time. No matter where I was. I had my first crush on a boy around this age and I kept having the reoccurring feeling he was watching everything I did and laughing at me or feeling disgusted by me. I honestly don't know why any of this started for me. I've talked about this at length with professionals and it feels like I was just born this way. But I don't think you can be born paranoid. Aside from the paranoia, the feeling of intense shame and guilt take the forefront for me. Nothing alleviates these feelings. No medication, no positive mantras, no deep breaths, no remembering that I am human being and am allowed to feel this way, nothing at all has ever made it stop. I can cover up the faces and for a little while I feel relief, but they always come back somewhere else. And they're always angry that I cover them up. I haven't felt like a real human being much at all in life. I feel like a doll. Like I'm made of ceramic and I just exist as a play thing. I think this de-personalization has amplified these thoughts to an extreme. I just can't get out of this feeling. Soooo after all that I'll reiterate the above question once again; How do you deal with self-objectification? Thank you for reading this mess ; ;

Does anyone else experience pictures/photos/paintings looking at you and reading your thoughts?

Bipolar, Schizophrenia & Psychosis Support / by facingthesun

November 30th, 2022

...See more Hi, So this is problem I've had my whole life, but I've never found anything on the internet about this- not for a lack of trying though! Maybe I never worded it correctly.. So I decided to post this here so that even if no one soon relates to this, maybe someone will come across it on the internet one day. Okay anyway, so pretty much as the title reads: pictures of people or characters (as long as their anthropomorphized i.e have human traits) look at me and read my thoughts. These pictures/photos/posters or what have you judge me based off my thoughts and depending on who they are will respond differently to my thoughts. Like my boyfriend has a poster of a "villain" on his wall from a videogame and that person encourages any negative or evil thoughts that I have (I don't have a lot of "evil" thoughts I would say, so this person is often disappointed in me or thinks I'm stupid). A photo of my boyfriend and my friends on the fridge all look at me and judge me based off their own personalities. Posters at school of random people all look at me too and judge me pretty much just off my own insecurities. They don't effect me as much- its only characters I care about I guess? Or at least those are the ones that bother me the most. The only way I can feel relief from them is by covering them with something. Closing my eyes doesn't work because they can see me doing that. But when they are covered its like they're cut off from me and don't have any knowledge of what I'm doing or thinking. But when I'm in a room with one of the pictures it's like I can feel their eyes burning into me, it's impossible to ignore :( you'd think my ego would be massive because my brain certainly seems to think that everyone is paying attention to me and cares about every little thing that I'm doing, but no instead I'm still terribly insecure! Writing this all out and then reading it has made me feel like a crazy person, but I know in my heart I can't be the only person whose dealt with this.. I've gone to therapists and psychiatrists and I've tried every anti-psychotic under the sun and none of them do anything for this problem that I have. I've pretty much confirmed with my therapist that I'm not hallucinating- but we still don't have any idea of why this happens other than that it clearly stems from a fear of being judged lol. I'm sorry if this doesn't belong under Pyschosis, but I wasn't really sure where this fits? My hope with this post is that someone experiencing the same thing will answer and tell me what they do to cope, but that might be a long shot haha. I'll take any piece of advice at this point I think.

Night time panic attacks/night terrors?

Anxiety Support / by facingthesun

December 1st, 2022

...See more Hello, I've been having this problem this last year that got super worse these last two days where once I'm falling asleep, I immediately wake up to a pounding heartbeat, feel like I can't breathe, and I feel like I'm gonna throw up. I usually jolt out of bed and run to the bathroom but I never end up throwing up. I can kind of calm myself down with a trick my therapist taught me called "complex tapping" (which if I remember correctly was an EMDR tool) where I bilaterally tap my shoulders and count backwards from 100 in increments of 3 (100, 97, 94, etc.) This doesn't stop the panic completely but it does help. I usually have to take one of my xanaxes which I try to avoid. I'd have isolated events like this over the last year but they'd only be once so I didn't think much of it. So the other night, every single time I almost fell asleep this would happen. It was like my body didn't want me to go to bed for some reason? I counted how many times it happened that night and it ended up being 8. I straight up didn't go to bed cuz my brain didn't allow it? I was so exhausted by morning came I think the visceral fear and panic just made me feel numb and I eventually passed out and slept the whole day away. Then last night I just started getting real nervous around bed time and I couldn't sit still, so I kept fluttering to each room trying to calm down. I started feeling very nauseous so I had some pepto bismol which I think helped a little (god what If im just sick with something?? I have a doctors app in one week so im gonna tell her whats been happening). But even though my mind was racing and I thought I was dying I checked my heart rate and it was completely normal?! I could've swore it was beating out of my chest, apparently it was just beating a lil faster than normal but nothing crazy. I have no idea whats wrong with me. I think maybe something about night time/going to bed/the dark is not triggering something in me? Does anyone have any advice about what I should do going forward or if maybe they have similar experiences? This has all been very isolating and lonely ;-;

How does postpartum depression affect relationship to the child?

Family & Caregivers / by facingthesun

April 15th, 2021

...See more Hi, I can't really find any sources online that talk about long-term effects of postpartum depression's impact on the relationship between the mother and the child. My reason for asking is that I think my mom's postpartum depression she went through after I was born affected her feelings to me? I haven't seen my mom in over 5 years (im 21 now) and she was very neglectful of me and my siblings growing up. My dad said she had severe postpartum depression after I was born for several months and then her depression never really went away afterwards. I think that has to do with other problems she's had but me being born was sort of the catalyst for that.. I know that she never really loved me. I'm not saying that in a melodramatic way, just that she never developed those feelings. I think she tried to when I was very little, but after I was 5 and up I think she just gave up. She doesn't hate me. She just can't love me I guess? idk. She had a lot of problems. I don't love her either cuz from what I have seen of her was that she was always drunk, high, or just kind of mean or not really present in her mind.. I didn't like the way she treated my dad or my siblings either. She kind of would play the depression card a lot and try to make you feel bad for her so that you excuse her actions. Like, she full on cheated on my dad loads of times and tried to blame him for it. I'm not saying my dad is perfect, but my mom really never takes accountability for her actions. The thing that really bugs me though is that she loved my older brother and my older sister. I know she did. After they were born my dad said she was extremely happy. Everything went downhill after I was born :/ I know its not my fault, but I think postpartum depression had long lasting effects on her and how she feels towards me. Is that possible? Can postpartum last that long and make it so you can't love your daughter? Cuz if that's the case, then that's really sad and scary for moms (and their kids)!!

My dad used to be a drug addict, but still talks about his love of drugs all the time

Addiction Support / by facingthesun

May 21st, 2021

...See more This mostly me venting to be honest, I'm not looking for a solution because I don't really think there is one. My dad used to do cocaine in his youth and well up into adult hood. He's had an on and off again relationship with cocaine for about 25 consecutive years. He got my mom into it, my friend's parents, and other friends of his. Obviously this was really damaging to them!! My mom left a long time ago, but today she still is addicted to cocaine and crack cocaine!! I love my dad very much and he has made incredible progress to getting clean in the last 5 years. 5 years ago he had relapsed really bad and it ended up with us being homeless for about a year and it just all around sucked :/ Now, he is clean!! No drugs except what is prescribed to him. However he talks about his past drug usage almost everyday. He talks about them in a good way, saying his experiences made him "fun and adventurous". Me and my sister just cringe and wait for him to stop talking about it. It makes us both really uncomfortable when he talks about how great drugs are and how amazing they felt. And to make matters worse, the pyschiatrist hes seeing prescribed him xanax and klonopin for his anxiety which I know he's taking more than thats prescribed. He takes more than hes supposed to and he walks around the house high and loopy. He's not in any danger. We're not in any danger, but I still hate it so much. he talks like life isnt worth living if you can't feel high all the time and I told him that we as people aren't meant to feel that level of euphoria all of the time. I told him that its like a trick!! You feel that great in the moment, but then afterwards you fall so downard in depression that its not worth it at all. I just wish he could find a better way to cope.. I started going to therapy and its been amazing! I've learned acutal non maladaptive ways to deal with my negative stuff and I tried telling my dad how great therapy is and that he might like it. He doesn't want to go because he claims that "recounting all my bad stuff to a therapist wont do any good, it all happened in the past! they can't make it go away." but the whole point of therapy is to give you the tools necessary to take care of yourself in the present. jjkldfasdf does anyone have similar issues with parents who did hard drugs but has since come off of them? I never realized till now how much it bothers me that my dad has been high for my entire life

Possible flashback- what does this mean for me?

Trauma Support / by facingthesun

December 6th, 2020

...See more Hi, I've recently come to terms with my C-PTSD. I've been denying that it is something that I've been dealing with for my whole life and recently I've had a break through in therapy.. I understand that labels don't matter but I was denying my symptoms as well but now I'm really making great strides in coming to terms with it all. (so, that's a plus lol ) But.. just the other night I had a lets just say an "unusual" panic attack.. This one wasn't like my normal ones that I have from time to time, this one lasted a lot longer and I felt things I've never felt before. I believe that I suffered from a somatic flashback. Earlier that day I was focusing on what my life was like growing up becaue my therapist's hypothesis is that I have repressed thoughts, feelings, and potentially memories from back then (essentially I've blocked out anything I thought was negative and only focused on postive things) and that they have been resurfacing over the years. So when I really objectively reviewed my childhood, I started to remember things I had long forgotten about. Nothing bad, just random thoughts, smells, emotions, experiences, that sorta thing. But like in an instant, it was like my body remembered somethign that I didn't. I felt like.. now this is very uncomfortable to put out here but.. I felt like a physical arosual down there? and that immediately reminded me of other times I've felt that as a kid, no specific memories just memories of that feeling. I tried to put it out of my mind because it was a very unpleasant feeling and I didn't want to think of it's implications at all for the rest of the night and possibly forever. But as I tried falling asleep my heart just started pounding out of my chest.. like i've never had a panic attack like this before it was so much more intense and so much scarier I felt like I was dying and that I had to run out of there like I was just so scared. My panic attacks usually subside after ten minutes but this one was just staying and maintaining its intensity. Luckily my therapist taught me some grounding techniques that helped a ton (I think he called them bilateral tapping?) and I had some xanax on hand prescribed for occasions such as this one. I'm not sure if what I just experienced was some sort of flashback or if it was just a bad panic attack, but I know that it must be related to that feeling I remembered. That's the part that frightens me to most. That feeling... would it imply some form of sexual abuse? I just can't comprehend that at all, like I just can't believe that. How could that be possible? How could I forget something like that? Did it even happen?? Was what I felt real? I don't know.. I'm just so scared its going to happen again, another panic attack like that. I talk to my therapist next week but I need some form of reassurance now.. if anyone knows if this is a flashback or if I'm just freaking out for no reason please let me know. I don't know a lot about ptsd or c-ptsd and I didn't even realize some of the things I experience are actually symptoms. I know this is a lot of writing, haha, I just don't know how to put this in words great. ;-;

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