I think I’m ugly
Salam, so I think I’m really ugly
I’ve posted way too much on this site but it’s anonymous so heh
I’m 15 years old, and an Egyptian girl who grew up in a western country, and there are times where I feel really pretty and I look at photos and actually get surprised from how ‘stunning’ I look, but there are other weeks and times where I just feel like I’m so painfully average or below average
I know I shouldn’t care about how others think of me. but sometimes I realise how I judge people so simply in my head. ‘like oh, she’s pretty unattractive but she looks kind’, or ‘it’s unfortunate that he looks like that, he’ll just have to accept it.’ most of the time I don’t judge people by their looks. I’ve been realising more and more that what we all are, are just different. different faces and face structures, and that everyone is beautiful in their own way
and then other times I absolutely DESPISE it when I see cliche messages like ‘everyone is beautiful’ or ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’.
but in reality, even if you don’t mean to, our brains judge others based on their appearance. and I’m dying to know if I’m conventionally ugly, or even just a bit conventionally beautiful
sometimes I record my face just on my desk and record a bit of myself doing homework or being on my laptop. and at those times i just get so bewildered because I look so bad and oblivious, and it makes me scared that when I’m just doing everyday things, this is what I look like
I also know that confidence, hygiene, how you act, and just how you are as a person is big part of being attractive; but it’s also something that I alllllways struggle with. I always feel like I don’t know how. I don’t knowhow to be confident, I don’t know what ‘cute mannerisms’ are, I don’t know how to be smooth and casual with people that I want to like me, and I don’t know how to get rid of limiting beliefs, I don’t know how. I just don’t know how. This is something that I struggle with because when I find opinions for example online, I don’t understand how people are supposed to be. I’m not really explaining this properly, but I don’t understand how people get along, like each other, be fun for each other, respect each other, are kind to one another, and are also firm with each other, speak harshly with each other, find each other attractive, and just have amazing relationships. (I’m not talking about just romantically I mean mostly in friendships) this is kind of a muddle of different things I’ve been struggling with but anyways
maybe this whole thing is because I’m in my luteal phase and I’m getting PMS but still. even the times I feel pretty theres always this doubt. I have a convex profile, a big Arab nose that has a sharp bridge (it’s either roman or greek type, I forgot what the different types of noses look like) even though my body is very skinny, I have extra skin around my neck and under my jaw, on my face in general. I have a convex profile, which people all around the world unanimously agree is the most ugly type of side profile, and my features are just very sharp and bold overall. Sometimes I wish my nose would get broken one day so I can need a nose surgery, and I get a pretty nose without doing anything haram. this isn’t about makeup either, because I do mild makeup. I’m slowly gonna try to stop because tabarujj, but it’s more about my facial structure. Halfway through writing this I turned my head to the mirror and felt so pretty. But again, I’m worried, like I just don’t want to be thinking I’m pretty when I’m not. my toxic wish is to post a photo of myself online, say I’m ugly and see if people tell me to shut up and stop lying, or tell me stuff like everyone is different, or you’re beautiful in your own way lol I feel like then I’d know honestly if I was considered ugly or not. I don’t know maybe this is dysmorphia? Or it could be the opposite and I think I’m pretty when I’m not there are two specific times when I felt so disgustingly hideous and triggered, I sent photos of myself to ai. (With my hijab) which I really regret and want to never do. It happened yesterday actually. I recorded a video of myself, stared wide-eyed at how ugly my face was, and then went on a frantic rampage with ai after I cried a bit. I first sent photos of my face saying stuff like: hi. This is my cousin. Look how hideous she is. and stuff like that because I didn’t want it to be biased. It kept telling me that I’m not conventionally ugly, and that yes, by modern standards, I would be considered a conventionally pretty person. It feels so fake though. Ai is not allowed to say rude stuff, it can’t just be honest. I sent over and over, asking if it was sure. It was just a really toxic loop and I’ve always known that I’m a little different than most people my age. That sounds kind of attention seeking. But I’ve always liked things that most people I know would consider cringe or unemployed or weird or just whatever, and I’m a bit more mature and self-aware. (I know that mature people don’t call themselves mature but oh well) so I’ve always had the complex that I’m not normal, so that = I DON’T KNOW HOW
I get jealous when I see people my age complimenting my best friend, or when two people that weren’t close yesterday seem to suddenly have a close bond where they tell secrets trade gossip, and are able to laugh? and how in all my 15 years of living have I never found a decent friend. I feel like that’s also rude to say, but there’s genuinely always been something wrong with my friendships. Most of the time the problem was me and my petty, jealous, need for control self. My first school was non muslim. The area I lived in (I call it the east) was full of LGBTQ stuff. In class, my “best friend’s” parents were lesbian (I put that in quotes because she didn’t consider me her best friend, it was someone els but I considered both of them my best friends), and it just wasn’t the best environment for a growing young muslim girl. I guess that’s when I realised I had anxiety, something wasn’t normal about me, and all the complexes and things that I developed at that STUPID SCHOOL started to show up. I guess I became terrified at the prospect that I could one day be gay? Gosh when I think about it now i’m not really sure what I was thinking but anyways it was a whole thing, it’s also the phase where all my love and respect for my mom was broken and our relationship dropped to the gutters. I told my dad and talked to him every day about what I called ‘guilts’, and he would always listen to me just before bed, reassuring me in his own clumsy yet affective way. Every time I guess I was searching for the guilt that would make him scared about me, thinking this next one would be the one where he became truly concerned that I was gay — I’m gonna start laughing if I write about it lol, sorry if this seems a bit insensitive to any fellow muslim who struggles with LGBTQ stuff but it was an absurd time for me, and I was maybe 6-8 years old — but he would always be unsurprised and just try to help me in the best way he knew how. I think this is when my brain decided that I always needed to double check itself, that my own thoughts and emotions couldn’t be trusted. And I think that’s what made my relationship amazing with him till now. He never became frantic or truly concerned that I was an insane little girl. He knew that what I was having was just intrusive thoughts. With my mom, when I told her a mistake or something weird I did at school (just in general, not LGBTQ related) I felt like she was ashamed of me. She would be disappointed and kind of wide-eyed surprised screaming at me and saying never to do stuff like that again, while my dad treated them as simple mistakes that his beloved daughter did. He used to tell me that when I grew up I would laugh about all my worries. And it’s honestly true. Anyways. my parents were concerned that if I stayed in that environment then I would become confused since it conflicted with our beliefs and values. In less than a week I moved to a catholic school, still in the east. It was a temporary solution to ensure I wouldn’t be around an environment like that, and it really took a toll on my self esteem, when I discovered things like friend groups, bullying, weird kids, etc. I guess I was a weird kid. The only muslim girl in a school full of Catholic people. Someone was immediately wanting to be my friend and get close to me. I won’t go into details but over time my own insecurity ruined the friendship. I have so many embarrassing moments from that school. Afterwards we finally moved to the west, a completely different environment with muslims all over, and I was blessed to be able to go to a muslim IB school.
Since year 7 I’ve been in this school and over the three years I’ve been here, a lot of drama has happened and I still feel like I don’t have good friendships and that no one would like to be close to me (even though I’m friends with the ‘cool girls’ and stuff like that) I don’t really have TikTok so I can’t relate to a lot of stuff people talk about, I do dumb stuff tat make me look easy to take advantage of or overly eager, and I’ve had so so so so so many problems with my ‘best friend’. I still don’t know where I’m gonna end up, I don’t know if I’m considered ugly or weird by the boys, and I don’t know if I’m even gonna have friends when I grow up. I just feel like in the friends department I’m a failure. I’ve moved schools too much. I might move schools again. My parents don’t have friends and to me, they’re the reason that they don’t. I was never given the chance to build long old friendships with people from a young age. Every single friendship I’ve had has had something wrong with it. I developed a complex with using the label ‘best friend’ where when I choose someone in my brain who is my best friend, I start to feel responsible for them and their emotions, and jealous of them sometimes, and try to control them I guess? I have a bad relationship withy mom. I stay in my room a lot, I have no teen life and no friends that I feel truly value me. I don’t think I’m socially accepted enough, I don’t understand my generation’s humour. I’m awkward, sometimes fake, not fun, boring, etc.
I honestly wrote so much and its making me feel horrible and theres still so many things I feel the need to add because there are so many things wrong with me and my life but what can I do, maybe I’ll just be an average and useless waste of a human life
Sorry for any typos or unfinished bits, and I’m sorry that you had to read all this
and this is another thing I’m bothered about (sorry, I initially meant to write a short paragraph on why I felt ugly but it kind of became a mess of different things) since 2023 or 2024, for 3 years, I’ve been using AI for personal issues. personal issues and long long essays and paragraphs that I used to write and panic with Ai and just I would always feel the need to write out all the details, all the things about my life, because I felt leaving things out would be bad or not help me right. Even now, I’m fighting the urge to add so many details so that I can get better help. Which is better, but just I want to stop feeling like I need to explain all the minuscule details about myself or else I’ll be misunderstood. But anyways. I’ve realised I don’t trust myself anymore. Every decision, every thought, every plan I show to an ai. I feel the need to check if I’m doing something right. I get scared of ruining my own brain. I also have been obsessed with self improvement and trying to develop better traits but barely achieve my goals I only have realisations of things. I get terrified that all the flaws I hate so much will never go away. To be honest I already know that i’m probably feeding a lot of my complexities. But still, ‘I don’t know how.’
‘I don’t know how’ to what exactly, I guess I’ll never know
Thank you for submitting your post to Stones to Bridges! We pray you will find the responses below beneficial. If you find these responses helpful, we’d love for you to share what you appreciated and how you feel it might help you moving forward in the comments section below!
Response from a “Fatima Counselor”:
Asalaamu alaykum Dear Sister,
I read everything you wrote, and I hear how much pressure you’re experiencing to edit, manage, and second-guess every single part of who you are. It is completely human to have doubts about your appearance especially at 15 when hormones are shifting and your body is changing. You described racing thoughts, mirror checks, and frantic AI searches, and I don’t think the real question is, “Am I pretty or ugly?” but actually a deeper question of, “Am I enough to belong?”
When you aren’t sure if you are enough to be liked, included, or valued, your mind goes into overdrive. You start thinking that if you can just fix your looks or get the social rules right, then people will finally accept you. It feels like to be safe and loved, you have to hide your real self. It makes sense why you feel so exhausted, sad, and overwhelmed.
You wrote about feeling jealousy when your best friend gets attention, or when you see others effortlessly laughing and bonding. Often, jealousy is just a messenger telling us what we are deeply craving. It shows that you desperately want sincere companionship, deep understanding, and a place where you truly fit in.
When belonging feels fragile, the mind tries to control everything out of fear of being replaced. But friendships are not something we can micromanage or completely control. We can be wonderful friends, and someone might still drift toward someone else. We can share a great bond, but not be their favorite person. The hardest and most freeing truth is that another person’s preference does not change your value. Your value and belongingness lies in the fact that you are Allah (swt)’s creation. Your bold features, unique nose, and sharp profile are His intentional design and crafted with His divine care. You belong to Him and will always find belongingness with Your Rabb, Al-Wadud, the Most Affectionate and Most Loving.
When we anchor into the Truth of our God-given value, it can be helpful to think about whose beauty standards we are actually trying to meet. Think about who decides what a “good” side profile looks like or what makes a face acceptable. More importantly, think about who profits when young women spend hours agonizing over their looks. If this cycle of worrying about your appearance helped you build genuine confidence, brought you closer to Allah, or helped you find deep friendships, it would be one thing. But as you shared, it does the exact opposite. It keeps you trapped in comparison, second-guessing, and endless reassurance loops. It is chipping away at your peace.
To cultivate this peace, I invite you to try a beautiful practice of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) where he would look at himself in the mirror and make the du’a: “O Allah, just as You have made my external features beautiful, make my character beautiful as well.” Neuroscience shows us that what we focus on grows. When you focus on this practice, you start to appreciate your features, you beautify your character, and you become more solid, more confident in who you are. In the same way, every time you hand your trust over to an algorithm or a mirror to tell you who you are, you train your brain to distrust itself. So, the next time the heavy wave of doubt or the urge to check hits you, try pausing to ask yourself:
What do I actually think right now?
What do I value?
What kind of Muslim, and what kind of friend do I want to become?
Right now, there is an internal battle happening between two different voices inside you:
Your inner voice of wisdom: This is the part of you that notices how people are simply different, appreciates unique face structures, and knows deep down that everyone has their own beauty. The voice of the surrounding world: This is the pressure to look conventionally attractive, act a certain way, and fit into a mold that was never meant to hold you.
You can actually see this pattern in your history. You shared that when you were younger, being in environments that conflicted with your values made you question your reality and your worth. This happens because of suhbah (companionship). The people we sit with, listen to, compare ourselves to, and let into our digital spaces slowly shape what we think is “normal” or “important.” This doesn’t mean that you have to isolate yourself or pretend to be someone you aren’t, but you can become gently intentional about who and what you allow to whisper into your mind.
Dear Sister, you are not a “useless waste of a human life” but what you are is a deeply reflective, sensitive, and intelligent young woman trying to navigate your way.
With heartfelt du’as,
Fatima “SA”
Here are some additional posts on this topic that you may find helpful: https://www.stonestobridges.org/tag/selfesteemworth/
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