Why Am I So Ugly? How to Deal With Negative Self-Talk

Reasons You Have the Thought “Why Am I So Ugly?”

Thoughts such as “Why am I so ugly?” do not stem from a natural belief that you are ugly. A person is not born hating how they look. Self-defeating thoughts develop from external conditions, such as critical parents or experiencing bullying, that bring about self-hatred. Additionally, certain internal circumstances, such as mental health conditions, can also skew our self-view.

Reasons you may feel ugly include:

Damaging Societal Expectations for Beauty

Damaging societal expectations for beauty are fed to us through recurrent messages and images of who we “should” be and “could” be. There are constant mixed messages that can cause someone to have thoughts of ugliness and low self-esteem. Society shames people who are perceived as overweight while also calling a thin person derogatory names such as “anorexic”. We are in a bubble of mounting pressure until it causes us to pop.

You Have Critical Parents or Caregivers

Critical parents or caregivers can often cause self-critical thoughts such as, “Why am I so ugly?” thoughts. Parents or caregivers are meant to love and nurture us. Unfortunately, some parents carry their own traumas into their relationship with their children. This leads to demeaning statements about one’s looks, dress, and choices in life overall. These statements can then be internalized, resulting in immense self-criticism.

You Live In a Homogeneous Community

Dr. Cathay Enz of Cornell University defines “A homogeneous societal culture is one in which the shared meanings are similar and little variation in beliefs exist; that is, the culture has one dominant way of thinking and acting.”¹ Therefore, a homogeneous community often has certain standards or expectations around looks. If your looks do not fit that mold, you are at risk of criticism within the community, which can, in turn, make you feel that you are “other” and, therefore, less beautiful.

You Are Struggling With Your Mental Health

Mental health conditions can skew our view of self. This is especially true with mental illnesses that are body focused. Mental health disorders can cause a variety of self-critical feelings, from anxious thoughts and negative core beliefs to feelings of self-loathing.

Mental health conditions that can cause the thought “Why am I so ugly?” include:

• Body dysmorphia: Body dysmorphia is when a person is preoccupied with their body and struggles to see their body in a realistic manner. This negative preoccupation can, unfortunately, easily lead to “Why am I so ugly?” thoughts.
• Mood Disorders: Depression and bipolar disorder can cause this thought. Major depressive disorder often causes extremely negative thoughts regarding oneself. Bipolar disorders cycle between depressive and manic symptoms. While confidence may be increased during mania due to the nature of mania, it does not last as a depressive mood resurfaces.
• Eating disorders: Eating disorders are harmful and distressing patterns with food and one’s food consumption. When a person is suffering from an eating disorder, they will often develop self-hatred towards their body, resulting in thoughts such as “Why am I so ugly?”.
• Anxiety Disorders: Anxiety Disorders, specifically social anxiety and social phobia, develop from irrational fears and persistent worries. “Why am I so ugly?” thoughts develop from negative thought patterns, especially with anxiousness and/or phobia are socially related.   
• Post-traumatic stress: Post-traumatic stress is a natural reaction to unnatural and disturbing circumstances. “Why am I so ugly?” thoughts may especially result from a sexual assault or sexual harassment, which can create a negative view of one’s body following the latter.
• Substance Use Disorders: Substance misuse is the use of mind-altering substances to an extent that causes strain in one’s day-to-day functioning and life overall. Persons may use substances to ease their negative self-talk. However, this often results in further self-hatred, and they may begin to feel ugly due to some substances causing changes in their looks and physical features.
• Personality Disorders: Personality disorders, specifically cluster B (emotion-related) and cluster C (anxious-related), often carry virtually no sense of self. When someone struggles to have a sense of self overall, it becomes very difficult to love the skin you are in as your very own body may even feel foreign.

You’ve Been Bullied

Bullying is an unfortunate and common occurrence, especially for young people. There are different forms of bullying, such as physical violence, relational aggression, and cyberbullying. Often, a bully will insult a person’s physical appearance, body, and looks as a means of causing them pain and suffering. Having experienced bullying in childhood to one’s teenage years is often a precursor for low self-esteem and thoughts of appearing “ugly”.

You’ve been Compared to Others

Most of us have that one aunt, uncle, grandparent, or cousin that every time we see them, we get compared to another family member. Comments such as, “Oh, Emma looks great since she lost weight. You’d look great, too, you know.” These passive-aggressive comments are very damaging to our self-esteem and often cause thoughts of “Why am I so ugly?”.

You’ve been Rejected, Perhaps Multiple Times

Rejection is hard. It can leave us questioning ourselves and our worth. When we put together patterns of rejection over our life, we can draw conclusions that come from a place of irrationality rather than the whole truth.

You Place Your Self-Worth in Social Media

Social media has its pros, and it also has an immense amount of cons. Research has shown that seeing people positively engage with our social media content triggers our reward system in our brain, resulting in a dopamine rush similar to addiction.² Thus, when we do not receive as many “likes”, “messages”, or “notifications,” our reward center can become hampered, as well as our self-image.

How to Deal With the Thought “Why Am I So Ugly?”

Struggling with negative self-talk can be incredibly difficult. Similarly, it has been shown that we overestimate how much people judge us or notice our imperfections. This phenomenon is called the spotlight effect.³ There are things you can do to reduce negative thoughts and improve your self-worth.

Here are ten ways to deal with “Why am I so ugly?” thoughts:

1. Practice Opposite Action

Opposite Action is a technique found in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). It is an intentional practice where, when feeling a strong emotion and recognizing the action we would usually take in response, we do the opposite instead. When a person practices the opposite action, they can diffuse the strong emotion they feel rather than continue to spiral. This practice is important in keeping us more grounded and mindful.

Here are a few tips for how to practice opposite action thinking, “Why am I so ugly?”:

• Get dressed up: When we feel ugly, we may tend to wear baggy t-shirts and sweatpants. Instead, wear a more form-fitting outfit. If both form-fitting pants and shirts feel like too much, start with either a tighter shirt at first or pants and go from there.
• Practice self-care: Feeling ugly can cause us to neglect ourselves. Instead, focus on self-care that makes your body feel better: get acupuncture, put on a face mask, or go for a massage. Manicures and bubble baths are always great too.
• Spend time with loved ones: When we feel ugly, we may isolate ourselves. Instead, seek support from a trusted friend or family member and spend time with them. Quality time with those you love is rejuvenating even if you do not talk about your feelings.
• Strive for imperfection: Feeling ugly often stems from a need to be perfect. Instead, give yourself credit for one “good enough” thing you did each day. Practicing imperfection will begin to increase your self-esteem and self-love.
• Use positive affirmations: When we feel ugly, we may talk down to ourselves. Instead, find a positive affirmation that focuses on one of your strengths. Practice this affirmation every morning and before you go to bed.
• Disconnect from social media: Feeling ugly may cause us to over-invest our time into social media. Instead, disconnect and do something else you enjoy, like reading or exercise.

2. Re-evaluate Your Social Media

Start to be more aware of the people you follow outside of your friends and family. Do the celebrities or influencers all look similar? If so, it would be beneficial to widen your perspective to a more diverse-looking group of people. Especially persons with similar features and body shapes. This is very supportive in seeing a representation of how you see yourself received by others in such a positive light.

Additionally, muting or unfollowing social media accounts that leave you feeling “bad” about yourself or your body may be a helpful step. Keeping certain persons you associate with the “perfect body” or “look” can increase negative thoughts. This is not to say you have to permanently remove certain accounts, perhaps for a time until “Why am I so ugly?” thoughts lessen.

3. Practice Body Neutrality

Body neutrality takes the focus off of looks and turns attention to our body’s capabilities. It is very different from body positivity which continues to feed into the social construct of beauty. Whereas body neutrality speaks to self-worth being much more than our physical looks. It also allows us space to have our not-so-great days regarding our bodies and looks, moving away from feeling ashamed for recurrent feelings that do not align with body positivity. This can help support our relationship with ourselves.⁴

Ways to practice body neutrality include:

• Focus on the way your body functions: Acknowledge your body for what it did for you each day, from taking you through a job interview to getting you to and from home.
• Embrace what your body has: Your body houses your mind, lungs, humor, soul, heart, and ultimately, the potential for new life.
• Eat Intuitively: This is about balancing your eating. It’s listening to our body cues so that when you are hungry, you eat, and when you are full, you listen and stop eating.
• Eat without restrictions: Do not restrict yourself, do not diet, and do not have a calorie count. These continue to feed into a narrative that you need to be fixed.
• Eat with your comfort in mind: Eat foods that you enjoy and that will digest well for you to reduce any discomfort associated with food.
• Exercise to feel good: In diet culture, exercise is often associated with losing weight. In the body neutrality movement, it is about feeling good because of your body’s capability.
• Exercise in your preferred way: Another struggle with diet culture is prescribed exercises that you find you do not enjoy. Again, exercise should be enjoyable, not feel like a chore.
• Move away from comparisons: Comparing ourselves and comparing others often leaves us feeling worse in the long run.
• Embrace that your body cannot do everything without shame: Perhaps you cannot lift heavier objects, or your body feels tired after running a mile. Acknowledge it without judgment to better combat feelings of shame.
• Leave the word ‘hate’ behind: You do not have to love your body each day, and framing your feelings toward your body and yourself from a place of hate takes you farther from your goal.

4. Practice Middle Ground Thinking

Middle-ground thinking is a DBT skill that bridges two opposing thoughts or views. For example, I love my body, and I hate my body. A middle ground thought to bridge these two opposing views could be something like: I struggle with my body, and I appreciate it for what it does. It is very important to keep the word “and” in the middle rather than the word “but”. “And” keeps both sides acknowledged, “but” can discount one in favor of the other. Lastly, end on the more neutral side as it helps us to keep neutrality more at the forefront of our minds.

5. Reframe Negative Thoughts

Negative thoughts are bound to happen. We all have good and not-so-good days. We can work to reframe negative thoughts so that they do not sting as much as before. Reframe is a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) skill known as cognitive restructuring. Reframe takes our initial automatic negative thought about our body and puts it into a body-neutral light. For example, if you have the automatic thought, “My thighs are too big.”, try to reframe it to a body-neutral thought of, “My thighs help to walk me through this life.”

6. Practice Radical Acceptance

Radical acceptance is a DBT skill where you accept what is and what it will be. It does not mean you must like or agree with what is happening. It is simply accepting without judgment. On not-so-good body image day, proceed with radical acceptance. Acknowledge that today is a difficult day, and right now, it is what it is. For right now, it is what it is.

7. Minimize Extreme Words

We often have a negativity bias, making us more inclined to hold onto and presume negative outcomes.⁵ This manifests in using extreme words such as always and never. When it comes to our body, this can look like, “I’m always going to be so ugly.” Extreme words amplify our negative thoughts. Minimize them when talking about yourself at all times possible.

8. Prioritize How You Feel

Often, with societal expectations and fear of judgment in tow, we hamper our feelings to meet others’ needs rather than our own. Instead, listen to your needs. When your body feels tired, rest. When you feel hungry, eat. When you find something funny, laugh. When you feel sad, cry.

9. Be Mindful of Body Talk

Comments on others’ looks and bodies are very commonplace nowadays. However, they are ultimately damaging, not only to the person on the receiving end but also to ourselves. Be mindful of when you fall into the trap of talking about your or another person’s looks/body in a conversation.

If you are socializing and the conversation shifts to body comparison or criticism, try to change the subject to something you feel better discussing. You can choose to explain why you are redirecting the conversation or not. If you choose not to explain, that is okay. What is most comfortable for you is what’s important. If you choose to explain, you can say something like: “I don’t feel comfortable talking about others’ bodies and looks.”

10. Be Patient with Yourself

When it comes to healing from self-hatred and low self-esteem, the journey, like most, is not linear. There will be many ups and downs. Give yourself some grace as you move through the messages of reclaiming neutrality toward your body.

When to Seek Professional Support

Seeking professional support is highly recommended when negative self-talk begins to impact your daily functioning and the way in which you interact with life. Professional support can come in many forms with different types of therapy. For negative self-talk, CBT and DBT are very beneficial as they target negative thoughts and work to enhance mindfulness throughout your healing journey.

You can seek out a therapist through an online therapist directory or online therapy platform if that feels best for you. You may also look through your insurance in-network providers to ensure a therapist accepts your coverage. You can cross reference the online directories with insurance as well. There are also online therapy options that take insurance as well.

In My Experience

“Why am I so ugly?” thoughts are unfortunately very common due to persistent messages within our world that dictate how we should or could be. In my professional opinion, body neutrality offers space for growing with healing and allowing for the not-so-good days. While body positivity is well-intentioned, it is not necessarily the best fit or approach for those that would experience shame on their not-so-good days due to the message of “Love your body always, no matter what”. Choose the path that works best for you.

Lastly, while the journey of gaining a sense of self-worth is an uphill battle, it is possible. The biggest piece is your personal commitment toward finding a way to love you as you are. Once you have that commitment in place, the path gets less steep, although there will be ongoing bumps along the way. Please remember, you are not broken. You do not need fixing. You are worthy of the investment in yourself.