Nobody Nose Except Only Us

Yes, today is about self image. Pardon the pun about noses. I like them. Not in a sick pervy way. Many people first look at the bone structure of other's faces. Others like eyes or cheekbones. I like noses. I am not sure why except I find them quiet unique. I like the way they make faces so different. Go ahead and call me weird. It's not like I have never heard that before. If eyes are the windows to the soul and your mouth is the door, that leaves the nose suspiciously out of the house.
 Everyone who knows me well, knows that I have this interest in noses. It is not uncommon to have someone say , "I met this person today, and you would have loved his nose!" Yes, my phone conversations are just that awesome and profound.

I once watched a t.v. show about bizarre hobbies and this older lady sculpted noses. I thought wow, that's me in thirty years sculpting nose shaped tea pots and drinking copious amounts of earl grey tea. Not from a nose teapot of course because that would just be weird.

For all of my love for noses I hate mine. There is rarely a picture taken of me that I like. I know my nose is not huge and yet every picture reflects Jimmy Durante staring back at me. Not that I don't love his amazingly glorious nose, it's just not what I am trying to shoot for....my perception is skewed.

That is exactly what having mental illness is like. Knowing that you are perfectly normal looking but seeing something there that truly isn't. We, as sufferers, see things that are either not there or things that no one else seems to notice. Carnival mirrors and false readings of the mental geiger counter. We hear blips telling us something else is going on. It is very hard to live with being different let alone trying to explain it to others. We tend to be extra sensitive to criticism, mostly because we have been harshly judged not just by others but the real judging, the real hate comes from within. Learning to not only accept yourself, broken as we may feel we are, but also forgive ourselves for being so. It is a full time job where the pay sucks and raises are out of the question. To add to that fear that we are not being good enough to be accepted, is the negative thoughts we carry about ourselves. It takes years to learn to forgive yourself. It takes years to accept yourself. It takes years to get over grieving the life you thought you would live until you had to be forced to realize that this is you, now. Not that you can't still do or be what you wanted but that you are not who you always thought you were. Not something better or something worse, just different. It certainly doesn't help to be faced with stigma or ignorant individuals who want to spew their blame or anger on you. It can be overwhelming and frightening. It can make us internalize the thoughts we have fought so hard to eradicate. The thoughts that we are bad, broken, sick, ugly, unworthy. Thoughts that have always lurked in the background. Thoughts that only gain power if we believe them. Therein  lies the problem. They can only hurt you if you believe they are true and most of us deep down, at one time or another, do. They are no more true than me having Jimmy Durante's nose but in that moment they seem real. They seem to be factual to us. Perceptions again...ugh.

So for this reason I started writing. I wanted to show others that they are not alone. That we are worth more than we ever thought we were. That we are capable magnificent individuals. That whether we end up sculpting nose shaped tea pots or we are CEO'S of a major company it doesn't matter.  What matters is getting the message out there. That we are many and we are worthy of everything life has to offer. That we are not scary or dangerous. That we are not what the media spews. That we are not what ignorant people think we are. That we matter. That the voices in our heads have no power because they are false. We are not bad, we are beautiful. So the title nobody nose, is correct. Nobody knows what we go through but us. Nobody knows accept others that have been discriminated against, belittled, and feared whether it be because of skin color, sexual preference, religious beliefs, or mental illness. We all experience the same discrimination and it hurts. It sickens. It violates and harms. Only we can change this by standing up and talking. Only us.


Neurotic Nelly