
Hello! I am currently having a mental breakdown so I thought I would post on here to see if anybody wanted to join in. 

I’m an actor in film/television. I am moderately successful for my age (21). I just had a series I was the lead of premiere on Disney+, and I am currently out of the country shooting another huge series as a lead for the next four months. In both series’, and most other projects I have worked on, I am cast as the attractive male ingenue. The show I am currently working on, my character description was literally “Hot, charismatic, arrogant older brother.” 

The problem is, I see myself as this grotesque human being. I say grotesque without an ounce of exaggeration. After doing a scene today, I asked to see playback, and the rest of my scene partners also gathered around. As soon as the director pressed play, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. I came onscreen and looked disgusting. I felt embarrassed and ran off as soon as I could back to my trailer to be alone and try to forget what I saw, but it’s been three hours now and I am on the verge of going completely insane. I talked to my girlfriend, and she did her best to reassure me, but nothing helped. I could not believe that I looked like that. I looked out of place as just a regular actor among these people, but as the supposed most attractive one, I was just appalled. I felt that I looked fat, weird looking, unattractive, all of the above.

I should’ve known not to look, as I’ve had this problem before, but not this bad. The worst part is I’m in the best shape of my life. I am 6ft tall, I weigh 155 lbs, and yet I still see the chubby kid who got called fat in eighth grade. It never stops. Every glimpse of myself in a mirror of picture taken is torture. I refuse pictures to be taken of me because I know how upset it will make me, yet the thing I enjoy most requires that I be in front of a camera.

I don’t know, I am just deeply sad, in a very central part of my heart.