irrelevant

I think more or less all of us, no matter how much we may think we're not that shallow, are hung up on appearance. Our own and other people's, and especially women's. Even really, really professional people do this, without knowing they are. Even people whose job it is to focus on how our minds work. Like psychiatrists.

A couple of years ago I had some psychological testing done to determine whether or not I might have had a learning disability of some kind. Since I have such low self-esteem, I tend to latch onto whatever I  can use as 'evidence' that I'm as dumb as shit. One of the ones I latched onto the most was that I was a shitty student in school and struggled tremendously with any math beyond very basic. My skull jockey eventually persuaded me to undergo testing, in hopes of helping me understand that my shortcomings were due to factors beyond my control that had nothing to do with being stupid. A learning disability would explain how an otherwise intelligent person did poorly in school.

In the end, it turned out I don't have any learning disabilities at all. I really am just stupid.

I still have a copy of the psychiatrist's report and one very small passing observation has struck me as unnecessary and kind of bothersome. In addition to pertinent information about me--things that would influence the results of the test--for some reason the doctor felt the need to point out that I was 'an attractive 22-year-old woman'.

Being 22 and a woman could have had a hand in my mental health, but being attractive doesn't have a thing to do with it. I don't mind being found attractive. I don't even mind when people tell me. But it seems really superfluous here and sort of inappropriate to have mentioned. Why does it matter what I look like? The problems are going on inside me, not out.