I’ve written before of my very poor self-image, the sense that I am ugly to look at, even repulsive. Nothing has stunned me in my later life more than Maria’s claim that I am handsome in some way, secretly,I just think she will wake up in bed one morning, horrified and run screaming from the room.

Until recently, I never put a photo of myself up on the blog or permitted anyone to take one of me. This came to be an unsustainable hypocritical position for a photographer who often photographs his wife and every strong woman he meets. If I’m going to ask others to do it, I better damn well do it.

I take photos of Maria almost every day, I can’t really say no to her photographing me.

But it’s still difficult for me, and I can still barely look at my image. I imagine it has something to do with bed-wetting and feelings of shame, but I’m not really sure.

I do know that I’ve been reading about women and their painful struggles with body shaming and self-image, and I am here to tell you this is a sad disorder that also afflicts many men.

Our culture is not compassionate or benign when it comes to projecting images of what corporations and movies and TV and magazines think people are supposed to look like.

I write often about the cruel and unfeeling messages I sometimes receive, I am trying to also share some of the many, and far more numerous, kind and generous messages.

People are fundamentally good, I will always believe that, even as we are constantly challenged and manipulated to think otherwise.

I got this startlingly sweet and kind message this morning from Erika, after Maria took a photograph of me in my new Bishop Maginn High School sweater, which I love:

“This is a personal comment–not the kind of thing I probably should write but I just want to say how to trim and attractive you are in this photograph. Having heard from you that you have often had issues with your appearance I ‘d like to say “Put them behind you. They have probably long gone without you realizing it. If I saw you in a restaurant or similar place I’d wish that I knew you… — Erika.”

I have to say, Erika, that yours is one of the kindest messages I have ever received, and I thank you for sending it. I think it is a wonderful thing to say to people. I wouldn’t say I’m trim but I do realize that my image of self is not necessarily what other people see when they look at me, including my wife, which is miraculous.

It’s interesting to me that the people who send the most affirming and empathetic messages are often the ones who balk at sending them, while the people who send the cruelest and most thoughtless messages fire them off all day.

I often relate to the things women write about self-image, we rarely seem images anywhere in the culture that really look like us. Of course, we are made to feel inadequate. Women understand this particularly well.

This is one of the reasons I try to take pictures of ordinary people, who are beautiful to me but who might not ever make the cover of a glossy magazine or pop up in a tv show.

I love photographing the unseen, speaking as someone who was one of them. I almost never take photos of people who are often photographed.  I am seen, now I put my photo up on the blog as often as I can bear it, and my world has not come crashing down, readers have not fled in droves, and I sometimes even suggest it.

It is a relief, liberating.

It isn’t that I don’t have a good-sized ego, but it is true that I don’t have a healthy self-image. I have learned I think, a long time ago, to see the beauty in people without stuffing them into the cultures very narrow idea of what beauty is.

I see it coming from the inside, not the outside, my photographs reinforce that.

I am glad to see that women have begun speaking out very forcefully against the very narrow definition of beauty long inflicted on them. So I’m speaking out as well. But I’m afraid I’ve done it to myself.

I’m not sure I can ever put those issues about my appearance completely behind me, they are built into my neural system, in part the casualty of abuse and unintended cruelty.

My sister had to go through the same thing when we were young, we often talk about it.

Love is important to me, and nobody can love me if I don’t first love myself.

I’m working on it and getting somewhere in part because I have finally found someone who loves me for who and what I am, not how others might wish to define me. That is a life changer.

This morning, Maria and I went to Jean’s Pace for some oat bran pancakes, this afternoon we’re heading out to see the film “Maiden.” I actually asked her to take my picture, I knew I wanted to write about Erika’s message.

The movie is the story of how Tracy Edwards, a 24-year-old cook who worked on charter boats, became the skipper of the first-ever all-female crew to enter the grueling and dangerous Whitbread Round the World sailing competition in 1989.

I imagine Tracy didn’t spend too much time worrying about how she looked.

Acceptance begins at home, I think, and once I truly understand that beauty is about the soul, not the body, I will get closer to being the man I want to be.

I thank you, Erika, for so gently and eloquently reaffirming this idea. I wish I knew you too.