love what you did there with the pictures, opposing. Maybe this way kirra will finally see he's totally NORMAL. I've done a lot of tests with pictures of the celebrities that i think look very symmetrical. Everyone i have analized has a side of their face wider than the other. Some A LOT wider than the other. Some have very different eye shape, kind of like you, opposing. I think that's the normal asymmetry that all humans have, nothing to worry about.

About the two mirrors thing, i really think that it distorts the face way too much. As i've mentioned and showed you with my picture, my lower jaw is off to the left. I think my nose is a lil' bit to the right also. I have practiced biting 'down the middle' to see if i look less asymmetric, and i do think i look more normal when i do this, but my jaw muscles get tired and of course my teeth don't meet properly there. But doing this i can achieve a little bit more symmetry. When i'm looking at myself with the 2 mirrors, there's no amount of moving my lower jaw that gives me a little more symmetry. I move it all the way to the right as far as i can and it looks like it would have to move even further to the right... I look VERY freakish with the 2 mirrors.

You want to know something odd? It seems that in real life my asymmetry isn't that noticeable after all. Or maybe just some people are way more scrutinizing than others. The only one that ever said anything to me and pinpointed that my mouth was crooked, was my boyfriend. Also one of my co-workers asked me if my nose was crooked.... I guess it could look that way as i always have my head tilted...
Anyway, i went to 2 different dentists this weekend. I'm trying to find out if my asymmetry could be fixed with braces. Or at least some of it. Neither one that examined me noticed my asymmetry. As i noticed they didn't say anything or mentioned that braces on me would be more difficult or something, i pointed it out to them. They both stared at me, after a while one of them said that it was barely noticeable, and the other said she didn't see it at all. Both of them only said "oh, ok, i see what you mean" when i pulled my lower lip down and showed them were my midline is. But both of them said they couldn't tell just by looking at me and that it was odd cause they pay a lot of attention to those sorts of things.

Also, at one of the offices, i had a little "fan club" thing going on there, haha. The male interns asked to take a picture with me. :S Partly because i had to specify where i work, i guess they're fans of my company... they said they wanted a picture with the "-company name here- girl". As i was sitting there getting examined by the female doctor, one of the guys came over, stood there just looking at me. The doctor laughed and said i had my admirer there. Haha, they made me feel like a celebrity or something. One of them asked for my e-mail so he could mail me the picture. Or did they ask for a picture cause they wanted to have proof of the 'freak'? lol. Or are they really fans of my company? I don't think it's that big of a deal, and i don't think i'm sooo pretty to have them want a picture with me just cause i'm cute or something, nor do i think i look like that big of a freak either. So, i don't know! haha. Strange.

Ok, so my point with all of this is, that it seems that we notice our flaws more than anybody else. The people that notice them too are the sorts of people who are always looking to see what's wrong with you (like my boyfriend... he's told me of a lot of other things that are 'weird' about me that even i hadn't noticed, or things that i think are very normal about me). I know most of us aren't making up these flaws and asymmetries of ours, but i do think they show up more on photos and in mirrors than in real life. So maybe if we COULD rid the world of cameras and mirrors we could pass as very normal people, haha.

hehe i wish i could see you biani because i think your very pretty. your skin looked flawless in the picture. your face is also rounder than mine.. i think that helps hide the uneveness

my lips are also uneven like yours. actually it depends on where i bite on. if its on the right side then my lips looks normal but when i chew on the left side.... its definitely veering to the left.

we all have our bad days but im really thankful to God that he didnt made me totally deformed, with two legs or something.i dont know anybody who has an asymmetric face other than those who shared their stories here so its been a really good support group for me. other than the breakup i already feel good about myself.

tip: try to post something you like about yourself in the mirror when your feeling down. ie.. i have a nice eyes, i have nice legs etc etc.. it really helps!

lol, thank you ms bean. I'm not that pretty, haha. And i took that picture when i had no breakouts, they come and go... sometimes i got zero zits on my face, at others i get a couple of them... I would be sorry to disappoint you if i showed you a picture of my full face!!

Ms bean, do you have a crossbite of some sort? You mentioned you got braces... did they leave your teeth crooked some way or do they look perfectly straight?

I have tried focusing on something i like about myself to get me less depressed sometimes... too bad i can see flaws EVERYWHERE.... i like my ears though. lol. I find nothing wrong with those. When i'm feeling ugly i can easily focus on everything that bothers me about myself... when on better days i don't mind at all and sometimes i even feel attractive. :S

I think the two-way mirror thing is about optics. When you put two mirrors at an angle, the distance that the light needs to travel will be longer in one side of the mirror and shorter where the two mirrors are near each other. This will make your face look distorted and will give you the wrong proportions, possibly exacerbating any asymmetries. I would like to get this confirmed by an expert of optics. I tried drawing the rays of light between the face and the two mirrors but Im not completely sure of how the light will reflect. Any suggestions?

Interesting Octavius. Sadly i know nothing about that... Hope somebody will come to our rescue and explain this further! This optics theory does some logical...

Well, i've got news about the cause of my asymmetry. I went back to the orthodontist today and he told me that i have condylar hyperplasia (one condyle is bigger than the other) and that for the most part, my asymmetry seems to be due to my misaligned teeth. He says he thinks it should be fixable with braces... I'm supposed to go back there in about two weeks to see him again, by then he will have analized my x-rays.
I hope that indeed it can be done with braces... i will have to get a second and third opinion though, it scares me to have something done and it going wrong somehow.

I think the two mirror reflection is no different from taking a standard photo and flipping the image on the computer, I'm almost sure I see the same exact asmmetry on both.

However I look at myself everyday on both mirrors which has forced my eyes to see the same asymetry on both mirror relflections, ( I can't say I look Normal, nor do I look freakish on either of the reflections, they're both a bit off though...) they're almost identical to me.

In the past before I had easy access to 2 large mirrors I would freak out looking at my 2nd reflection, but now that I see both, I think my mind understands the truth of the asymmetry and not the "shock" of seeing it in reverse for the first time.

I still believe both photos and mirrors due flatten things out more, which makes asymmetry more apparent (ever notice how people's faces look wider in photos sometimes?)

^^ biani ortho was actually done to fix my bite. i had a slight overbite.. and crooked front teeth

my ortho is also a tmj specialist. shes actually one of the best in the city.. she said that my asymmetry could be corrected 4 yrs ago by fixing the bite. but after a year of trying to correct my asymmetry she apologized for being wrong. my teeth are straighter but my jaw is still crooked.

i suggest you do a bone scan. because if the growth of one jaw isnt equal to the growth on the other side then surgery is the next option to "cut away" a portion of the excess and make the face more symmetrical. BUT hopefully it might be just your bite. do the scan first then go for braces if its negative for overgrowth/undergrowth of jaw.

if your willing enough.. you can send me pics of your teeth/ bite. also a whole picture (you can wear small shades for anonymity of your face a straigh front view smiling wide and another one without smiling at all

hope this helps!

Wow I thought I was the only one that had this problem. I too think that I look completely normal in a "normal mirror" but when I look into two mirrors set at 90 degrees I look hideous.

My jaw is crooked to the left a little bit and that make my face seem stretched on the right side and pinched on the left. I'm gonna post a pic ASAP to see if I really have an issue or if its just me.

*sigh* I wish you were correct, and I wish this were a proven fact, but when I look in a double mirror, as horrible as it seems, everything makes more sense. My TMJ, my bad posture, everything. Even why I have a good side and a bad side (One side of my face is round with a good cheekbone, the other is flat and looks weird/very uneven).

I just took some pictures and a video of my face from fairly close up, and I looks like to do in a double reflection (really awful). I guess thats how the world sees me.

So I feel pretty sick.

i seem to have the same problem as most of you have. except for kirrabeachbum, that guy has a very natural looking face.

i believe my problem is definitely because of my jaw being crooked. when i extend my jaw, i can see that the right side has a larger bump than on the left. so i believe that that bump is what has pushed my jaw down and has it looking skewed to the left. not sure if its a muscle or bone or both being bigger/longer. but thats what i would think is doing it. its probably both the upper and lower jaw. cause even my nose is slanted to the left. which makes the bone of my nose stick out a bit to the right. so it clearly seems like if my nose is broken cause of it.

like you guys have mentioned about the mirrors. i look at myself face forward into the mirror and i only notice if i look down towards my mouth and chin. if i wear to wrap my neck with a dark colored shirt, i can then clearly see that asymmetry with my chin and the sides of my face being very different as it curves. but when i look in the reflection of the reflection. by using a hand mirror and looking forward. i look ugly almost freakish. where i can clearly see that my chin is skewed to the left.

when i tilt my head a little you can tell that from a little below from where my eyes are , that my face just tilts.



dont really know what else to say cause you all seemed to have described exactly how i feel. so heres some pics to show what im having to deal with.

these were taken with a webcam so the image is flipped sometimes. so in some my chin seems to point to the right instead of to the left.
the first four photos were taken about 2 weeks ago. the rest are from last year.

























this is one that my friends said they liked cause of the pizza. my nose looks ook. but you can cleary see how my chin is all off.



heres one of me from a mirror at the mall
which is a bit fuzzy and from a distance. so u dont really see that my face is crooked unless u really focus in on it. this is what i would consider a good pic.



heres the full pic of one of the ones from above

this is what i would consider a decent pic.

in this one i think i look totally normal except from the mouth down. thats where it just looks scary to me.


and heres one where im at an angle so u cant see the problem

so i think this is what i would look like if my jaw was normal.

i may not see myself as being attractive, but i wouldn't be so depressed about it, if my face was a natural normal looking face. because then itd just be a matter of opinion if people like the way i look or not.
but instead its more like i got this big deformity that makes me all unnatural looking. im afraid to even smile cause it just looks so bad.
i think if my jaw was aligned properly, that itd fix my nose from looking totally crooked. even if it didnt, i wear glasses now, so the nose bone is hardly noticeable. but my mouth and chin, well u cant hide that sort of thing.
with celebrities and such, i can see the asymmetry they have, but its usually always from the shape of their cheeks and such. not because their chins are slanted or jaws are abnormal.

cause i noticed it on Skeet Ulrich


but his chin is straight.
so if that were my situation, i wouldn't be complaining at all.

i plan to eventually see an orthodontist about it. just to know exactly what is the problem. and know whether this will get worse or cause even more issues down the road.
cause ive been like this since i was about 16 or 17. though it wasnt noticeable to me cause i didnt really look at myself in the mirror nor did i wear glasses at the time. but i went and looked at a few high school photos and my drivers license and those kinds of things and yeah my chin is at an angle causing half of my face to be at an angle as well.
im 23 now, going on 24. and well its just really put me down. now i wonder if people notice the deformity.

cause like u guys ive had people say that im cute or attractive and what not. and over the years there have been quite a few girls that have had a crush on me. so i know im not a total freak of nature that no one would want to be associated with . but it still bothers me a hell of a lot. cause i have to look at myself each and every day.

Well, you're NOT deformed methos64, so please dont think that about yourself. Your chin looks like its kind of crooked. Maybe due to a unsymmetrical jaw. I have that too. But its fixable.

And your nose looks straight. The cartilage in the tip looks a tiny bit bent, but thats common for people with noses on the larger side. The actress Jodie Foster has crooked cartilage in her nose too, and she was voted one of the most beautiful women alive.


Tell me, do you look better, worse, or the same as you do in double mirrors/single mirrors?

i believe its cause of my jaw and not so much the chin itself. cause i remember when i was 16 or 17. at random i remember my jaw going out of place or something of that nature. cause i remember it making a loud clicking sound and i couldn't even chew cause it would hurt. like if it was just sore for some reason. at the time i told my mom and she said that that happens to people sometimes that its no big deal at all. and just gave me some tylenol for the discomfort. by the end of the night i could chew again just fine. i look back at my high school ID from my senior year and yeah my face is the way it is now, same with the nose.
but before then i had a normal straight face.

i hope getting it 'fixed' wont be all painful and traumatizing. but yeah its something i know i have to get fixed otherwise ill feel like ill live out my youth always feeling discouraged and just not healthy.

the nose doesnt bother me as much cause like u said theres Jodie Foster, though i dont see it as noticeable on her as it is on me. but then u got someone like Owen Wilson that has a really funky nose but that doesnt stop him any.
though my nose is very noticeable that its crooked, cause people have pointed it out to me. but since i wear glasses all the time now, its not as distinguished.

in double mirrors i look like a totally different person. and i mean each flaw is just so much more noticeable.
in a single mirror i look decent, though if i look closely enough, i can see the curve in my face cause of my jaw and chin.

when i use a hand mirror, i look into it and yeah hideous. if i look into the handmirror but instead of looking at myself i look at what it shows from the larger mirror and my face looks just like if i were looking at the single mirror only.

and i just dont know what it is that other people see when they look at me. do they see what i see in the single mirror, or do they see what the two mirrors see.



i took some pics with the phone when i was waiting in the car, to see if theres any difference from being outside compared to being indoors in front of a mirror.

and this is pretty much the same way i see myself when i look into a mirror.

which isnt all that bad, you can see that theres a curve in my face though.
thing is that the pics are obviously flipped, cause im actually in the driver's side not the passenger side.






so i flipped them over. and this is what you get. and this is more or less how i see myself with two mirrors but a bit more worse.

I guess its the same problem I have. The pain in your jaw is probably a the disorder called TMJ. Surgery to fix the jaw costs a lot of money. Way more then I have. But theres apparently other options. I made a thread about it here:

http://www.ehealthforum.com/health/tmj-rel ated-problems-one-oversides-jaw-what-shoul d-i-do-t138387.html

One of the moderators mentioned a "neuromuscular dentist." They apparently take xrays of your jaw, and then work to align it properly over time (I think).

I guess shes gonna reply with more information soon.

It looks like you only have a jaw problem and nothing else (from what I can see). An asymmetrical jaw can throw off your entire face and make everything look more crooked (But I guess you know that lol).

i imagine thats what itd be , at least thats what i tell myself that i have. but im sure it has a a specific long name to it.
it hasnt hurt at all since that day when i felt like my jaw got dislodged or something. only time i get a jaw click happening is if i really overwork the muscles or sleep all wrong.

yeah thats why im not sure if i have any options, cause surgery is damn expensive. and im just a college student with no job. cause i can barely handle the stress of school and then having to deal with this issue is just too much to take on as it is.

i dont see how they would align it over time. i mean thats gotta be really uncomfortable. but i imagine an orthodontist would do the same thing. in taking xrays and telling u what exactly is going on and how to treat it.

lol yeah. i believe my crooked jaw is what caused my nose problem too. cause it just has my whole face at an angle making the skin stretch off to one side.

I'm really glad I stumbled upon these postings. For my whole life I've felt insecure because whenever I look at pictures and compare myself to other people, all I see are my imperfections and asymmetry. It's insane! All I see is my chin isn't where it should be, my eyes are squished, I have a strong jaw, my nose is uneven, blah blah blah! I would waste alot of time just obsessing. The worst part is I thought I was the only one, but clearly not because you people seem to have alot to say! my god it was so crazy, I used to worry that noone would be attracted to me because supposedly people are instinctively attracted to those with perfect symmetry. Talk about shallow. Noone looks at our faces as much as we do, and people who love you only see what they're attracted to anyways. Big whoop we don't look like actors and models. Even they don't look like that when they have no makeup on. We're natural, healthy people, and thats beautiful in itself. Thank you for the discussion though! Now I feel a bit more normal.
Love, LALA.

i just told my parents earlier today and they thought i was making stuff up. then i pointed it out and they were like OH MY!

my dad was all concerned while my mom was all 'well you wont die from it'
i was like damn. thanks for the concern.

they said they would see who they can find to make an appointment and see what the hell happens from there.

my dad thinks maybe when i was 16/17, that when my jaw went out of place, it probably didnt get put back in the right place. so the muscle just grew around it and thats why it appears larger.

he told me to rest my head on its side. and i pointed it out and he was just freakin scared. when i showed how my teeth are actually not crooked at all, cause really i just tilt my face and voila , my teeth are perfect looking. thats when she was like YEA! we gotta get that fixed or youll probably get worse over time.

now its like the more i think about it, it actually feels more uncomfortable.

^ Well, at least your parents care. My family insists nothing is wrong with me, and get mad when I try to talk with them about it. I don't know if they really can't see, or if they just don't want to see. But I know its not in my head, I wish it were, and I've tried telling myself that, but I honestly think I have some sort of birth defect. It makes me sick to think about.

@lala22k2, thanks for trying to cheer people up, but thats sort of an ignorant and inconsiderate thing to say, as what some of us are worrying about could be actual facial deformities. And it sure is easy for someone with a normal face to say to someone who has a deformity "Big whoop, no one's perfect, blah blah blah."

at first my mom all lectured me about it. saying im just making stuff up and doing it on purpose to stress her out even more. and wasnt till AFTER she took these anti-axiety pills the doctor gave her recently, that after about an hour thats when she bothered to listen to my problem.

cause shes all well if it was like this for years how come u never said anything?
and well its different now compared to before. back then i was just a teenager in my own little world. i never checked myself out in mirrors, i didnt have a digital camera of any sort. so it was just not an issue for me. whereas now im a lot older and wiser. and well eventually u form relationships and what not. u go to school, get a career. so ur constantly having people look at you. in other words its just more of a concern these days than back then.

u should post pics of ur face from different angles and locations to see if it seems obvious to us that ur face has a drastic asymmetry.

cause apparently my mom always thought that i was just making faces and deliberately moving my face to the left. which seems stupid but that was her first thought. but after pointing it out to her, now she notices that my face is thinner on the right than on the left.

im asumming since ur parents know what u look like, that ur face is normal to them cause thats how they have always seen you. so itll be tougher to point out the irregularities. cause this isnt like saying u got acne or sensitive skin problem. this is about ur bone structure being completely off center.

i agree about lala22k2. its so easy for u to tell someone who has an issue that they are gonna be fine and not to worry about a thing. all the while u have good health and an all around normal natural appearance.
unless youve had the same experience or ur a doctor on the matter, the opinion just doesnt really count for much.

Sorry to say:
There are a variety of birth defects stemming basically from the disease Hemifacial Microsomia, and I'm positive that I have it. God, I wish I didn't. But somehow, I inherited it genetically. My grandfather has it, and my mother has it. Its very mild, but basically it means that one whole side of your face didn't develop all the way in the womb. It can be very mild to very severe, and no one knows for sure why it happens, and its nearly impossible to fix to make you look 100% normal. Even if you had the hundreds of thousands of dollars for the damn surgery. Maybe insurance will cover it, but I don't know.

I've been reading about it online. There are a lot of conflicting information about it, but basically:

-One jaw mandible is underdeveloped, leading to a crooked jaw, cross bite, crooked chin, crooked mouth etc.
-One side of the nose is underdeveloped, leading to a crooked nose, one nostril being oversized, breathing difficulty.
-Same for cheekbones.
-One eye may be smaller then the other, and is normally higher or lower then the other.
-Ear problems, or being born without an ear
-Spine and neck problems, holding your head at angles.
-Wind pipe or lung problems.
-Heart problems.
And there's more, but thats basically it.

I have tinnitus, and my mother is deaf in one ear. She says its from music, but I'm beginning to believe its a birth defect. My grandfather and mother have unsymmetrical ears. Myself, my grandfather, and my mother all have unsymmetrical cheekbones, but mine is most noticeable. They don't seem to have the jaw problems that I do, but mine are pretty bad/very unsymmetrical. I and my grandfather have crooked nose/one large nostril. Mine wasn't as noticeable until I got a nose job some years ago, and now its amazingly crooked. My grandfather has wind pipe/lung trouble, and so does my great-grandmother (his mother). I find it easy to choke on things, so I guess I have wind pipe trouble. And my grandfather also has heart trouble.

Luckily, my grandfather and mother's bone problems are hardly noticeable. Mine are.

I don't fully understand reflections. I look very normal in one reflection. And it can be from anywhere, like a hand mirror, or just catching myself reflecting off a window of from water. But I guess its just my mind playing a cruel joke on me, and I've had this deformity for my whole life, which makes since. I remember one time at school one of my friends with a mean streak seemed to gasp, and he held my head. I'm pretty small, and he was a weight lifting basketball player, so he was able to hold my head and my face to people and say that he just realized I was deformed. Since he was one of those kids who was always pulling jokes (I was too, we all were and you know how guys tease each other) I thought he was just messing with me, and it was never brought up again. I didn't think of it at all, and had completely forgotten it.

But now looking back, it sort of makes me sick. And thinking back on a lot of things, maybe just a clerk in a store being extra nice or something, I think to myself "Oh my god. Were they just being nice because they feel sorry for my face. Am I one of those people?..." I remember when I was getting my nose worked on, one of the nurses made a point of telling me the doctor was trained to work with people who, she paused, who has facial deformities. I remember thinking to myself "Why is she telling me this?" But now I guess it was apparent to everyone but me. And it still isn't unless I look in a double reflection.



I imagine the reason my family cant see what I'm talking about is the same reason why none of my flaws show up in a normal mirror. Its because your mind doesn't want to know. Also I guess its because they've gotten so used to my face, and that they just paint out all the asymmetrical features subconsciously. Nobody wants to think their child is deformed. And since its apparently an inheritable trait in my family, it takes away the chance of me ever having a child of my own. Why would I want someone else to go thru what I am now? What if he/she has born with a major deformity. Its a horrible situation to be in, because I've actually always wanted to be a father, and have talked about it with people before.

And yes, I've taken pictures of my face and they confirm my fears. I before tried telling myself "Its just the angle I'm holding my head/camera." But now I can't deny it.

Have I told my family about my findings? No, they simply don't want to hear it.
Half way thru next month I'm meeting with a surgeon for a brief consultation to just try to get some straight answers. I already know the answer, but its better then nothing.

My life is really in a rut. I'm so amazingly self-conscious now. I haven't spoken with any of my old friends in so long. I've sort of self-imposed a Syd Barrett style isolation on myself, expect without any creative outpour, hah. Sure, I could go out and all that, but I just have no desire to. I guess I'm just extremely vain.

It just really gets to me that the mirror still lies and shows me a face thats not only good looking, but not really mine. I wish I could at least look in a straight refection and not get a lie. A face that I wish I had and had thought I really had my whole life. I bet my whole life, people were thinking;
"Wow, how courageous. He has so much self-confidence and is so finny, and yet he's deformed." When I all along thought I was like everyone else. God!...i feel stupid.

And no one has to actually read his if they don't want to. I'm just venting b/c I don't have anyone to talk with about these problems.




@methos64, like I said, your chin does look crooked. If one side of your face is smaller then the other like you say, then it could be something more, but from the pictures you look like a normal healthy person. But I know myself that certain camera angles can make you look normal. I can take a picture where I look pretty normal, when I guess IRL I don't.

For example, here's two pictures of a girl with Hemifacial Microsomia. In this first picture, she looks completely normal, but in the second, you can tell she has bad asymmetry (which looks similar to mine):

http://www.photopumpkin.com/wp-content/upl oads/doctor-10.jpg

http://www.photopumpkin.com/wp-content/upl oads/doctor-9.jpg


*sigh* loooong post.