Living With Blinders On

I was thinking earlier as I drove home about a project I have to do at school where I have to be on video.  Of course I hate the way I look and totally dread this.  Another example I have is where a friend of mine posted a few pictures of me on facebook and I begged her not to but she said I looked fine and so did my mom when she seen them.  I literally have a small handful of pictures of myself because I hate the way I look.  Am I just living with blinders on or do I really look as bad as I think? 

I look back at pictures of myself where I weighed 142 lbs and at the time I thought I looked so fat and awful but now I look at those pics and would kill to look like that again.  Why can't we see whats truly there?  How do we stop seeing all of our flaws and start seeing our assets? 

I feel bad for my kids because they are going to grow up with albums and more albums filled with pictures of them but you wouldn't even think they had a mother because I'm nowhere's to be found in any of the pictures.  Its even worse now that I have a digital camera because as soon as I get a picture of me taken I just erase it and it never even makes it to print.  I'm erasing memories that my children will cherish.

Are you living with blinders on to?  How do you force yourself to stop criticizing every picture you get taken?  I don't want to get to my goal weight and still hate how I look like I did last time.  I want to learn to accept myself and what I see.