Reflected

“Worth isn’t based on how others view you, it’s based on how you view yourself. That’s why it is so important to truly love who you are, because you are the one who has to live with yourself.”- From the novel “Secret world- The beginning.”

 

Throughout my childhood I was that nerdy little kid, cracking jokes, with a chili bowl cut and dinosaur earrings. I didn’t fit in, had a hard time making friends, and was the one that was easily forgotten about. I viewed myself as disposable and wanted so badly to feel like I belonged.

Public media hammered into my head that I needed to look like the photo shopped models that I saw on the magazines. In order to have a perfect life full of love and laughter, I needed to act and look like the perfectly beautiful actresses that I saw on television. I wanted so badly to be like them. I wanted to feel beautiful. As a result of this, I had a misconception of how I should actually look like.

For the longest time, I hated looking at myself in the mirror. When I did, I would look at myself in disgust and only see flaws and imperfection. It got to a point where I hated mirrors because I hated the reflection that looked back at me.  

I remember, when I was 12, I wanted so badly to be pretty like the popular girls in school. At that time, bleach blond hair was in, but I didn’t want to seem like I was copying them, so I went to the drug store and saw a beautiful model on the cover of one of the box dyes with strawberry blond hair. Grabbing onto the box, I looked down and thought to myself, “If I color my hair like this, then I’ll be pretty like her, and then people will like me.”

Going to school the next morning, I was so excited that I was smiling from ear to ear. Finally, for the first time in a very long time, I felt remotely pretty. That was, until the kids in my class started laughing at me and calling me names. I was crushed.

That same year, I was riding the school bus home. I remember exactly where I was sitting. (The back left corner, one seat up from the emergency exit) The kids around me were talking about who they had a crush on, while I quietly looked down at my binder, trying to distract myself from this conversation. I didn’t think anyone liked me at the time… But then I heard a random kid say my name… and in that moment, that I heard my name, I felt my stomach flutter and I started smiling. I was happy for only a moment. As soon as he said my name, the eruption of “ew” and “gross” burst through the back of the school bus. I fought back tears until I got home. I felt so small.

For years, I hated how I looked. I hated my personality. I hated everything about me. I was constantly told by my classmates that I was annoying and ugly. I had many nicknames including, “Big nose, Big ears, and big feet,” along with many other, and far worse names.

You see, when I looked at the images of the models and actors that everyone loved, I was under the impression that if I am perfect, then I will not be hurt anymore. When I looked in the mirror, I was never skinny enough, no matter how many ribs showed. I was never pretty enough, no matter how much makeup I poured on. My skin was never flawless, like the images of the models, so I was just not good enough. I would pick apart, every flaw I saw, all the way down to seeing the veins under my skin and hating that because it my legs didn’t look like the model's legs.

When I was around 16 I stood in front of the mirror, hating every inch of me. But something in myself said, “Find one thing that you like about yourself.” So I stood in front of that mirror and stared for at least an hour. Finally I was annoyed with my lack of being able to find one simple thing that I liked, so I just said to myself, “I like my eyes. Not the skin around my eyes…Just my eye color.”

So every day for the next several months, I said the same thing to myself when I saw my reflection. I said, “You have pretty eyes.” I admit, I felt like an idiot doing this. I didn’t even believe my own words. But then slowly, I began to like the color of my eyes.

It took me years to learn to like the person that was reflected back in the mirror. I was my own enemy. I had to learn to stop holding myself to these unattainable standards. I had to learn to love myself.