There is a scene in “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” by C.S. Lewis where Lucy is given the opportunity to magically eavesdrop on some of her classmates and hear what they actually think of her. Needless to say, the result isn’t pretty. It turns out that when people talk about you when you aren’t around, they don’t always say nice things.
Sometimes, they don’t say nice things to your face, either.
This is a very important picture to me:
Okay, so it’s half of an important picture. The other half has my sister standing next to me, looking impossibly happy and cute. We were on a family vacation to the Royal Gorge. This is what I looked like at 14. Those shorts? Size 3. The belt was imperative to keep them held up. The knee brace? I’d just finished a week of basketball camp.
This was the summer between 8th grade and 9th grade. My parents were trying to buy a house 30 miles from the town we were living in, but we weren’t having any luck selling our old one. We went on vacation as our contract with our realtor was expiring. If the house didn’t sell, they were going to give up the move.
I’d spent the last year in a state of deep depression. I was being teased and tormented by my classmates daily. I didn’t want to go back to school with them. I wanted to die.
I made a suicide plan while I was on this vacation.
When we got home, we found out that there was a contract on our house. We were moving away. I spent the next 4 years at a high school with around 1200 kids in it. My previous school district (K-12) had around 800. I was able to disappear into the crowd. I wasn’t a target anymore. It saved my life.
I heard a guy who is now advocating against bullying talking about his school days. One of the comments he made stuck with me. “I got beat up almost every day, but I don’t remember the pain. I remember every unkind word that was said to me.” I feel the same.
I hate mirrors. I’ve perfected the art of never seeing myself in the mirror. I see my teeth as I do a lipstick check. My hair as I brush it. My eyes as I put my contacts in. I never see the whole picture, because I hate the person I see.
I hate me. I weigh roughly 150 lbs more than I did in this picture. I never want to be back to this size, but I’d love to get out of the fat girl stores and be able to shop wherever I’d like again. But that’s not going to happen until I start dealing with these feelings instead of stuffing them full of ice cream and donuts. I’ve been punishing myself with food for years now. Actually, I’ve been eating to cheer myself up all my life. It’s just that my metabolism could keep up with me until I was 20 or so.
I can’t take a compliment, if it’s about my looks. Tell me I’m smart and I’ll probably make some deprecating remark, but silently agree with you. I have a brain. On most days, it functions at a decent level. Tell me I’m pretty and I’ll argue with you. I will start pointing out my flaws. I’ll tell you I need to lose a few pounds. I need a new hairstyle. My nose is too big. I have bushy eyebrows. My teeth could be whiter. I have scars. I have bumps. There’s nothing good about me. I can’t believe those words when they come out of your mouth, because I see myself in the mirror and all I can see is how wrong you are.
I have some wonderful people in my life. I wish I could see myself through their eyes. I wish I had a mirror that would cast a glamour and let me see myself as they see me, and not how I see me. All I can see are the flaws and imperfections. When I look in a mirror, all I see is the manifestation of every unkind word I’ve ever heard. I want to see the truth instead.
