When I look in the mirror, what do I really see? Do I dare tell the truth or am I just supposed to say what everyone secretly wants to hear: “I don’t feel pretty”. I believe that self-love has become such a social taboo, because confidence is perceived as vanity. When someone expresses insecurity, most people will rebut the idea saying that one should have higher self-esteem and love their self, but nobody really wants you to say “I know I am beautiful” because of an unspoken race for king or queen of the mountain. So, they shame you back down from your hard won, self-obtained victory.
Why do I call it a self-obtained victory, some might ask? Take it from a pretty girl; no number of compliments on your appearance can make you see how beautiful you are. It is something that must be awakened from within because, after a while superficial compliments become exhausted. The insecurity eating away inside you won't even let you enjoy them. There was a time when I could have been told 100 times a day that I was pretty, but it wouldn’t have mattered because all the voices in my head would tell me differently. However, with the compliment comes expectation. Whether it is perceived or legitimate, women feel the need to keep up appearances when they are complimented, not only that, but to also go above and beyond and sometimes, and that pressure can be crippling.
Having naturally curly hair, I don’t get around to straightening it very often, usually just when I am looking to mix it up. I remember one day I showed up to school with my hair straightened and everyone oohed and awed. Some girl piped up and said that my hair looked to much better straight. That comment stung my soul. I love my curls. I feel like they embody who I am, and someone just told me that what made me prettier is something that just wasn’t me. The compliment seemed to be double-ended to be a compliment and an insult all at the same time. The original goal is to uplift. Despite that, people want to see you do well, but not better than them. Once the world starts to see you doing better than them, you become competition. A lot of the time, the people who are the most uplifting are the most broken. I think that deep down everyone is just hoping that the next person is slightly worse off than they are and when they start to see someone doing better than them, envy is likely to take over.
It is well known that envy and insecurity are the root of shaming. I have seen gorgeous women ripped apart for every minuscule flaw in their appearance by other women out of jealousy. Typically, when the attacks on physical appearance don’t seem to hurt as much as the aggressor was hoping for, the attacks quickly evolve and become personal digs against character, be them based on truth or rumor, it doesn’t matter.
I have been on the receiving end of this myself. Like most teenage girls I was very insecure in middle school and the beginning of high school. My classmates at the time came from wealthier families who focused on more superficial things like clothes can cars. I was the outcast that come to school with alfalfa hay in my hair every morning. They would call me Dory, as in the blue, forgetful fish from “Finding Nemo”. I carried this shame with me for 3 years until I switched schools.
With the change I decided I would be whoever I wanted to be and what I wanted most in the entire world was to be like the beautiful, confident girls with simple elegance that I would see on movies. It was a slow process. I began to explore my personal sense of style and I would at the very least pretend that I was confident and comfortable in my own skin. After a couple of years of engaging in this every day struggle is started to become real. I started to see myself as beautiful.
With my new-found confidence I started to get attention from a lot of boys. And it didn’t take to long for jealousy to alert the rumor mill. Making fun of my clothes or hair didn’t seem to have a strong enough effect for the girls at school. So, they used the attention that I got from boys as ammunition to “slut shame” me. Never mind that I had never had a boyfriend. Never mind that I was one of the few virgin teens left on campus. It didn’t matter if it was true or not people believed it. I was torn down by other in attempt to make themselves look better. They never knew that on the outside they might appear to be superior, but at the cost of staining their hearts.
Now that I have been out of high school for 3 years and have had the opportunity to see other cultures and live in another country, I have become even more confident and sure of myself. I truly do feel beautiful and I think that that surety makes me even more so. Many have called me arrogant and vain, but I believe that I there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Confidence does not need to put others down to feel good. Arrogance sees itself as better than those around them based on a superficial scale. The world wants to try to shame confident women back to their corners because of its own fear and insecurity, but I will still love myself without permission.
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