Myself In Progress

Self, I ask, why do you do this over and over again? We’ve had this ridiculous discussion thousands of times, why do you enjoy re-visiting this obviously pathetic issue? Damn you, self. You really get to me sometimes, you know that?

No, the writer of these words has not quite lost her mind; in fact, her mind is all she really has going for her.

Myself and I have this sorry discussion at least twice a month. I put it to rest only to have it rise and shine, refreshed and ready for another round. Try as I might, reconciling with my outer shell has never been a straightforward affair. Yet again I am talking about my body; the body I love to hate, and hate to love. It is, in the true sense of the cliché, a love-hate relationship.

I call myself a feminist. I believe in woman, in the power of the female psyche and I am prepared to defend, support and act for womankind. I participate in organizations, which aim to empower women. I recognize anti-woman media, and I know when I am being victimized by the destructive content in advertisements. I am appalled that, with my ability to decipher and rationalize most information in front of me, I am still a pawn in their game. They always win. Why? Because they know where to hit, and it goddamn hurts.

I was raised to believe that women should look, and act a certain way. However, my caregivers and educators did not tell me outright that I must surrender to man-created beauty standards in order to be accepted in society, nor did they tell me to go ahead and love my own sweet self. If I had known, I could have been prepared, and defended myself. The silence allowed a dark path for the sly media-man to slither into my young life and answer all of my sneaking suspicions: You are too ugly. You are too fat. You do not fit in. You must change before any boy will want to kiss you. At ten years old, I knew how to starve myself, and how to cut and paste images out of glossy magazines of the woman I would someday be.

I suffered the unavoidable teenage angst and emerged physically unscathed but spiritually scarred, and mentally exhausted. I believed that I was ugly. I was not ugly. I believed that I was grotesque, and unbearable to human sight. Utterly untrue. I thought my friends were gorgeous, and together we violently criticized any girl who didn’t seem to care about what others thought.

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