Since I was a child, I came to understand that my self worth was based on how good I looked physically. In my junior years, I had a friend, let’s call her CJ. She was gorgeous. Blonde and blue eyed. She was popular and the boy I liked so much, liked her. I was never even an option to all the guys I wanted. I am olive skinned and dark haired and dark eyed. I didn’t fit into that image of beauty that I was surrounded by. I wasn’t one of the pretty girls. I even remember so vividly once when I was 10 my mom and her friends were discussing my two friends. And my moms friends said that I was pretty and attractive and my mother said that she thought my friend Amal* was prettier. Amal was blonde and skinny. My mom actually said that in front of me. It pushed me to make myself beautiful to get my mom to say that about me. It meant a lot. And I still remember how not once did my mom tell me I was pretty or beautiful. But I always realized how her eyes lit up when she saw my friends all looking beautiful. Mind you I wasn’t fat, I was just full. You could call it baby fat. But it hurt a lot to see all. My friends mothers giving them the attention they needed but my mother didn’t see that beauty in me. So I became obsessed. I needed to become skinny and beautiful. At 13 I started losing weight and fixing my hair and putting a bit of make up and I started getting attention. The guys started noticing me and taking my number. I was being noticed. My mom started telling me how good I looked and always helping me get thinner and thinner. It was never enough. I then became the popular one. And I started to associate good things and happiness and self worth and love in being skinny and beautiful. But all throughout my teenage years it was never enough. Not once did my mom or my family say it’s enough. You’re beautiful just as you are. You don’t need to lose weight, you don’t need to wear short dresses. You don’t need to pile on make up and straighten your hair always. My mom never said I was good enough. It became all I could talk about. Weight loss. I weighed myself every single day. I did yo yo diets and I starved myself as well as binge ate then went on crash diets right after. I was a mess because after I lost the weight and became pretty, it still wasn’t enough!!!
I went through a stage of depression a bit over a year ago and I gained a lot of weight. And I’m back to where i started. But now it’s even worse. My self esteem is on the ground. I’m obsessed in losing it all again. Its all I think about or talk about. Especially when I see the way my mom looks at me, and when her eyes tear up as she looks at the way I’ve become. Sometimes I just want to run away somewhere where no one knows me and live alone without peoples stares. I want to be alone so bad. I was the thin pretty one since forever and now the past few months every time friends and family see me they get shocked and ask incessant questions.
I just want my mom to tell me I’m enough. That I’m beautiful no matter how I look. I just want to be enough mom.
