My boyfriend put me up to this. He thinks it’ll make me feel better. I’m a little doubtful.
I am extremely insecure. I have zero confidence. I don’t feel good about myself. I hate my body. I’m too short, too flat, and I feel chubby. My thighs are too big. I have love handles that I don’t love. I don’t like my face. My belly won’t go away, even after doing intense ab workouts for six months during track season. In June, I had sixteen inches of hair cut off because I thought I needed a change and I knew my boyfriend liked short hair on women. But I hate my hair, too. I’m just not happy with myself or my appearance. I don’t even look at myself in the mirror.
It wasn’t always like this. There was a brief period in high school when I felt kind of okay. I decided one day that I didn’t care, and I was a little happy. Then my ex and I started dating, which carried on into college. The thing about dating, though, is that I used to think that, when in a relationship, your partner was the only attractive person to you. I don’t know why I thought that. It never occurred to me that they wouldn’t be. But the shit show that was that relationship aside, my ex never once indicated that he found someone else pretty or attractive in any way. I’m sure he did, but he never said anything otherwise, and I was okay.
Then, within the first month of my current boyfriend and I dating, he told me that he thought some actress was hot. My whole little world fell apart. And I was insecure again. I was hurt by it. That happened twice more as the months went by, and I just felt worse and worse.
Now I’m just hurting all the time. I don’t feel good enough for him or myself. I immediately get a sinking feeling in my stomach whenever I see someone walk by every time we go out. I wonder if he thinks she’s pretty, and I compare myself to her. I wonder what I can change about myself to look better. My anxiety rears its ugly head whenever there’s nudity or some sexual scene on T.V. (which is inevitable because women are outrageously over-sexualized in almost every media outlet), and I just shutdown. I’m afraid he will like her body better than mine, afraid that he will think she’s prettier. My boyfriend has been really good about helping me through the nude scenes, though. He won’t look and we talk through it and he reassures me. But I still feel awful afterwards.
I know it’s normal for everyone to find people pretty or beautiful, regardless of whether or not they’re in a relationship, and I’m not blaming my boyfriend. For me, I just ignore the appearance of other people. I don’t find someone else attractive or beautiful or anything because I think it’s disrespectful to my boyfriend. I don’t want to think someone else is attractive.
He calls me beautiful and pretty and everything else. But I neither believe him nor do I accept the compliments. Well, sometimes I believe him, but not when he tells me that he thinks I’m the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. How could I, when I know he thinks Natalie Dormer is extremely attractive? When he compliments me, I don’t feel anything except empty and sad. They’re not special. They could be easily applied to anyone else, and likely are since I’m not the only person he finds attractive. I’m not special at all. Nobody sees me and goes, “Wow, she’s hot!” or anything of the like. I don’t want to be put on a pedestal, but I do want to feel at least a little pretty.
I started writing down the compliments that people give me. I read somewhere that it may help me feel better. What it made me realize instead, though, is: 1) I don’t get very many compliments, and; 2) the vast majority of them are about my eyeliner. I’ve also been buying and reading a bunch of self-help books in the hopes that they would spark something in me. They haven’t.
Before my boyfriend, no one had ever said that I’m beautiful. All I was ever told was, “at least you have a great personality,” which is what they tell you when you’re not that attractive. Or that you’re a “late bloomer.” To add to it, I was bullied growing up, and my family always picks apart my appearance whenever I see them. “You look like you’ve gained weight.” “You should have your eyebrows done.” “Don’t get that haircut, you can’t pull it off.” So I’m sure that’s where the insecurity originated, and now it’s manifesting in and twisting this issue.
I know appearances aren’t everything and that the beauty ideal is a product of a corrupt society, but I still want to feel pretty. To feel something other than hurt. To feel like I matter even a little bit.
He says we can’t keep having this conversation, and I know we can’t. I don’t want to. But my feelings aren’t changing and I have no one else to talk to. I don’t know what to do.
-J
Ps. If you have any advice or thoughts on the matter, please leave a comment.
The Lost Girl 