Screaming at the Mirror (Self-Image)

I think I can consciously remember it all starting at twelve-years-old when I looked into a mirror, but I am not sure why. It should have started way before then. It should have started at day care when I was five-years-old where a boy I didn’t even know pushed me off a bench. It should have started right around fourth or fifth grade, when I heard the other cheerleaders whispering about me and excluding me to the point it carried on to being bullied by their friends who weren’t cheerleaders. It should have started the year before junior high, when a couple of junior high boys mocked me by saying how disgusting it would be to date me. But for whatever reason, it started that day when I was twelve and I stared at myself in the mirror, trying so hard to convince myself I wasn’t how I felt, but failing. It was at age twelve that I looked at myself in the mirror and said to myself, “You are one ugly bitch!”

It’s not easy to write this, just like it wasn’t easy for me. I didn’t know whom to even turn to about this. Honestly, it seemed like either no one had experienced this or they would dismiss it as something all teenagers felt. I kept it all inside, but I knew it had to be obvious what I was feeling.

I was no stranger to the Christian teachings. I had been a Christian for two years at this time, and I could quote back every verse they threw at me about being “wonderfully made in the image of God.” It didn’t do anything. It didn’t help me. I felt more like someone who was hatched. I felt like a huge mistake.

I think people assume that when a girl has a self-esteem issue, she is automatically concerned about her weight. No, there was no concern there with me. No eating disorder. Just an utter break down every time I saw a picture of me. A public protest when I was forced to be in front of a camera. A debate to every compliment. A scream of, “HOW DARE YOU INSULT HER” every time I was told I look just like my mother.

I wish I could say it was just a phase, but it wasn’t. The teasing continued, and now there was something new to mock me about: my lack of athletic ability. My friends seemed to reel in the opposite sex, while I was certain my very existence was a public assault on everyone’s eyes. Even after the braces came off, glasses went away, I found a hairstyle that somehow tamed my lion’s mane, and I enrolled in summer gym so no one would ever have to see my foolishness again, I WAS STILL GETTING TEASED! I didn’t even what know was left. I decided it had to be something about me that I couldn’t change. It was going to be like this forever.

I don’t share all of this for a pity party or a showering of compliments to make me feel better because trust me, it won’t. I say all of this because it is a real struggle. A real struggle that is still part of my life. Sure, high school is over, but this stuff still follows me. I, to this day, run and hide every time somebody wants me to play any kind of sport. Even in college, I sometimes found myself leaving the room, only to stand outside of the door to see if anyone was talking about me (thankfully, this ended my sophomore year once it was proven that I have some pretty great friends that wouldn’t do that).

There is good news though. I’m getting better. I don’t know how. Maybe it’s prayer… other people’s prayers, I should say. I didn’t even think I could present this kind of thing to God, but I did my best to follow Him. I have done my best to convince myself that God is going to do a good thing in me. I struggled a lot with not being a certain way or having certain talents. For a while (and honestly, sometimes I still do), I honestly believed I didn’t have any talents. People would tell me that the way I talk and connect with people is a talent, and I would be so willing to dismiss it as something everybody could do. Recently, I have learned that the more time I spend around people, not everyone has the ability to connect and be empathetic. For me, it has been prayer, but also trying to get out there in life and experience it. I mean, it could be so easy for me to lock myself up away from everyone for fear of what they say. But I am never going to see the good God do through me if I don’t try to chase after the heart of God, and one big thing in life that I have learned is that excluding yourself from others, excludes you from the heart of God. After all, like I said, I can quote those verses back to you, and people were made in the image of God.

It is still difficult though. Putting myself around others though makes it so easy for my insecurity to arise. “Oh, my spiritual walk is not as good as hers.” “He is so good at praying. I could never be that good.” “I could never hear God like her.” “Wow, look how many people come to her and appreciate her. I wish I could be that well-liked.” It’s crazy. It’s dumb. I’m actually a really outgoing person, but I can revert to a state of complete shyness once I feel inadequate. I even had to call a dear friend on the way back from my connect group tonight to ask for prayer because I felt the insecurity creeping up. I didn’t tell him that, but the funny thing is, in his prayer, I could tell he knew.

I guess you can tell by the above paragraph that my insecurity is starting to shift from physical traits to character traits. That doesn’t mean I got over the physical insecurity. I can’t look in the mirror and say I look pretty. BUT I also can’t look in the mirror and say I look ugly. I have a shirt I bought myself that says, “I am wonderfully made” to help encourage me, but it is a rare occasion that I wear it outside of my apartment. Yes, the physical struggle is still there, and it actually FEEDS my character struggle. I have this constant need to prove myself in my achievements and what I do because I can’t prove myself physically.

So where do I go from here? Well, I think my first step is to break down my pride. What? A person who struggles with self-esteem is asking God to break down her pride? Yes, actually. My need to prove myself to others… to myself by doing things MY way. Not being okay with what God has dictated in my life as sufficient and good and… BETTER. I think that sounds like pride. And I don’t think it is going to be easy to break down. In fact, I think it is going to be painful and it’s going to suck. It’s not something that will just happen; it will be an ongoing process. As stupid as this sounds, it is hard to leave this state of insecurity because it is all I have known for ten years. It is going to require others praying; it is going to require me to FINALLY suck it up and talk to God about this insecurity even though I have been too insecure to talk to God about it. I know it is God’s way that will get me through because no matter what others think or I think, He still thinks (to use one of those Christian clichés) that I am to die for.

This wasn’t to say I have overcome something. It’s to say I still struggle. My struggle is real, and it is the number one thing that I fight. This was to say, it is something I am working on and to say, “It’s okay to still be working on something.” I think so often, we have to have it put together and it has to be fixed. In reality, I don’t know if this is something that gets “fixed” as much as it is something we do everyday. God’s mercies are new everyday, and how can we experience “fresh mercy” everyday if we are just fixed?

I think, through the strength of God, maybe one day, I will sing the chorus of “Born this Way” in front of my mirror and smile because I believe it instead of smiling because Lady Gaga is ridiculous.