A Short Autobiography Of Me And My Demons (And How I'm Finally Learning To Face Them)

I’m constantly tense...I constantly am worried about what others think of me...even when I’m at home with no one to judge me.

I’m so tired of feeling this way and wish I’d never succumbed to the patriarchal ways of how women and girls are just pretty things.

Of course I’m not supposed to say it though…

Females and men are equal of course…

But it doesn’t feel that way sometimes…

In terms of looks...

Being female I feel I’m supposed to be beautiful.

I know I’m not supposed to say it but it’s true...

I believe I must look a certain way, talk a certain way, walk a certain way...just to be accepted in society.

It’s been engraved deep into my soul…

These...ideals.

I didn’t used to think this way.

I don’t want to think this way any longer.

I don’t want to feel the pressure any longer...

I’m more than just my face…

There's more to me to embrace…

I just need to find it…

The problem?

No one knows me...not even myself.

I don’t know me, yet I judge myself day and night.

I tell myself I’m done insulting myself…

I tell myself I love myself…

Yet it continues...my passionate desire to change myself continues.

I feel I MUST lose weight.

I feel I MUST have better teeth.

I feel I MUST have bigger eyes and plumper lips and even hips…

A smaller waist, better taste, a smaller nose, a slimmer face, a shorter chin, a larger grin, a thinner forehead, smaller calves, stick arms, a larger thigh gap, a larger butt, a larger chest, less freckles and speckles and pimples, cute dimples, longer fingernails, longer hair, smaller ears, bigger earrings, redder lips, thinner eyebrows, longer and thicker eyelashes, tanner skin…

The list is never-ending...it’s repeated to me over and over and over again.

I’m never truly happy…

I can’t be happy with myself…but I’m trying.

I’m trying to love myself so I can share my love with others.

I’m doing my best…

I know that I’m a powerful female, and just like my great grandmother Clara Emily (a female rights activist) would've said,

“Don’t believe you have to work harder than men at anything. Society needs to work harder on believing in you.”

...I shouldn’t have to feel like I need to work harder at being “lady-like” than a man does.

Society needs to change its views on me, not the other way around.

We need to end the stigma that females must be beautiful faces.

Females must be or do nothing for anyone.

No one must be or do anything for anyone.

So why do we constantly feel that we should?

Is it how we’re raised?

I wasn’t raised that way…

Is it how we’re born?

I was born careless and free...

How did society brainwash us all?

Why are we so paranoid all the time?

Is it just me?

Is it just you?

Is it just...us?

I wish someone had all the answers…

Anyways, personally, I’ve been thinking about it way more than I should be…

I told myself I’d no longer think about it at all…

I told myself to find something else to think about…

And I do…

But not for long…

I just keep crawling back to looks...and looks...AND LOOKS!!!

God, why am I so self-centered?

Why is everything about how I look!?

It’s like an addiction…

And I don’t want to think about it any longer…

I want to get it all off my chest.

I want to pretend for just a second that I’m getting my story into people’s heads.

I want to pretend at least a piece of my story and why I am the way I am is being understood…

I want to pretend all the judgemental people in the world no longer can hurt me…

I want to pretend to do what I’ve never done before: stand up for myself.

I failed to do it when words were shoved in my face or “behind my back”...

I failed to do it at my old school and my new school…

I always fail at it…

So this is just a little message that I wished I’d shared.

I wish people would at least try to understand me before they judge me…

They probably won’t but...just to comfort myself for a second I’ll pretend maybe someday they will.

This is my autobiography in the form of a small little note to all my haters who will never read it…

But at least my biggest hater will: myself.

I’ll remind myself of my goal...where I came from and where I’m trying to be

So here’s a little note to ALL my haters, myself included…

Hope you...enjoy my little autobiography.

Dear person who doesn’t know me but continues to judge me anyways,

Since you know absolutely nothing about me and are making lies up about me and assuming things...there's a few things I’d like you to know about me that aren’t coming from other judgemental people who also don’t know anything about me (but pretend they do)...

You see...

I was a happy extroverted girl as a child. I wouldn’t stop smiling. I wouldn’t stop talking. I wouldn’t...not for anyone.

I had plenty of friends...I had plenty of confidence...I had zero problems. Not a single problem in the world…

I loved myself. I loved others. I was happy...I was myself.

(I just had no idea what was going on ever...that’s why I wasn’t smiling in a lot of photos...not because I was depressed or anything...I’ve always had anxiety but it’s not the same thing...either way…)

I was ME…

I wouldn’t change ME for anyone. I loved ME.

Somehow words began changing that...at a young age…

I began changing at a young age…

“Why does your voice sound like that? Are you a boy?” Strike one. So why do I speak in falsetto all the time (even after being put on meds for reflux?)? Why do I speak “funny”? I felt the need to change me, for whatever reason. It’s not right but it’s just what happened…it just...happened…it just is....

In middle school I overheard girls talking about me, my fair share...you know...a couple times I’d even heard them saying I had something I’d had in the past, completely discarding all my pain and especially all my improvements and hard work...I’d also heard all about how ugly I was...and once I heard them saying I was weird...then one said “She’s not weird, she’s a psycho.”...and that hurt the most...it hurts that people don’t even know why I act the way I do then make all of these weird conspiracies up…

The reason I don’t talk to others much? I’m paranoid about what they MIGHT say to me and have actual nightmares NIGHT AFTER NIGHT AFTER NIGHT about people who’ve done nothing wrong to me cursing out my name. The reason I’m so lonely? I had to transfer schools, my friends all moved away, and my first impression at a new school was as a mental in recovery (at least that’s the way I saw it even if others didn’t take notice...paranoid, remember?). The reason I seem all puppies and rainbows? I pretend to be the old me that I’ll never be ever again in false hopes to find true happiness the only way I WON’T...still it calms me though...it’s better than crying in the bathroom. The reason I seem depressed when I’m not fake smiling? The demons inside of me are constantly screaming insults at me. The reason I fake smile? So others won’t ask me why I’m depressed.

I may not be a psycho but I am weird. If weird means not how I was before I’m very, very weird. I’m nothing like how I was before.

5th grade was the year I snapped and truly changed...

There we were in P.E., once again running laps. I ran every single day after school, so why I had to run...and run in front of...everyone...I really would’ve loved the answer to...I didn’t want anyone seeing my flabby body flopping around...I couldn't allow it...I WOULDN’T allow it. I liked getting out of it by using my shoes with holes in them as an excuse. My shoes were very old but I liked them and there was no sense in wearing my running shoes to school...it might waste their mileage and I ran A LOT...way too much for that. Plus, I didn’t like running anyways, I only did it because my parents had informed my brother and I that we’d gotten fat and therefore needed to run thirteen laps at the track a night until we were no longer fat. They worded it differently of course, but I caught on soon enough.

I wasn’t an idiot. I knew I was fat and ugly for a long time. It’d slowly been tearing at my seams for quite a while by now. But still, that day my shoes no longer worked as an excuse...the pain when that day those boys told me I was fat and there was no way I could run a 5k...it was unbearable...I felt hurt...I felt so hurt I thought I might die from drowning in my tears...I was crying so much, night after night...because...every time I looked in the mirror there she was...that HIDEOUS creature!!!..and I couldn't STAND it anymore…I needed to do something...I wanted change...but more than ever, I wanted REVENGE!!! I would be faster and thinner than everyone in the ENTIRE SCHOOL and I wanted it NOW!!!

It started out as a small diet...just cutting out snacks...it was innocent, really...then it turned into crying all night when I ate too much...eating grass to throw up when I’d eaten over my “prohibited” amount...crying in the mirror daily...skipping meals...cutting to ease the pain (and pretending it was those IDIOT BULLIES!!!)…screaming and crying like a maniac over eating a hard boiled egg...being so freezing cold I wouldn’t even go into the water on a beach...ON AN ISLAND!!! I was hungry all the time. I couldn’t sleep I was so starving. I cried about everything. I was irritated at everything...I even yelled at my brother for allegedly “breathing on me” and even “breathing MY BUBBLE SPACE’S AIR”!!! I often felt nauseous and like passing out...I felt ill a lot...tired...of everything...I just wanted to die...but instead I spent all my time hiding.

I hid it all behind a smile. I hid it all behind a laugh. I hid it from my friends. I hid it from my family. I hid it from my soccer and swim team and my fellow runners...I hid it from my classmates and my teachers and my nurse...I hid it for so, so long…

...but not long enough.

Teachers started seeing the bruises and scratches I’d given myself. My swim coach saw my sunken face (I even got kicked out of my swim team because I was too thin and it was dangerous). My parents saw how my once well fitting clothes hung from my frail frame. My friends saw how I’d changed...and not in a good way. My peers wanted the old Emily back. Everyone wanted her back…

“You’re different now that you’ve lost weight…” “Your fingernails and lips are purple...are you okay?” “Your backbone shouldn’t stick out like that-” “You’re mean now!” “Where’s the old Emily? I miss her!?” “Who is this NEW GIRL!?”

Everyone wanted her back but all she wanted was a larger thigh gap...no, she NEEDED a larger thigh gap.

She didn’t even care...about anything...or anyone.

She wouldn’t stop…

She couldn’t stop…

She went from the eighties to the seventies to the sixties to the fifties...her goal was 40. She promised herself she’d stop once she got what she wanted. She’d promised she'd stop once she got to the fifties...and the sixties...and the seventies before that. She’d never stop though...she was OUT OF CONTROL...so she was forced to stop.

She soon enough gained the weight back after hours and hours of resistance day after day...but she’d lost more than weight. She’d lost her personality. She’d lost herself and she was too far gone…

Now she’s trying to find herself, alone. All of the therapists in the world couldn't help her find herself if she continued to accept that she’d forever be lonely, ugly, and shove herself in a box where she thought she belonged...but she’s now decided that’s not where she belongs...that’s not what she is...that’s not what she deserves...she deserves to be happy, no matter her weight...no matter her appearance...no matter what those girls or anyone else has to say...she’s decided she wants a change and she wants to be more involved...and not involved as in there but not there...she wants to actually be there for herself and others. She wants to accomplish all her dreams and actually be there when she does so. She wants to someday make a family and be there for them when they do so as well. She wants to love life for all it is, no matter how hard it gets. She wants to live, and actually live this time. She wants it to be different when she walks into the high school building this coming year. She wants to talk and smile and not be so stiff, tense, and scared. She doesn’t want to live her life being so scared she doesn’t do any of this...not again...not this year...she gets lazy and gives up each year...she never gives up so why should she give up on her most important mission ever?: finding herself.

If she can’t find herself she can’t possibly find happiness. If she can’t find happiness, what is life?

It doesn’t matter how long it takes...she knows from experience she can’t just magically go back to how she was...she used to think changing schools and all that would do the trick but she knows it won’t now...but she’s willing to put in the work anyways. She knows it’s important and doesn’t want to let herself down.

That girl from the past is still trapped in that same corner, screaming at herself in a mirror...screaming all the things she feels about herself...day, after day, after day...she makes my life harder than it needs to be because in hurting herself she’s also hurting me...just like I used to do to others...I want to just give up on her and shut her out...just like others used to want to do to me...but that’s not right...it’s easy but it’s not right...plus, I’d be shutting my old self out in doing that. I need to convince her that there's another way: self love. I need her to return to her old self so we can unite once again and I’ll no longer have a devil and angel on my shoulder, tearing at me...to pieces...no more constant battles...I’ll be as one again...I’ll no longer be fake...I’ll no longer be waiting for some miracle…

It’s hard...but it needs to be me this time. So many people have told me what wonderful things they feel about “me”, but none of that matters if I don’t feel that way about myself. I can’t ignore these “I HATE YOU!!!” screams at myself any longer...I need to combat them with love…that’s all that can drown out hate...that’s all that can save a lost soul...

I’ve made the decision. I can’t dwell on my past any longer. If I see those kids who made fun of me from the past when I walk through that door I’ll no longer run away...I’ll no longer run away from my problems. I’ll treat them how they failed to treat me: as a fellow human being. No more revenge...the demon who used to scream and cry like a toddler is being taught the right way at last and is learning. She’s just a child who needs guidance. We don’t tie up children when they do something wrong. We don’t ignore them or hide them either. She’ll no longer be hidden and/or concealed. Part of me will no longer be hidden/concealed.

People will from now on see all of me, even though I’ll never completely be my old self again...they will see how I am...it’s not a new me, it’s not an old me, it’s just ME. A genuine, not hidden/fake ME.

People can feel about ME how they wish…but I’ve heard it all before, geniuses. I’ve come up with every insult there possibly can be already for myself, so that’s too bad for you, Einstein. You can’t hurt me anymore.

Judgemental person who doesn’t know me, this is my story, like it or not. Think before you judge. I don’t judge you no matter your story but I thought I’d just make it clear since you don’t seem to return the favor to me.

And now you know just how weird I truly am...

So yeah, I’m weird, thank you very much. I’ve got issues and I’m working on it every single day and SO DO YOU. There's nothing wrong with helping others...nothing at all...but if you’re just going to spread lies because you’re bored...please just worry about yourself or find another hobby. Lesson learned.

Oh, and by the way, you’re weird too.

We’re all weird.

Everyone changes.

Much love, ‘“she’s weird” “she’s not weird, she’s a psycho”’

Now stop looking at me like that, fellow weirdo.

Additional Notes: That felt so good to get that all off my chest at last! I feel so FREE!

I love writing to express myself...but I never thought writing a letter to my haters who’ll never even read it...except me...would feel...so RELIEVING!!! I feel like I can restart...I don’t know why I’ve never done it before!

I really don’t like all this horrible stigma around mental health…

I wish we could be more open about our struggles with it...because that feels so relieving...there's nothing more relieving than that…

Each year it’s rising…

Mental health struggles are rising rapidly...and I feel like there should be more talks and all that…

If a ten year old can have it…

We’ve got a problem in this country…in the world…

We can talk about struggles with going hungry from lack of money…

But starving ourselves is just seen as idiotic and a false problem.

We can’t talk about that...no one understands it, that’s why.

We can talk about being cut by another human being…

But cutting ourselves is just plain stupid.

We can’t talk about it because people will think we’re dumb…

They’ll think we’re different…

But the truth is we’ve all been there.

It’s sad but it’s true…

And we need to talk about it and get really down to earth about it…

There are people who need that kind of help but are just too afraid to ask for it.

I’ve heard it time and time again...people in need…I try to talk to them about it but they don’t want to…

And they don’t have to…

But I know the feeling of relief of getting it off my chest…

And I just wish people felt they were able to do the same without feeling others will think they’re idiots or insane…

People won’t stop judging...they never, ever will...but we can stop caring. We can stop judging ourselves and we can start helping each other rather than cutting others down in seeking revenge. I’m so tired of the insane expectations in society...I’m so tired of inequality and hatred...and I want to help rather than be part of that.

I’ll no longer judge myself.

This is a promise to myself.

I need to get out of this addiction.

No more judging.

I love me.

Love yourself too.

You’re worth it.