Hot Girl Shit

Growing up as the only girl in my entire extended family, I should honestly have been told I was pretty more often. I was mostly seen for other qualities beyond my appearance, which, in hindsight, was both a blessing and a curse. I’m glad I wasn’t just seen as a girl and nothing more. However, the absence of compliments about my appearance left me craving that validation, causing me to seek it out from others in unhealthy ways as I entered adulthood. I experienced, and still do, extreme self-doubt and a severe lack of confidence. I let myself be used and discarded easily and had to teach myself how I should be loved and treated. While I had instilled in myself that I am far more than just my looks, I never could complete the full circle of being wholly comfortable with who I am.

I had big-ass eyes growing up, which made me downright adorable, if not a little creepy. I was a yapper through and through, and I tended to speak up and voice my opinions. My parents always told me I was pretty, but they had to since I looked like them, and any other comment would have been a direct diss back at them more than anything. I was also horribly brilliant and a funny little thing in the sense that I’m pretty sure I never fully believed in God; I just had a crush on the Ethnically Ambiguous Jesus portraits I constantly saw. I didn’t have siblings, so I was expected to be able to talk to my parent’s friends, and I did so with ease, earning myself the descriptor of “an old soul” (see also weird-ass kid who is a little too nihilistic for being six years old but talks like they read dictionaries and thesauruses for fun (I did)). I’m very grateful that I wasn’t coddled and blindly led to think that I am without fault and deserving of anything, regardless of merit; I wish I was aware that I was pretty, too.

I never really thought about my appearance in the past, knowing that I looked like my mother. I constantly wanted to match her because we were the same. This tended to make people laugh as I was living in Washington at the height of my realizing this and was, therefore, ghostly pale. My mother, however, even at her palest, has always been tan. As my mom’s exact copy that happened to run out of toner, I didn’t understand why she hated the way she looked. To me, she was always beautiful. I loved the kind of clothes she’d wear, the way she talked, the way she carried herself. But always being around her made me question myself. She would point out things about herself she hated, and later, whenever I looked into my mirror, those insecurities would also reflect back onto me. Truthfully, I think my mom was jealous of me. When I was about eight years old, I got my ADHD diagnosis and was subsequently prescribed Adderall. Because I was taking what is essentially Speed, I was always skinny no matter how much I consumed. When I reached middle school, my mom and I had both talked about me not wanting to rely on such a heavy drug anymore, so eventually, I stopped taking it. I no longer had my amphetamine-induced metabolism, which also, coupled with going through puberty, caused me to go from a small to a medium, to eventually a large later in high school when I reached my full height and my body had plateaued in terms of any growth and change. I remember one day that I was reading on the couch, and she came up to me and told me that I needed to start working out or I would keep getting fatter. I was about thirteen when she told me this and had just started wearing a medium. Like, c’mon man, what the fuck.
I know that I eventually would’ve started caring about my appearance at that age anyway, but something about the catalyst being my mother made me feel so small, not as small as she wished I was, but alas, I felt such an immense pressure to lose weight at any cost. I, of course, had to do it in a way where she wouldn’t find I was actively trying to. I pretended to be less hungry at meals. I wouldn’t eat my lunch in school, giving it away or simply tossing it out. I compulsively worked out in my room late at night, trying to be as quiet as possible. I was incredibly disgusted when my parents joked about how I was not eager to exercise. But I was 13, who actually liked to exercise, who wasn’t in sports, and didn’t have an eating disorder?
I got better in high school. I was packing small lunches and wearing oversized hoodies but had cut out the weird-ass workout routine. I started making smaller steps towards betterness, not due to my own willingness but to avoid being caught. Eventually, I got too lazy to keep up and care. To my pleasant surprise, I was attractive. I had valiantly rescued my girlfriend from her abusive boyfriend(mainly in the sense that she told me about how she was being accused of cheating, and I told her it wasn’t chill of him to do that, and I was her girlfriend by the end of the eighth period and now in hindsight, I realize he may have been correct as that was how our relationship ended as well), I didn’t love her, but I did like her. I wasn’t necessarily skinny, so my appeal, I guess, was my strength. She loved when I would pick her up like it was nothing which was probably a new feeling to her as her punk ass boyfriend was on the golf team. My relationship after that was with a guy who really just completely destroyed me. I wish I could tell you he was in any way attractive. He was Mormon. I don’t know if you need to hear more than that to come to any conclusions, but I can give you the highlights.

1. Constantly requested nudes

2. Obsessed with 80s Japan
3. Ghosted me 5 minutes before PROM because he thought I would do that, so he didn’t want to get hurt.

4. Sometimes, an outfit “would maybe look better on someone prettier.”
5. HAD BLUE EYES(I have only met two people with blue eyes that don’t creep the shit out of me, so shoutout to Adam and Matteo, I guess)
6. ugly
7. Mormon
8. WHEN WE (around 17 years old at the time, we were turning 18 in about 2-3 months, I believe) BROKE UP, HE STARTED DATING A FRESHMAN (we had turned 14 a week before dating him)
9. ugly
10. Did theater but would never get cast, so he had to do tech, see items 6 & 9
11. Played bass (usually a green flag to me) and only knew one song, and it was 7 Nation Army.

12. Okay, so I’m not sure if this is oversharing, so I’ll put it in white text; fingered me on the goddamn school bus (nonconsensual)

The following two guys were alright; nothing was detrimental to my self-esteem, and they were chill. I am not talking about the guys I have dated here in college because of yikes. My whole point here is that I was in a constant push-pull relationship with a guy who frankly just wasn’t attracted to me( might also not be attracted to women or women-shaped beings at all, but alas, we had blocked each other a long time ago) but couldn’t recognize what he really felt for me was a sense of friendship. I had to prove myself to get acceptance from him, even if it meant compromising my self-respect. I allowed him to use me because I genuinely believed it was better than not being wanted. I guess the blame isn’t entirely on him since I still have problems discerning friendship from crushes. This problem has also caused the Polyamorous “Platonic” Quad, which also further fucked me up(the main highlights were group cuddle sesh and both me and my boyfriend accidentally calling each other his best friend’s name during intimacy on multiple different occasions). However, this did awaken my poly curiousness. One of my main problems is that I’m into nerdy losers. I don’t mean this in any offensive way; I think it’s very endearing to be passionate and silly. I like a guy that is going through it. The women and nonbinary people I’ve dated are not mentioned here in detail as they didn’t often do me wrong enough for it to have ruptured my psyche.
My road towards being okay with my body stems really from gaslighting myself. I used to use horrible language for myself that just really often put me down. I started replacing those thoughts with sarcastic complaints of me being too hot, too sexy, too beautiful, too funny, too snatched. Eventually, I started thinking of myself that way. I do still occasionally struggle with my image, but I go about in a much healthier way now. I’m no longer surviving solely off spoonfuls of peanut butter, doing secret nocturnal Pilate princess shit, or even allowing myself to say negative things about myself. In reflecting on my journey, I see a complex tapestry woven from threads of self-doubt, external expectations, and personal growth. Growing up as the only girl in a family where appearance wasn’t the primary focus, I grappled with the craving for validation and the impact it had on my self-worth. The journey from feeling unseen and undervalued to finding a more balanced self-perception has been fraught with challenges.
From childhood insecurities fueled by my mother’s own struggles to navigating unhealthy relationships and self-destructive behaviors, I have faced numerous obstacles in learning how to appreciate and love myself. The turning point came not from external validation but from an internal shift—embracing a narrative where I am worthy and capable of self-love, regardless of imperfections or societal pressures.
Today, while I still encounter days of self-doubt, I have cultivated a healthier relationship with myself. By transforming negative self-talk into affirmations and setting aside harmful habits, I am learning to celebrate my worth in a more genuine and sustainable way. My journey underscores the importance of self-compassion and the realization that true acceptance comes from within. Despite ongoing struggles, I am now better equipped to navigate life with resilience and a sense of self-respect that was once elusive and I hope in my heart of hearts that y’all can, too.