Unlocking even more childhood trauma

I was watching a tiktok today. A guy duetted a video of a girl describing how she couldn't even begin to compute how she could be ugly because she had constant internal and external validation on her appearance. Her mother had been telling her how beautiful she was her entire life and empowered her and raised her to believe that she was beautiful.

The man in the video said that he could compute being ugly and he computes it all the time because he never had that positive reinforcement in the home or elsewhere of people telling him he's attractive. A commenter mentioned he had a lot of trauma to unpack and he went on to say that his parents are Jamaican (mine are too). He mentioned how one of the most common things his mother would do is to compare him to random ugly animals and creatures.

Now it's important to understand that culturally, things like this aren't intended to be malicious, but that doesn't stop them from causing harm. (And it caused a lot of harm since it damaged his self worth so much).

It just got me thinking of how common place it is and how so many of my friends and family have had similar interactions with their parents and how that shaped their sense of self worth. My mother for instance was constantly being called ugly and unattractive by her family. In contrast, she always tried to empower me by calling me beautiful but unlike the girl in the tiktok, it wasn't all that empowering for me.

For one thing, my beauty always seemed to be attached to some physical attribute, and it was always fleeting. It was something I had to hang on to or one day it would get up and leave me. It was always "don't rub your nose like that, it will get big and you won't be pretty anymore", "don't pout, your lips will get big and you won't be pretty anymore", "don't frown, you will get wrinkles and you won't be pretty anymore". My beauty was never for me. It was never something I had that I could appreciate and enjoy, it was something that I had to work to keep. Even though I was naturally blessed with clear skin I was never allowed to eat sweets or fried food out of fear that I would suddenly develop acne. I was met with limitations, restrictions and drawbacks my entire childhood.

I felt more like a piece of china than a child as I was constantly being told not to run too fast or play too hard because I might injure my skin and leave scars. I was always told that I was beautiful but I was never allowed to just be beautiful. I found myself wishing I could trade bodies with my friends who longed for more "conventionally attractive features" because then at least maybe I thought I'd be allowed to live a freer life.

I don't blame my mother. I know her attitude to me is stemmed from her own childhood of abuse and neglect. And I also know I'm pretty and like the girl on tiktok, can't compute how I could be ugly, but I don't really care much for physical features because of it. Outward beauty means nothing to me if it doesn't come with inner peace and happiness.

moral of the story:

we should be telling our sons they're attractive more often

- J