The Vampire Within
“You could almost be pretty, but your teeth are so off-putting. It’s all I can focus on when you open your mouth.”
When I was 25 my male “best-friend” told me something about my smile that no one had ever said to me before. It stung. And not just because he said it, but because I trusted him to tell me the unvarnished truth. Which meant that other people had been thinking it all along and I didn’t know. I have not smiled for a photo since. This year I turned 38.
He told me it at 5’9 wearing heels was stupid and made me look like a giant, that towering over others made them uncomfortable. Slowly the shoes I love began to sit in my closet collecting dust. There were many truths he shared with me. Like I should lower my standards because I would never be hot enough to date men I was attracted to.
We are no longer friends. I would like to say it is because of things like that, but really it was our careers diverging and him flaunting his success while I continued to struggle. It wasn’t until later I started to unpack the baggage he laid at my feet.
I used to love to act. Being on stage felt like being home. As a teenager in a film industry city I looked into getting an agent. I was told I wasn’t pretty enough to get lead roles. That I would only ever be the friend, the witch, the quirky weirdo. That the industry only cast beautiful people. It was then I developed stage fright. I told myself I was more interested in production and moved into lighting and direction instead of acting. My voice dies in my throat at karaoke now.
Last week I was in a changing room for the first time in years. I have a new job and I’ve been trying to develop some sense of style now that I’m no longer in polyester uniforms. After a week of feeling kinda cute I ventured out in search of a new dress. The image of myself in nearly nothing under top down fluorescent lights reflected in a funhouse three-way mirror was shocking. I bit my cheek so I wouldn’t cry. In the other change rooms I heard women saying, “I never look good in anything.” “This is what I get for trying…”
The self-loathing oozed down the walls of that place.
By the time I got back to my car I was sobbing. People walking by stared at me, but I didn’t care. My pain, and the pain of women whose faces I couldn’t see, filled me with sadness. I wondered what comments from their past they saw staring back at them.
Logically I know that that I should let go of the words of people I don’t respect. As a feminist I understand the effects of living in a patriarchial society with regards to the standards of beauty. My brain is fully aware that my appearance is not more important than my personality.
And yet.
My body lives with disease and often feels outside my control. A disease that makes me fat, hairy, and scars my skin with purple cysts. I would love to express myself through clothing but settle for what is available and comfortable. I can’t promise that I will ever lose weight. My health and staying alive has to be my main priority. Each day I make it through symptom free is the most important thing.
But still.
A tiny voice in my head whispers, “Don’t you wish you were pretty?”
The voice of borrowed trauma. The voice of unrequited love. The voice of internalized misogyny.
Most days I can smother that voice with a pillow. There are entire chunks of time where I don’t even consider my appearance. I move through the world with a playful humour. I find joy in clouds and comfort in coffee.
But the voice is patient.
It knows that if I meet new people, or even better have a crush on a guy, the armour around my heart shifts just enough for the tiny voice to sink its fangs in deep draining my confidence. I have yet to find a way to defeat the voice entirely. The best I can do is contain it and not pass it along to anyone else.
