Self-loathing, we are all guilty of it. We are never 100% happy with ourselves. Always comparing ourselves to others, am I prettier? am I thinner? Am I funnier? Am I cleverer than so and so.
As silly as it sounds we need to learn to love ourselves. There is no one like you, you’re unique, isn’t that awesome?
Difficult concept to get the mind around. We are so worried about what other people think, we don’t judge ourselves on what we do but rather from the evaluation others give us, which turns into a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. And lets face it, no one is loved by everyone, its impossible. We put our focus on our failures and not our success that is actually so sad. I firmly believe in the idea of, how can anyone else love and respect you when you do not love and respect yourself?
And this is what I am guilty of. Ever since my dad passed away, I have hated myself, hated my behaviour, and had absolutely no respect for the person who I was. I lost all ambition. This is rather gross, but females will know this trick: putting baby powder into your hair when there is no time to wash and dry it, allowing your hair to look clean without the time consuming washing, drying straightening process. I was in matric or grade 11 I cant remember, and I did not wash my hair for I don’t know how long. I used the baby powder to make it look clean, which is a great trick for once off, NOT for a month, pushing two. That’s just gross!
I don’t know why I did it. Everyday more and more powder. When I ran out of baby powder, now brace yourself, I resorted to flour, as in baking flour. I didn’t think anything of it until a friend, on hearing I put flour in my hair, told me with a disgusted look that flour is food, and proceeded to ask if I had animals in my hair. Funny yes, but could have actually had been true if I carried on flouring my hair. And because I smoked, my hair smelt like stale smoke. Trashy yes? In addition to that I felt nothing wearing my self-tan stained uniform over and over, I didn’t care. I insisted on wearing my shortest dresses, belt never included. I had the belts and would purposely take them off the dress before school, just because. I wore the wrong earrings and hair ties, school jersey usually pushed over one shoulder with my collar popped ever so slightly. Bear in mind I went to a private school that prided itself on the perfection of the pupils. So I think it was rebellion. I had a strong belief that the system was corrupt and selfish, and they only really cared if you were in a first team or fashioned an academic blazer. I felt I never really fitted the mould as I settled for 50’s and played 4th team hockey. I didn’t enjoy my last few years of school which I think is really tragic.
I didn’t respect myself much or take much pride in my appearance which one me a few sittings in the headmistresses office. Often teachers would pull me aside and tell me to wash my hair, clean my face, lengthen my skirt, and still I didn’t care. My sister was the head girl of my school a few years before and I think I tried to show them that I was different. The more they told me not to do something the more I did it. I really just wanted to piss them off cause they irritated me. As mentioned in previous blogs, one teacher said I was going to fail matric so I might as well stop trying. In fact since I entered high school I felt pretty stupid, not many of the teachers liked me from the word go, and no one really wanted to help when I didn’t understand.
I think back to junior school, I was never naughty I was just forgetful and lazy and would rather have a detention or 5 than hand in a half finished science-space project, or worse…class sports. I was the first 8 year old to get a detention in the class, and I remember thinking I was quiet hectic. All the girls who were at after care watched me and asked me why I was there, what I was doing. It was quite funny, kind of like a, "wot you in for?" kind of thing. I felt badass.
When I was 6, I was one of three girls caught drinking beer in grade 1. A friend of mine said her domestic worker packed a beer instead of her juice. Now she would be the Regina, from Mean Girls. She insisted we try it. It was foreign beer so the bottle was a dark blue (easy mistake). But we all analysed the bottle and knew we were doing a naughty thing, but we did it anyway. Hid under the desks and all took turns. To this day I do not know how anyone found out but all three of us, at the tender age of 6 having sipped the foam off the top of the bottle, were called into the headmistresses office and interrogated.
I won another visit to the headmistress’s office when I told a girl I would cut her a fringe. I did. It was really lovely, real short, like the end of a broom stuck to her forehead. But after grade 4 the detentions rolled in, as I said I never did anything bad, it was for an unsigned homework diary or what ever. The only few accomplishments I made in school were vice head of house, for a term, so like 2/3 months, I got to play a windmill and a camel, where there were about 20 odd windmills, and the camels featured for about a minute. Now picture this, I was as big as a house, so the camel suit just happened to be, the same material as stockings in a full piece suit. A shear, nylon, one-piece…beige. Stunning. And my best one was I won a prize for a poem I wrote:
There once was a boy called Ben.
Who liked a little girl called Jen.
Ben gave her a kiss,
Jen said, "siss."
And they never saw each other again.
One accomplishment I didn’t make was getting into grade 0. I failed my entrance exam. Now the night before the exam, my brother and sister had got me fully prepped. They made sure I knew everyone’s names, my home address, my telephone number the works but they had no idea what was coming…
I was handed a marshmallow. The woman told me to place the marshmallow on the left of the chair, the right of the chair, underneath the chair and on top of the chair… well I popped that marshmallow straight in my mouth, and would have to try again next year. I would have to try again next year. This is the slogan that I have lived with up to this day.
I was never negative as a little girl, I saw good in everything. And in high school I just saw the bad in everything. I hated my image, my results, my weight, my life. I had a mental block, I would never work hard because I believed no matter how hard I worked I would still come out below average. I think I just though of myself as a below average person, with a cruddy personality and nothing much to offer. I hated myself.
When I started drinking alcohol this hatred grew, not while I was drinking but the days that followed. I would get so angry with myself, I would hit or rather beat myself in the face, shouting repeatedly, "stupid/selfish/pig/worthless," or what ever other word was fitting for the time. I did this till I actually formed a bruise on my face. I told everyone I knocked into the corner of my shelf or the more believable one, that I was dancing in the club and a big buy was dancing next to me and by mistake elbowed me right in the eye. This sounds utterly mad, but this was the person I was.
Alcohol became my numbing cream, as it does with alcoholics and actually people in general. We have all heard of the, "nothing better than a glass of wine to take the edge off." I wouldn’t say that in high school I drank like an alcoholic, I just drank too much for a girl that age. I drank to be noticed, to have the courage to do the outrageous, the things others wouldn’t dare do; take copious amounts of shots, drink straight vodka, be the chick that was just so hardcore and too cool. (right drinking straight vodka and lots of shots may sound completely acceptable, and yes, fine it is. But not when you’re a young girl in grade 10/11)
Here we go, it was my 16 birthday, it was a combined birthday with my friend. We had been planning guest lists months in advance and we spoke about it in maths everyday. Who we spoke to last night, who said they were coming, counting the boys and girls lists and saying how mad it was going to be. And it was, it was a lot of fun. But after the chilled house party we went out to a club, excited and expecting the best night ever. I was after a boy who I though was utterly delicious. He was at our party and at the club he sat next to me on the couch. In front of us was an ice bucket with a bottle of gold tequila staring at me in the face. I was a little tipsy on ciders, and I felt really pretty, I was excited. And this boy who I had liked for a while was actually taking to me, he was actually interested, he sat with me instead of dancing with his friends. So I thought I needed to up my confidence and make him think I was really cool. I grabbed the tequila and a champagne glass, filled it once downed it and filled it again, then proceeded to offer it to the people around us. They of course were wise enough to know that a flute of tequila is not a good idea, at any time. The rest of the night I was passed out on the couch. When we were leaving the boy helped me up, and typical, I said leave me I can do it myself. He let me go, and as he did my legs gave way and I fell flat on the concrete. Hitting the side of my head, I was a dead weight. People thought I was concussed. They carried me out, basically foaming at the mouth and I was driven home to my friend’s house. In the middle I needed to go to the toilet, I got up, barely able to walk, stumbled into the bathroom, slipped on the bathmat, into the shower. Luckily I didn’t fall through the shower and was able to push myself off the glass to standing, where I slipped again and face planted into the ceramic basin, scraping the gum of my top front teeth of and chipping my front tooth slightly.
Needless to say the next day I felt like death. I was embarrassed. My mom picked me up and asked if I was eating chocolate, I was so confused and said no why, and she said oh you have black stuff in your teeth. The black stuff was dried blood. I ignored the question and changed the subject. That day I got a message from that boy, he asked me how I was feeling and said he wished I had never got so drunk because he wanted to kiss me. I wanted to kick myself. Unfortunately with this incident I don’t think I hit my head hard enough, in terms of knocking some sense into it.
