Beautiful

"Don't look at me..."

I can't tell you how many times I've whispered those words...or how many times I've screamed them. I can't remember how many times I've spoken them with tears streaming down my face. I can't even begin to comprehend the amount of times I've wanted to say the words but chosen to put on a brave face, to act invincible, to act strong.

They say you hurt the ones you love the most. Well, the ones you love are the ones who can hurt you the most too. I don't know about you, but when I love someone, I love them with everything in me. I give my heart, my mind, my soul, my everything. I'm all in. When I love, I love so completely that the person I love becomes an extension of myself. So when someone I love says mean things or hurtful things, or tells me I'm not good enough or points out what I'm doing wrong instead of what I'm doing right, I feel that to my core. Even if I know what they're saying isn't true, I feel like it is. A person can only hear how wrong/ugly/stupid/horrible they are so many times before they start to believe it. We can only take so much rejection and so much criticism before we start to form cracks in our armor. Over time those cracks will grow and spread until we feel as if there is no going back, no fixing us. We're told we're insert negative description here so therefore we are, at least in our own mind.

But there's another angle to look at it from too. I don't know how many other people are like me, but through all of the abuse I've suffered, right along with the self hatred and insecurity I felt, I still had so much confidence in myself. I knew damn well that I'm an amazing person. I believed in my strengths while still admitting to my weaknesses and didn't hate myself for them. I knew when I was being called a retard or an idiot or a bad mother that none of those things were really true. So why did I feel like they were? Why did I become so depressed? Why did I fight so hard to prove the inaccuracy of those accusations? How did I feel so horribly about myself, and yet put a big figurative middle finger up inside my head and walk away chuckling? How can I love and hate myself so much at the very same time?

That, my friends, is called duality. That is the yin and the yang. That is the constant struggle we all have between what we feel and what we inherently know to be true. And why do you think that is? It's self preservation. We live in a world of survival of the fittest, and in order to survive, we have no choice but to keep at least some semblance of pride. It's when we lose that faith in ourselves, that self love we're born with, that we allow the cracks to become craters. Now I'm not saying it's easy. Lord knows how much I've struggled with my own inner demons, and damn near lost myself to the abyss of self loathing and pity. But there has always been something deep down inside that has told me to suck it up and give the haters of the world a big FUCK YOU!

I remember so many times laying next to the man that I was madly in love with, a man I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, wondering if he felt the same. Like pretty much any unhealthy relationship, when it's good, it's really good. But when it's bad...it's excruciating. It's soul sucking. It's draining. It's pure hell. And like so many women, I believed that the good outweighed the bad. I chose to tell myself that he didn't mean the nasty words he said. He didn't mean to put his hands on me...because he loved me. That's what he told me, so it must be true. He apologized. Sometimes he cried. Sometimes he told me he didn't want to be that person but he didn't know how to change. Usually he didn't remember what he did because he'd drank too much. I eventually stopped telling him what he'd done the night before. It didn't make much difference anyhow. I didn't tell him. I didn't tell anyone. It served no purpose than to make me look like an ass, or so I thought. So what did I do? I chose to stand by him. I thought that maybe if I showed him that I loved him enough, that I'd never walk away from him, never judge him, and always have his back like nobody in his life ever had, he'd eventually see the good in himself that I saw, and stop lashing out at me. I genuinely believed that he was broken because of what the world had done to him and it was my job to be strong enough to hold him up. I was proud of myself for that. I was blown away by the strength I had that allowed me to endure so much anguish. In reality I wasn't being strong at all. In all actuality, I was using that as justification for not walking away from someone who made me feel worthless. Sure, there were many times he said how smart/strong/forgiving/loving I was. And I chose to believe the words instead of looking at the actions. The actions of an abuser may look nice from the outside, but there is always an ulterior motive. If they're not getting exactly what they need from you at exactly the right moment, you will pay. It may be in the form of insults, a shove into a wall, the silent treatment, or making fun of you and then telling you they were only kidding or you were being too sensitive. Sometimes their way of "punishing" you for not being perfect enough is so subtle that you don't even realize it's happening. That's when the breakdown begins. But they're so good at building you back up just when you think you can't take anymore, that you don't even see your situation getting worse. You don't usually see it until it's too late. You may know that it's wrong, or even realize you should walk away. But by that point, you feel like you can't. Plain and simple, they have now succeeded in making you just as broken as they are.

On the flip side of all that though, are the moments where I felt so great about myself. I felt like I was on top of the world. I knew damn well I could accomplish anything I put my mind to. Not only could I, but I knew I would. I've been told on numerous occasions that I'm intimidating. On one hand I think to myself, "are you sure you're talking about me?" But on the other hand, I get it. I feel like there are a multitude of reasons why people should be intimidated by me. I have a lot of talents. I love writing, and I think I'm pretty okay-ish at it. I love taking pictures. I'm great with people. I'm an awesome sales person. I'm also wicked smaht. said in my best Boston accent But above all that, I'm real. I'm about as real as it gets. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I do not, will not, can not lie. Unless you ask me what's wrong and I say, "I'm ok," but I'll save that explanation for another day. Honestly, the confident, self assured, happy go lucky girl most people see really is me. I genuinely do believe in myself. I think confidence can be intimidating to a lot of people, and I'm pretty sure that's why they've said I am.

But here's the thing. No matter how down on myself I've been, no matter who I see when I look in the mirror at any given moment, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I AM STRONG. Honestly, I'm pretty fucking bad ass. We all are. We just have to remember what it is that we wake up every day for. I'll never forget the day that my then 16 year old son told me to look in the mirror. He literally made me look at myself. He said to me, "what do you see?" I saw me. Nothing more, nothing less. He then informed me that I had aged about 10 years within about a year's time. He reminded me of all the times I told him, "I feel so helpless when I can't make you feel better." He told me that he understood what I meant because he felt helpless seeing me so broken, knowing there wasn't anything he could do for me. I had stopped caring much about my appearance. My smile was fake. I was a shell of the woman I used to be. Did you hear me? My son had to point that out to me. MY SON. That was an eye opener. It was that very day that I vowed to stop taking care of everyone else and ignoring myself. Now I'm not saying it was easy. Hell, it still isn't easy for me. But rest assured I knew that very day that I had spiraled down so far that it was time to get off my ass and do something. It was time for change.

I will always put other people before myself. That's something I don't want to change. What I am learning to change though, is the way I treat myself. I am no longer putting myself on the back burner. I know that in order to properly to the caring, empathetic, selfless person I want to be, I have no choice but to see myself as beautiful. In doing that, I realize that I am worth it. I have no choice but to take care of myself so that I can properly be there for other people. I don't fully believe the old saying that you can't truly love anyone until you love yourself. Honestly, that's a big load of bs. I love deeply and I love genuinely. What I do believe though, is that you can't truly show that love to its full capacity if you don't love yourself. And damn it, I'm gonna do everything in my power to learn to love myself EVERY SINGLE DAY. I'm learning not only to love myself when I accomplish something big and I feel worthy, but also when I don't feel like I deserve it. That's the true test for all of us, but especially for someone who is so used to being beaten down and emotionally battered. It's those moments, when we don't feel worthy of love, that we need to love ourselves the most. Truthfully, that's when we deserve it the most. Those are the moments that although we feel flawed, we're actually at our strongest...because we survive them. We keep pushing forward and adapt, improvise, and overcome.

Look at me...because I am beautiful.

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Where honesty meets recovery

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Lynae

Writer • Healing Advocate

Rewriting the stories I once survived