My Story

Beauty is such a funny thing. So much of my life, I longed to feel beautiful. Not just pretty, but something more; something extraordinary. I would watch the girls on TV and look at girls in magazines and study their every feature; to see what it was that made them so special. I would spend hours in front of the mirror, playing with make-up and my hair. I would try on one thing after another, trying to find the perfect combination, but always ended up sitting there, defeated. Deciding, as I stared at myself in the mirror, that I was just as ordinary as could be, not finding a single trait that I could call beautiful, or most of the time, even pretty. I think this is something many girls go through. It is when you get to that stage where boys go from having cooties to kissable lips, when your dad isn’t as cool as he once was, and when your all-time best girlfriends, all of a sudden, aren’t. And you need some one besides your mom to tell you how special you are.

So, I was always trying to become more than I thought I was. Always trying to “better” myself. I would go shopping and try to find something better to wear. I went to make up counters and they put on a different face for me every time. I padded my bra, I went from long hair to short hair, glasses to braces, even tried to change the color of my eyes with contacts. It was a constant effort, and never left me satisfied. Now, looking back, I know I thought myself wasn’t good enough. I was afraid I wasn’t enough to offer. I was trying to find out who I wanted to be, afraid, that who I already was, didn’t matter; not only on the outside, but on the inside, as well. So, I was trying to fill it with everything I could; seeking out any kind of reaffirmation that I was more than just plain.

If that weren’t enough, I would watch romantic movies like that was all there was; falling in love with the idea of this perfect romance. This is where I learned it is not just looks that make you beautiful, but what captivates a man are all the little idiosyncrasies that make you different. So I started compiling a list of characteristics; picking out the little parts of different women in movies that I thought made them beautiful. For me, I learned beauty meant being outgoing and adventurous, eager to laugh and always having a sparkle in your eye, like you are up to something fabulous. So, that is what I pretended to be and tried to become, ignoring the fact that I am naturally shy and nervous.

As soon as I started trying to become this new person, something magical started to happen. Boys started to get interested. Not always the boy I was crushing on, but at least a guy was interested. And, really not a guy I admired or, I would say, had good qualities, but good enough. Good enough to make me feel more than just plain. At least now I could be a girl who was someone’s girlfriend and not just a girl. But then, the magic faded. The longer I was with a guy, the less I felt I was something special. They always wanted something more. I felt my true colors would start shining through and the shy, timid girl would outweigh the outgoing, eager to laugh, sparkle in your eye, and things would change. All of a sudden, this person I was trying to be was no longer good enough. And now, not only did I know that, but he felt that way, too. Instead of getting confirmation that I was special, I got confirmation that I was bland.
Every guy was the same, one right after the other. Most times, I didn’t even get the chance to be labeled as a “girlfriend.” I wasn’t good enough, long before then. They all wanted more in so many different ways. More respect when I was around his friends, more freedom when he wanted to go to parties, more dressing up, so I look better, more talking to him and less to others, more breaking my rules and following his. There was always so much more. There were rules I had to follow, in order to be good enough for him, and secrets I had to keep and lies I had to tell. Mainly the lies were to myself, but I would have never admitted it.

I was so caught up with my new duty of “girlfriend” I lost anything else I had wanted to be. I not only was trying to be pretty enough for myself to like, but now I had to constantly try to figure out what I needed to do to be “pretty” enough for him. And it was always different. Long hair for one, short hair for the next. Outgoing and adventurous or classy and sophisticated. My definition of beauty was ever-changing, and somewhere in there, the allure of beauty had dissolved and I was still as lost as I had ever been.

You see, a guy finally caught on to all my insecurities and decided to take advantage of it. He swooped in with a smile and a roofie and turned my world upside down. And, all of a sudden everything changed. I went from spending so much of my life trying to do whatever it took to feel beautiful to being so afraid of being attractive at all. I was done. My life had been shaken to the core. Something that I had strived for so long, had ended up being my worst enemy and I was at a loss. Not only had I been taken advantage of, but I wasn’t even given the chance to fight. And it had been taken from me by the one person I had always depended on, to fill what I thought I couldn’t on my own, a man. And now, I was left alone, empty, afraid, confused and ashamed.

And, on top of all of that, I blamed myself. I blamed myself for trying or wanting to be pretty in the first place, for even wanting the attention in the first place, and I blamed myself for dressing up and wearing make up, for wearing jeans and a cute top, for longing for the affection of a man, for even going to the party in the first place. I should have just stayed home. It was my fault I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was my fault he chose my drink over the other girls I was with. I should have known he was a “bad” guy. One excuse after the other. I must have been giving out a signal that I was easy, that he could get away with it. And he did.
I did nothing about it. I didn’t tell anyone, I didn’t report it, I didn’t even believe it myself. I kept telling myself that it was not rape, that I wasn’t a statistic, that I was okay. But I wasn’t. And it was. And now I was left in pieces. I had no definition of myself and now felt like I was less than nothing. Before, all I had put my every worth into was how I was seen by others. It all depended on how others saw me, if boys thought I was pretty. And now I was afraid and hated every part of me that was once thought attractive. Now I was putting forth extra effort to not look attractive. Baggy clothes, glasses, no make up, back to being quiet and non adventurous. If I could, I would have found a hole to hide in and stayed there.

That is also the time in my life when I learned that us girls are our worst enemy. You would think I would have thought the opposite, given my situation, but it wasn’t the case. It was girls that tore me down even more. When I needed support the most, l was all alone. When I did finally have the courage to tell someone, I was told it was my fault, which is what I was afraid of in the first place.

We all want to feel safe. So when we hear about a girl that didn’t get away and the unimaginable happened, we turn away. Out of sight, out of mind. We don’t want to feel vulnerable, or that the one thing we seek after, beauty, could also be attracting the wrong kind of guy. We need a reason for it. A reason that something it happened to the other girl, that we can avoid, so it won’t happen to us. And we don’t like to see the aftermath. How it can destroy a woman and turn her into a monster. When something that bad happens, the only way you survive is to build a fort around yourself. You grow a shell and a snarl to keep people away. You do whatever it takes to try to feel protected. To feel like you did before it happened. But, I could never get back there. And I was finding I never really escaped that point in my life where my best efforts to better myself were punitive.

Seven years. That is how long it has been for me. I just can’t get over it. It has never dawned on me before. It still feels like it was just last year, last month, last week, yesterday. But, instead time has been stolen from me. So much time. My youth, really. The part where you are supposed to discover who you are and be care free and laugh. I lost that part. I lost my youth while being told it was my fault, from myself and others. I lost it when I thought I was pregnant and went from pro-life to trying to decide what I could do to loose the baby. I lost it while hiding away in my dorm room, suddenly afraid of the boys I used to flirt with. I lost it when I told myself I no longer had anything to offer, that it had all been taken away from me.

And that is where I have been stuck, feeling worthless and afraid of the dark, for more time than I ever intended. I never wanted to be that way. I kept thinking of how I used to be; before it happened, before one night changed my life forever. When running outside wasn’t considered dangerous, and I was excited for the next adventure that awaited me. When loving to drive with my window down and my music up. When there was no harm in tanning by the pool in my swimsuit. When I was innocent and naïve about all that could happen. All that was lost. I had lost my innocence and, worse than that, my essence of a woman. And I had no idea what to do about it.

But I had to fight. I am not a quitter. And I refused to let my life be taken over by the fear of one man’s lust. But, in order to do that, I had to learn to break my own rules. Along with the fort I had created, came rules. Rules I had developed in order to survive. Rules that kept me out of a pit of despair, but not out of the swamps. And, in truth, it was the rules that had become my swamps and the swamps were turning to sinking sand. We like to follow rules. If you do this and this and this, then that won’t happen. Rules make you feel safe, like you have some control over the situation. But there are no rules with rape. As with beauty, what one man picks, another does not. And, referring to rape, I think that scares the hell out of us.

So, what is a girl to do? Honestly, I am still trying to figure that one out, myself. But I do know that it involves learning how to be smart, aware and open about dangerous situations and, not only that, but doing something about it. A woman once told me that she could walk the streets naked and that doesn’t give a man the right to rape her. I agree, but I would at least carry a stun gun. I think our society is caught in between these two ideas. Nothing a woman does gives a man the right to do anything to her, whether it is vulgar words, abuse or violence. But that does not mean that women shouldn’t be aware of what could happen and how to protect themselves, or even, what to do next. I think it also entails learning a balance between protection and trust and the difference between doing something for someone else and doing something for yourself. I think it involves finding a voice and inner strength and a hope for the future.

For me, a future where beauty and who I am as a person can be defined in a different way, and I will not look into the mirror and see a statistic, but a woman trying to find out who she is now, afterwards. I am trying to finally pick up the pieces and do something with them besides cry over them. There may still be a tear shed every now and then, but not for the pieces. I am working on putting them back together. There is no reason to be broken any longer. I will become whole and spend my time now as discovering myself as a beautiful woman. A woman of grace and strength and who has a sparkle in her eye because she is up to something fabulous. We all want to feel beautiful. And many girls are caught at that stage of constantly doing whatever it takes to feel beautiful, and some end up in the same trap I was in. But, one thing I have learned is beauty is really just a matter of opinion. Like a work of art. What some may think as exquisite, and want to sit and stare at all day, others may not even notice as they walk by. And the opinion that matters the most is our own. I think we forget about that. I think girls get so focused on someone who possess a trait that they don’t or is getting all the attention for that moment, that they can’t see past it, and let it devour them, and not only affect how they treat others, but how they treat themselves. Girls become so consumed with trying to do what it takes to make others love them that they forget to love themselves, for exactly who they are. That is the key. That is where the real beauty lies. Within us all, when we learn to love every little thing about ourselves; the things that make us different and the same; and it is founded on our own self appreciation, not the opinion of another. It is there in that moment, that one’s true beauty will blossom, and the sparkle in the eyes, gleam