10/23/2025
At ten years old, I remember thinking that I was ugly and the plan was to change that. I’d need to be smart, make money, and be able to buy the beauty I wasn’t born with. It didn’t matter over the years if I was thin enough, changed this appearance thing or that, wore fake tanner, or colored my hair. It was never going to fill a hole that beauty doesn’t fill. It was always hollow because even in moments I cured my “ugliness” it then became “am I only a beautiful thing to others and not more?” and reinforced the painful cultural idea that beauty was worth for women and that went against my values and my ache. That women were only “beautiful” and that meant being worth less than men. There are years I used my cognitive KNOWING of this to think I was healed, when it was still encoded in my nervous system. My brain knew better, but it still wasn’t my default thought and my body rebeled against it. I’ve since learned that healing looks like noticing my own dysmorphia when it shows up and feeling into it. I am eyes open working to change the plan I made at 10 years old. The plan is not to “be beautiful” or even at moments “be beautiful to myself” it’s more about knowing that I and everyone else is lovable and good enough as we are. No beauty required. It’s rewriting that message that we are meant to be or look like anything but who we are or that the outside dictates our worth, inside feelings, or how we walk through life. It’s letting go of my fears of people thinking that I’m ugly and that that’s a problem. Or that ugly or my appearance is worth putting my energy into (at least the amount it’s had in the past). I’m still finding the balance of giving zero f***s and “finding my aesthetic” but I’m on this journey and happy to share as I navigate it and speak truth to my insecurities so that they have less power over me and hopefully over others who are silently struggling at the moment (I see you).