(Note: If you must downvote please say why.)
Thank god for
supermodels. They give me something to
fixate on. If there were no super
models I'd fixate on something else. But I would still be
obsessed. I'd still have that sense that I didn't exist, those pangs of
despair that make me suspect I am in some way
deformed, hopeless, a discarded
rag doll.
Often, when I read what people have to say about women who are insecure about their
appearance, I get the impression that they do not understand the depth of the
insecurity.
Ugly women with make-up don't put it on to
look good. When your
sense of self is totally crushed it's impossible to look good. They do it to look
human.
I'm not
on a diet for the rest of my life because I'm trying to maintain a
weight that "looks good" I'm trying to maintain my
humanity. If I gain a pound it's as if it is gone. I'm
not a woman anymore. I can't live with myself therefor I can’t live.
I'm not saying that all "
slaves to fashion" are in the extreme
hell I find myself in-- but many are. These are not
petty battles. Consider the humiliation some men feel if it's suggested that they
can't get it up-- double that and you might understand how a sales clerk suggesting that I wear a
size 6 (I am, infect, a
SIZE 2) --could drive me to question my right to go on living.
after all this work could I possibly look as FAT as a size 6?
But again, thank god for supermodels! I remember the first time I saw a
supermodel. (I realize now that the
boyish look of supermodels must be intentional.
Adolescent girls are drawn to these women for reasons they can't explain. But to an adolescent girl what could be more beautiful than a boy?) I was at the doctor's office with my mother one spring day in
1991. I picked up a copy of
Elle. For some reason I didn't feel safe looking at it with my mom there so I crept off the bathroom.
The room was bright lit by a wall of frosted windows. On the other wall was a huge
mirror. I locked the door and leaned on the sink looking at each image. Then I saw
kate She was in a
wife beater and panties that looked liked they'd been washed a few to many times. Her legs were so slender-- she looked like she lived in a
charmed world. I could picture her walking back from the lake barefoot at some extravagant (yet worn and rustic) farm where
fascinating conversations and
decadent leisure were the sole activities. I wanted to be there. I didn't even know where such a place could be-- I still don't-- in fact, I've started to doubt it exists.
AT that moment
I looked at the mirror. This was the first time I really saw myself-- not as simply me-- but as a problem. Something that had to be corrected a great flaw.
I was horrified by my
reflection. I had thought for a moment that
I could be beautiful-- that I could enter that mysterious world. What arrogance! I'd be lucky if I could get up the courage to leave the bathroom. How did this happen?
What kind of monster was I turning in to? Why do I have such
beautiful dreams that reality by comparison is a
nightmare?
Yes, the dreams make me sick-- but how could I possibly wish that I had never known them? It's like saying that blindness is a cure for a fear of heights.
A world without dreams? It's a long way down.