To Those Who May Forget

Do you remember as kids we were always staring into shiny surfaces, mirrors, water puddles and looking at our reflections and absorbing what we looked like? I remember staring at each part of me in wonder, fascinated at the fact that this was who I was, this was me, Beki.

I didn’t think anything special about the image staring back at me other than the fact that it was me, that I was unique and no one in the whole wide world looked exactly like me. I liked the idea that we were all unique, different and special.

Then I started to realise that something was wrong with my nose. People in my family kept on saying how funny it looked and how if it was bigger they could hold the world Olympics skiing contest on it because of the slope. I started to understand that the reflection staring back at me wasn’t in fact special or different but perhaps deformed like everyone else said.

As the years passed I started avoiding my reflection, I couldn’t stand any photos to be taken of me or even to look in a mirror. I avoided all shiny services because each time I saw my reflection it reminded me that I wasn’t special, that I was weird looking and odd.

In the end I started to believe that my outer look was my inner look. I was deformed, weird and far from special as a whole, my self esteem was gone, my self confidence had evaporated and the negative thought biases started in full force. It became a way of life, a personality trait if you will, to believe, truly believe that I was sub-human.

Bulimia, eating disorders, dependency, self beatings both verbal and physical, acceptance of behaviour towards me that others would not accept. I shrugged it all off, why wouldn’t I? This had always been my life, it was who I was, I knew no different.

Fast forward a couple of years and suddenly I have genuine people who love me, they see the reflection that I saw when I was six and they are ok with it, no comments on my funny nose, how weird I look or any other bad attributes. These people seemed to take me for me but I couldn’t translate it. It blew me away, confused me like nothing else, I questioned each time they said something nice to me, showed me love and acceptance, I couldn’t understand it.

Each time this happened I would go away thinking “ok they are just saying it to be nice to me, don’t take it too seriously, they’ll be normal again sooner than I think, it’s nothing, brush it under the table and normality will return”. Normality never did return and what was once perceived as normality slowly transformed into abnormality.

One step at a time, time and time again, I was shown that it was not me that was deformed, weird or odd but rather the people that said those things to me, broke me down and stepped on me. One day shortly after this realisation I built up the courage to face a mirror, truly face it and look at my reflection. I couldn’t hold eye contact with myself but I slowly started to examine my facial features, I looked at the angles, nose, everything, absorbing it all. I lasted 2 minutes and I had to leave my reflection there in the mirror.

Day by day I went back to the reflection staring back at me and slowly I braved staring into my eyes, holding eye contact and absorbing the whole. I became the 5 year old kid again looking fascinatedly at my reflection. After about half an hour I looked myself deep in the eyes, smiled and said out loud “This is me, this is who I am, I am unique and I am special”. I hadn’t realized so intent on staring into my own eyes that tears were running slowly down my cheeks, this time they were tears of joy.

I still stare at my own reflection in the mirror, I absorb each single piece of the map that is me and I smile, I repeat those words as much as I need to hear them, I don’t avoid the shiny surfaces.

I am me, this is who I am, I am unique and I am special… if you don’t like it that is your problem, it’s not mine anymore.

What do you see when you look in to the mirror, do you see the whole you? Or do you see just the face as if its detached?