"my insecurities could eat me alive"

Can you imagine a girl in her early 20s, healthy and able, perfect posture, long lashes around big brown eyes, thin frame, killer legs from which her little feet in designer shoes push the pedal of the car Daddy bought her through the floor as she drives to the university to attain the level of education most people in the world can only dream of
...tried twice to kill herself?

Would you believe this class valedictorian prom queen orientation leader volunteer band manager newspaper editor-in-chief
...went through puberty later than expected because she deprived herself of food to the point of hospitalization dangerously underweight because she felt like eating was the only thing she had any control over?

Could you see her as a child, with the same wish on every star in the sky and coin in a well and candles on her birthday cake? She never asked for a bicycle or a puppy or a new dress.

"i wish i was pretty," she would think to herself.



She didn't want toys -- she wanted love. And if only she were pretty enough, they'd all love her and never leave her alone.

Did you ever find the elementary yearbook where she cut her own picture out of it?
Did you notice how quickly she learned the lyrics to Jimmy Soul's song "If You Want To Be Happy" because he would sing "don't make a pretty woman your wife?" And that somehow gave her reassurance that she wouldn't be unwanted?
Did you watch how she internalized every single scolding and never forgot anything she ever did wrong?
(i was scolded for sliding a book across the floor in pre-school. my kindergarten teacher was testing my reading ability with flashcards, and "try" as "tray." scolded when my 2nd grade teacher was not pleased that i'd picked out all the crayons that were not pink out of the box our desks nearest to me and filled it with ones that were. and on and on and on.)






No, I suppose you could not.


But surely it would help explain her inability to accept compliments and avoidance of any and all criticism. The unusually heavy weight at which she values other people's opinions. Why she insists she's a whore or a bitch or a brat or a horrible person. Or her answer to "what is your biggest fear?" Or the hatred with which she eyes herself in the mirror, so spiteful that she needs to look away or leave the room when she brushes her teeth.

Oh doll, you're so broken.
So very broken.