I have a stream of memories that will forever be engraved in my mind from my childhood. I had the curliest, thickest ringlets when I was a little girl — hair that was double the diameter of my tiny head. And I’m not talking about baby curls that grow out by the age of three, I mean proper curls that have stuck with me into adulthood. I pretty much walked around with a helmet of hair for the first 7 years of my life.
My hair was traumatically grand. I remember when my dear mother would bathe me in a tub and wash my hair in the kitchen sink because it was too much to do both at once. I laid horizontally on the counter with my head in the sink. One day mid-wash, the doorbell rang and she left me there for a moment, but it felt like an eternity. My hair was so thick and heavy that when it was wet, I genuinely did not have the strength in my little neck to raise my head. I still remember the panic of entrapment I felt.
It was such a distinctive feature of mine, and still is to this day. But when the day came for my hair to be brushed and washed, my world flipped upside down. I would hide under furniture to avoid hair wash day. What child would want to sit through one and half hours of detangling?
My one saving grace was Disney movies. It would take an entire Disney movie to brush out the entirety of my hair. I was, and still am, a chronic re-watcher of movies, and princesses were often my movie of choice.
These movies represented what I perceived as the most perfect relationships. It’s not a surprise growing up, I wanted a Disney movie love story.
In my life, I’ve valued the idea of a relationship far more than I ever should. From as young as I could remember, I’ve been planning the perfect wedding; imagining the dress I would wear, and what that day would look like. Instead of viewing it as a milestone or goal, it became a necessity — as if my success in life depended on it.
My desire for marriage is just one way I’ve looked for something to measure my self worth. There are so many other variables that affect this like appearance, beauty standards, finances, future career, how many friends I have, and the list could continue forever. In my experience, it seems like I’ve always tried to fill the space within myself with milestones and accomplishments instead of finding confidence within.
I’ve come to realize what the deeper issue is — I struggle to feel complete as an individual person. If my identity isn’t based on a relationship, family, friends, my appearance, or my achievements, then what value do I have as a person? What sets me apart from everyone else?
There isn’t an easy answer to this. I have to constantly remind myself that I am enough, as is, and there is enough substance in me to fill the space of a whole person. And this is true for everyone.
When I look back on the Disney movies I so badly wanted to replicate, I see they didn’t set me up for success at all. These movies often portray romance as the be all to end all. Life for the characters completes when they find their partner and all conflicts seem to resolve as a result. Although this trope creates a cute story arch, it doesn’t make for a fulfilling relationship or life.
Having good self-esteem can be such a complex journey — it definitely is for me.
It’s a weird, uncomfortable, and almost jarring experience. I feel like I have this meta perspective — I am conscious of the things I like about myself, and I do see myself in a high regard. The part that doesn’t add up is how I am publicly perceived. I strongly sense these things about myself, but does everyone else see it too? If not, then does it even matter?
When talking to my friends about this, it seems that this isn’t as uncommon as I thought it was. It isn’t surprising that people often care about what other people think. In a day in age where social media is standard, we all have a glimpse into the lives of everyone around us. It sets us up in this Truman Show-esque universe to judge and to be judged.
In our world we get that chance to be a critic. We get an inside, personal look at people’s lives, people we know and people we don’t. I honestly think this kind of access subliminally causes me to feel a certain amount of emphasis and pressure on how I’m perceived. If I make a certain judgement or assumption about someone, I should assume other people are doing that too. If I’m happy with myself, logically, it shouldn’t matter how others see me. And yet it does, and for me, it’s definitely a type of projection.
To simply know yourself isn’t enough to have good self-esteem. For me, I need to make my own self-perception more important than any kind of public perception. We have no control over how or what others may think about us. Trying to control someone else’s narrative is equally uncontrollable as it is unhealthy. I have to make a conscious effort every day to remember who I am and why that is enough. Some days I feel it, and others I do not, but that doesn’t change every individual’s worthiness or value.