Echoes of Me - by Joyce Mene

As a little girl, and even now that I'm quite older, I have battled with low self-esteem and an inferiority complex. I had to deal with people constantly having things to say about me, especially regarding my body. I allowed these words to affect me, and they have shaped how I see myself and others. I was a happy child who loved to sing and recite memory verses in church, but now, I really don't know who I am anymore. I no longer enjoy the things I used to love doing. In secondary school, I hated myself so much that I didn't feel pretty or good enough. I was always comparing myself to others and asking myself, "Why can't I be like other people?" and "Why am I so different?" My classmates were kind, and even though I got along with most of them, I still felt that some didn't like me. One of the reasons I struggle to connect with people is because of these silly assumptions. It's as if no matter how kind or generous you are to me, I just feel that you're eventually going to turn against me and hate me. I find it really hard to believe that someone can genuinely like me. I know this is a sad way to think. Growing up (I know I'm just 21), I am part of a family of six: my dad, my mum, and my elder siblings. I'm the youngest child, and we had other family members staying with us, so most of the time, it was never just my immediate family. It was cool at first, but it came with a lot of emotional distress, especially for me. If you are reading this, it means I have finally decided to share my story, my struggles, and the steps I'm taking to improve my emotional and mental health. My math teacher made me hate my body so much. He was constantly picking on me (that's how I felt). He always found a way to remind me that I was FAT, a word I dislike so much. I think it's because of him that I hate this word so much. One time, he was teaching us something about measurements (I can't remember the topic), and as a teaching aid, he brought a weighing scale to class and told me and another guy to step out. Long story short, I weighed more than my classmate, and he, my teacher, wrote both our measurements on the board for everyone to see. I began to see being fat as an insult, even though it's not an insult. For me, at the time, being fat equated to being ugly. I know my classmates reading this are probably thinking, "You were not even fat." That's the thing; I've been conditioned to see myself as fat, and to me, being fat isn't cool. It became a huge fear for me. I became super conscious of my body. There were times when I would starve myself because I didn't want to gain more weight. I have done a couple of silly things to lose weight. One time, I drank a bottle of lime, and oh, I suffered for it in the toilet. I also consciously avoid checking my weight in public because I didn't want to start overthinking. I felt the standard of beauty was slim, tall, and light-skinned because I'm dark-skinned. I didn't realize that beauty exists in different forms. I'm learning to love myself, but it has not been easy. I lost track of myself and began to withdraw from people. "Sharon is shy and quiet," yes, please leave me alone. I figured that if I stayed on my own, no one would be able to say hurtful things to me, but no, people are everywhere, and no matter how quiet you are, people will still say what they want to say. I tried “retaliative body shaming,” which is basically saying something mean back to someone who body shames you. You call me fat, and I say something I know would hurt your feelings too. But then, I would feel bad for saying something hurtful to someone who said something hurtful to me first. I became a floater friend, someone who knows a lot of people but isn't close to any of them. Making friends is such a difficult task for me. What's the point? We are eventually going to stop talking. I don't have a best friend; I'm not sure I have ever had one or ever will. I just have people I know and talk to. I know I'm the problem. For any relationship to work, there must be communication, and I struggle with that. I just want to be left alone. I enjoy my own company, even though it gets boring. I enjoy pretending my life is good. I don't like friend groups; every friend group I have been a part of never really worked. I'm always the excluded friend and the easily misunderstood one. In my opinion, in every friend group, there is another group that you're not a part of. This is not a general case; it's just based on my experiences. Maybe I just haven't met the right set of people, and maybe I'm not the “right set of people.”

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