Day 1
Okay, the first thing I feel I need to do is give the slightest bit of my back story. I grew up in a house with 7 kids, and was abused by one of my brothers every day for the fifteen years I was around him. Although it may be flowing through your mind that I’m exaggerating on this, let me reassure you that I’m not.
“You’re fat”; “You’re ugly”, “You’re stupid”; “Go cut yourself”; “Go kill yourself.”
Don’t you want me to be joking? Yeah, I do too.
This started at age 7, and didn’t stop until I was 15. You see, Bipolar Disorder runs through my family, and the brother I’m referring to has a strong, severe, epidemic of a case of it. However, when you’re the one who’s being told all of these things on a DAILY basis, the reason doesn’t matter.
And so now I find myself in this situation: I’m 19, married, and have a 4 month old baby.
Thus far I have lived through: both Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa, self mutilation of multiple kinds, lost loves, an attempted suicide, and crazy divorces (of my parents) out the wazoo. It’s a hard knock life, right?
But now I realize that I want so much more; for myself, for my son. I’m tired of looking in the mirror and pinpointing everything I hate about myself. I want to look at all of the things I should and need to love about myself.
So I’m starting here, at day one. This is the ultimate challenge to rearrange and prioritize my life. Because I have to say, I have a beautiful baby boy snoring next to me who deserves a mother who can give him everything. How can I do that if I don’t love myself?
If I can’t do it for myself, then I should do it for him.
And you can do it for you.
Everyday for the next 30 days I will add a new rule. I have no idea how this is going to work/ if it will even work, but you can’t know til you try.
So rule 1 is this: Look in the mirror and tell yourself you’re beautiful, 25 times.
I have to admit that I felt absolutely ridiculous doing this, especially since I woke up too late to shower and was wearing a pair of jeans that are still slightly too tight compared to my pre-baby body.
I did it anyway though, and you should too. This is not conceited. This is me and you not being told about how much beauty you possess. We’ve got to make up for all the lost time. So if you quite after 10 times, like I was about to do, go back and finish out the rest.
This is a journey. And you deserve to be beautiful, no matter what society says.
