I woke up a couple of days ago to a deep, painful, burgeoning zit... right above my eyebrows in the middle of my forehead.
"I think my inner 17-year-old is about to burst through my third-eye chakra," I said to my therapist.
She looked at me pointedly. "You might be right. I think there's something there you need to explore."
We delved into my past, again, and talked about what was happening with me at that time, specifically about my sexual abuse, my teen sexuality, and my body image. We talked for a while about what had been happening in my life the last couple of weeks—update on my divorce, update on Bounder, update on my adventures with the girls.
"The more you're talking about this, the redder that's getting," she said gently. "I really think you need to spend some time journaling or blogging about it. You need to listen to what she has to say."
I've spent some time talking to her, the 17-year-old Stephanie, about what was bothering her then and what's bothering her now. It doesn't feel like she's in control of my life, and she feels pretty calm and collected when she's looking through my eyes, but there's definitely some advice only she can provide. She knows nothing of having children or taking care of an adult life. Her insights have to do with boys.
Dating in my teens was non-traditional, as it was for most of my friends. Our high school was small, and our circle of friends was sometimes smaller. When I was interested in someone and they were interested back, it was almost always someone I already knew. Our circle would shift to include that other person or the changing relationship, and we just hung out. I never once had the pick-me-up-at-my-house-for-a-date experience with someone I hadn't already slept with.
In the late 80s, that Stephanie was dealing with a lot of the things I wrote about in Persona Non Grata. She had been raped at 16, was delving into a physically- and emotionally-abusive relationship with a dipshit, and she was a fat girl. She never felt worth much, except when she was sexually precocious.
Flaunting my sexuality in rebellion of my past, I'd found comfort in the back seats of cars and the dark corners of parks—places that didn't require me to be naked. That didn't mean I wasn't constantly self-conscious about hiding my numerous physical flaws.
[Tierney to Tessa] "Look, even at my fattest I knew I was a great fuck. Maybe it was because of that. I learned early on to work my body and use my sexuality to my advantage before anyone else could use it to theirs."
Maybe more importantly, she never really felt pretty. She could see the pretty on the surface sometimes, but there was almost nothing there to give that insecure girl any kind of external encouragement or reinforcement that 1) she was indeed pretty, or 2) that it didn't matter because she was inherently worth more than that.
While I can quietly argue with that Stephanie that her beauty never came from how she looked, there is still something in every teenage girl that wants to know that she's physically appealing to other people. Even on a biological level, physical beauty often plays a role in the attraction of potential sexual partners for procreation. Feeling attractive to another person—whether physically, emotionally, or intellectually—bolsters your self-confidence, no matter how unvain or centered you are. For a fat teenage girl who felt emotionally dismissed, abandoned, or even neglected for much of her life, having someone else see her as lovely could make or break her self-image and her self-worth at any given time.
While I don't really remember feeling pretty until the last couple of years, I also don't remember being told I was beautiful until just over a year ago. If I heard those words from my family or an ex-boyfriend or even my ex-husband before I lost the weight, it's not in my immediate recollection. In fact, I told Bounder that he was the first non-stranger man to ever say those words to me without prompting or ulterior motive.
"Well then I consider that to be both privilege and honor," he replied, a little surprised.
As hard as this is for me to write, I've been able to see myself as pretty for the first time in recent weeks. There had always been moments (no matter how fleeting or rare) when I would think I looked good or sexy or whatever, but it's when I'm most plainly me—no makeup, hair down, utterly comfortable in myself—that I can see it most clearly. Seeing my attractiveness for myself, and saying it out loud, feels precariously comfortable. It seems vain and arrogant to both think it and to say it; to put it in writing in such a public way feels shameful and likely to open me to attack.
Within that realization, though, is
the understanding of how and why my 17-year-old lighted under the attention of
men. With all of my issues of feeling
dismissed or ignored, to garner even a little affection from an outsider was
astonishing and felt desperately needed.
If it was received, reciprocity seemed mandatory, even if that
ultimately led to unhealthy sexual and emotional couplings. And if the attention was withdrawn, it could
feel like the end of the world and that I was ultimately worth nothing.
Uncharacteristically quietly, she has been reminding me of late that my sexuality is not all of who I am. Because a man flirts with me or tells me I'm beautiful or hot or whatever, I am not worth more or less; my value as a sexual being is not determined by others. I have the right and the responsibility to myself to say only thank you and to move on. I am not required to be actively accepting of attention. I am allowed to ignore it or decline it, just as I am allowed to encourage it if it's something I want.
She's reminding me that I am in charge of my body and my heart, to accept the truth of me just the way I expect others to accept it. She's also reminding me that I can say no and that having sex on my terms, being in charge of when and where and how and with whom, doesn't have to be retaliatory toward the past. There's no need for my choices to bring me to a place of power; it's about finding healthy balance between attraction and desire and choice, coming to the place of sexual coupling on even terms with my partner and with myself. With her.
So now the zit is almost gone. There's just a red mark that will fade completely in a few days. (It sits, in fact, just below the forehead wrinkle that came with the weight loss and the stress and 40.) But even now, no make-up and hair in a clip and in some slouchy clothes, I don't care. I don't choose to ignore the mar; it just doesn't matter. It doesn't change my beauty, inside or out.
More importantly, that Stephanie sees it, too.
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