How to win the war with yourself
Everyone is fighting a silent battle, whether they realize it or not. A gory, bloody, merciless battle with their greatest opponent: themself.
When I was a little girl, I had a recurring dream: a twisted, demented, recurring dream. My slumber revealed to me my truest and most vulnerable wish. I wanted to completely change the way I looked. I had an infatuation with plastic surgery, even attempting to break my own nose. I grew up hating my face. I would sit in front of the mirror analyzing it. I didn’t like how my nose drooped down from the side or the way my top lip was thinner than my bottom lip. The composition of my face tormented me. I would look at photos, taking apart my appearance piece by piece, hating the way my eye crinkled or how my stomach looked.
In reality, the crinkle next to my eye was there because I was happy. I used to resent myself for being happy because it altered the unattainable perception I tried to manufacture for myself. I was on a never-ending hunt for my most vulnerable prey: myself. I had always focused on what I lacked. How I wasn’t as smart as others, not as pretty, nor funny. I would drown myself in comparisons, feeling isolated and alone. An engulfing feeling of never being adequate enough has consumed my every waking thought. I had to teach myself that it does not matter if you are the smartest, prettiest or funniest person in the room as long as you like yourself.
To win the war with yourself, you have to abandon society’s warped perception of “perfect beauty.” At a young age, plastic surgery was marketed to me with false promises that one cosmetic procedure would magically fix everything you hated about yourself. I foolishly believed that once I got a procedure or two, all of my self-loathing would disappear. Hating yourself and the way you look is like being stuck in a labyrinth’s maze. The only way out is through. You have to take a journey of self-acceptance and try to unlearn and mute the voices shouting, “You are not good enough.”
To win the war with yourself, you have to reflect and become content with yourself. One of the hardest things to do is accepting ourselves. It is something I still struggle with. I often gravitate towards old, destructive habits, falling victim to the never-ending wormhole that engulfs my self-confidence and respect. I try to be more conscious, more mindful of how I talk to myself. I spend a lot of time with myself, and it isn’t fair to spend all of that time in self-loathing or self-pity.
The war with yourself is a demented war, a battle some do not realize they even realize they are fighting. I do not believe at my age of seventeen, that I have truly become victorious over the insecurities and self loathing perpetuated onto me since birth. I do think in turn, I have begun to like myself more, by accepting all aspects that make up the woman I am today. Since the age of five I feel as if I have entered the battlefield of my mind, now I feel as if the storm can subside in due time.
