So I wrote what I think was a really ugly and overly honest piece on my own body dysmorphia. I had to present it to the class and really freaked out. I got back my copies today; all but four were absolutely blank.
On one of them, someone had underlined, “Magic cards, empty cans of Tecate” and wrote “hell yeah” over it, then later underlined “pickled jalepenos” and also wrote “hell yeah” over that.
On another, someone wrote a recommendation for a quotation I could use from an essay we read for class.
The third had a few underlined words, but I couldn’t make sense of the underlined parts; they were placed without commentary. I think it’s the kid who always got on other people’s asses about repetition (they underlined “would” three times in the first paragraph, which, come on, verb tense).
The fourth, though. ”First: You are beautiful. Second: This is an honest piece. Don’t lose that, use it. I’d hate to see this end with a bow wrapped around some trite platitudes about loving yourself. Use the dysmorphia as an anchor for growth and scale.”
I don’t know who wrote it but whoever did: Thank you. Because it’s scary, a lot of times, to show other people just how much I hate myself. I fear that they will be repelled by my self-hatred, as they sometimes are. Few people can wrap their minds around it, and a lot of people think it’s something I can just brush off and “get over” but you know, those are the people who either don’t know or choose to ignore that I’ve hated myself since I was 7. Thank you for not minimizing this, and thank you for encouraging me to continue writing in honesty.
