In Touch (A Memoir)

Drawing Board

I used to see myself as a misandrist. I hated men. They just seemed so annoying and disgusting to me. Why? A lot of reasons, but majorly because a bunch of them are responsible for the major and most downplayed problems I had and low-key still struggle with; insecurity and dysmorphia.
As a kid, I was literally the most comfortable and confident person ever. You could even refer to me as the life of the party because I was always so hyped, cheeky and full of mischief and laughter.
I never thought anything was wrong with me. I never thought I was flawed in anyway. I never thought I was inferior to anyone. Never.
Sadly, everything changed in JS2 (8th grade). I had been standing next to the window, laughing with a friend about something random during recess and the next thing I heard was, "she is so flat, she really looks like this drawing board".

It was one of those moments when you don't hear something and after two seconds, you realize that you actually heard it. Loud and clear. It kept ringing in my brain, as I turned to look at the drawing board in the hands of the boy that had made the statement and then at the classmates who were equally laughing.
Truthfully, there were two things going on in my head at the time. One, the boy who was being mean to me was—let's face it—not very physically convincing, and I could point that out. I could have said he looked like freshly harvested yam and probably would have had people laugh at him too, but I was too stunned to speak, because never in my life had I ever thought that someone could be compared to a drawing board, let alone me. I was slim, but taking another glance at the drawing board, I knew I didn't look like that. If anything, I looked like a Barbie. But then again, nobody would be laughing if I truly looked like a Barbie. Everyone loved Barbie.

I took my eyes away from the drawing board and it subconsciously made its way towards all the girls in the classroom, letting me notice what I had never really taken note of. Even though most of us were barely 14, they had started growing breasts. Some big, some smaller; but me, none. I also realized that I was the only slim one, so maybe I looked like the drawing board.
I felt bad that I was likened to a board. I felt bad that guys were laughing at me. I felt bad that the girls were laughing too, but I felt worse that I had thought I looked like a Barbie. Delulu.

Getting home that day, I rushed to a mirror. Maybe I'd be able to see the similarities between me and the drawing board, and I did. This was funny because I wondered how I'd never seen it before. It felt like a scale had finally fallen out of my eyes and I was now exposed to the real world. I even went to watch Barbie that night, but there wasn't much of a difference between me and her. Barbie looked like a drawing board to me too, but I guess the difference was that she was BARBIE and she had Ken. Ken probably loved drawing boards. I looked forward to finding a Ken ever since.

Another thing I did that night was to get my mom's sewing kit and adjust my school uniform skirt to be tighter on me. Perhaps it'll make me look different from the drawing board, but apparently it didn't, because when I walked into class the next day with my drawing board in my left hand, everyone started laughing as the mean kid yelled, "twinsss!" Believe me when I say it was more embarrassing than the first day. I had to run to the bathroom to loosen the adjustment.