The A Side ✔

5- Hating My Reflection

There is a lot of peer pressure and sadly, I fell victim to a ton of it in my early teens. I noticed something was up with my appearance as my closet friends and others around my age group at school wore thick, heavy mascara and eyeliner to define and shape their eyes. I wasn't into make-up like that, I hide behind the pages of my books like I always do. But one morning at age fourteen, I broke down. Physically.

In my bedroom, there's this long, wide mirror on the wall which used to belong to my mum and its the first thing I look at when I get out of bed every morning and the last thing I look at every night before crawling under the bedclothes. But, it was seven in the morning on a school day, and I just had that moment when I knew something was wrong with my appearance. I came to that conclusion after suffering from bullying for my appearance for a number of years both in Primary School and Secondary School. My face was plastered with awful acne and having braces as well shielded the full sight of my teeth as the wonkiness in them was starting to fade away. By this point, I was trying to figure out what I could possibly do to myself that would make the hate comments stop.

I grabbed my beauty bag off of the side of my desk and turned to... My foundation. Grabbing a make-up brush, I started to plaster lots of it on my face also being aware that I was due to set out to school at any moment. Then, my mascara came into vision and without thinking straight, I applied that to my lashes too. Blinking at myself in the mirror after that crazy, quick makeover, I was surprised to see how much older I looked. But was this a risk that I was willing to take?

Yes, it was. I did this every morning for a year before school, applying a ton of heavy make-up. It was a wonder that no teacher complained about it or asked me to take off my make-up in front of them. My Secondary School was quite strict about jewellery and make-up. But I knew that some senior members of staff knew about the bullying that was going on, so they left me alone to my own devices.

In Year 11, I was getting fed up with the make-up. GCSE season makes everyone stressed out but when I sit any exam, I physically sweat meaning that the chance of my foundation rolling down my cheeks and splashing onto my school blazer was extremely likely. I had to ask myself: What was more important? Shielding the acne with make-up or getting grades to get to College? My future was way more important than a make-up label.

I used to dread going shopping with people or even on my own as everytime I would venture out onto a clothes shopping trip, I would always bump into a group of girls around my age group all dressed too cool for school in designer clothes and I stuck to tracksuits, my comfortable weakness. I've also heard people, teens and adults alike spotting me browsing clothes on shelves and racks and whispering to each other, thinking that i'm out of earshot really nasty things about my appearance and height. I'm small for my age I have to admit. I'm 5 foot 3 which is right at the top of the petite scale. In my country, 5 foot 3 is the average height for a twelve year old. Let's get something straight here: I'm not twelve.

I like to scare people at the supermarket with my height. A lot of customers at the local supermarket think because of my height, I wouldn't be able to grab something off of the top shelf. Wrong. When I was fifteen, I scared an old lady out of my wits because she witnessed me with my petite height grab a packet of noodles for my parents off the top shelf and her mouth was shaped like the letter O. I giggled about it at home afterwards.

But being small does have it's perks. I can still wear kids clothes sometimes. I'm not talking about baby clothes, I mean like really funky kids t-shirts. As a petite and with a thin build, I can get away with wearing a vest, leggings and trainers to the shops. But being one of the smallest in Year 11, I knew that I stood out amongst the crowds of the taller students. A few of my friends in the year group were over 6 feet tall and standing between those friends make me feel like a small fish in a big pond.

People at school used to be nasty to me about... My chest area. As a slow developer, people assumed that I was still a nine year old kid and made comments about how I was born wrong and other things on those lines that I simply can't mention since their words still stick in my mind to this day. Having guys also at school and out and about personally say to your face that you will never be dating material for someone because of your height and looks really upset me. My favourite fairy-tale is Cinderella and I was just a teen looking for her Prince Charming. A guy who respected my appearance and my height as well as my personality without being mean or brash about it was my dream as all I ever had from guys was saying to me how ugly I looked.

Today, I am still very wary whenever I try on new clothes when I am out on shopping trips or just general browsing in the aisles. I stick to cheap, plain clothes since I am not a type of person into expensive items of clothing. Generally, I wear my Primark leather jacket, a band t-shirt and leggings. And that's it. I hate overdoing things and fashion is something personally I don't want to overdo. I rarely use changing rooms in stores anymore because of the big mirrors and most of the time, I still have days when I wake up and look into the mirror and question my appearance as a person. It's unhealthy since I used to compare myself to people too.

There's a girl I used to know from my old school. She's really nice and all but she models clothes, and she's younger than me. When I told my friend that trying modelling might make me feel confident as a person, she just scoffed at me and told me to stop talking crap. I've never mentioned the modelling to any of my friends since then.

But my appearance has recently hit another setback and this time, it's one of the hardest things that I've ever had to deal with as a person.