The All Our Crowns Project

Izzy's Story

This is the story of Izzy, ErigizzyE13. Thank you for sharing <3 

Once upon a time, there was a princess who lived in a castle, loved and adored by all. She was better than any Disney princess: more beautiful than Aurora, more adventurous than Ariel, more industrious than Tiana, smarter than Belle, braver than Merida, kinder than Cinderella and so the list goes on.

And that princess was not me. No, it was my older sister. As the only other girl in the family, my sister and I were endlessly compared and I inevitably always fell short. My sister was beautiful while I was not. I was FAT, as my brothers were always happy to remind me. I was UGLY, as my mother always complained. I was UNFASHIONABLE, as my father always noted.

"You're really tall, you can be a model!" My kind sister once told me in an attempt to boost my confidence.

"You need more than just height to become a model." My mother added.

"You're looking more and more like me as you grow older." My sister lied another time.

"At least now she'll be pretty." My own mother replied.

The comparison didn't stop at home. It followed me to school as well. I did well in school but my teachers, clinging to memories of my intelligent sister, would always scold me and tell me to be more like my sister in front of the entire class. My classmates would make fun of me and ask me which one of us was adopted. Every year I would witness as she received academic awards at the end-of-school ceremonies and the entire school would erupt in applause. As if life wasn't unfair enough, she was also the most popular girl in school and was dating the most popular boy. The princess had found her prince and they were the couple everyone looked up to. She had already found her happily ever after.

Eventually she graduated and went abroad (on a scholarship, obviously) just as I entered high school. I thought I would finally be free of all the comparison but no. My new classmates still remembered her and the comparison continued for four more years. I was competing against the memory of my sister, and the memory was winning!

The worst part was that it was so damn hard to hate my sister. Sometimes, when I was feeling down and insecure, all I wanted to do was lash out and blame her. But she was so loveable that I couldn't even do that. I'd be torn between hating her and feeling guilty and ashamed for having such feelings.

The insecurities crashed me and made me into an introvert. My dad once accused me of being a sociopath. My nickname in high school was emo. I didn't talk to anyone and I kept to myself, even at home, choosing to escape reality by immersing myself in books. I spent eighteen years of my life like that.

And then came college. The first weeks were awkward. I was friendless and navigating my way around was so hard. But my roommate, who was my opposite (an extrovert), made it her mission to have me open up. At first I found her really annoying and I just wanted to be left alone. Eventually I opened up. I started talking to more people and making more friends, which was good. I also experimented, as people should do in college but took it a step further. I started going to parties and drinking. I started looking at boys as boys and went on dates. I did everything I hadn't done in high school, including things I'm not proud of. I did everything I thought girls my age were supposed to do. I unconsciously tried so hard to be like my sister. I started caring about the way I looked. I started putting on make-up and keeping up with fashion. I hanged out with the 'cool kids' and did things my subconscious knew were wrong. I dated the wrong type of guys just because my friends thought they were cool. I was even in a harmful long-term relationship with my 'prince' who created and took advantage of doubts and insecurities within me. And throughout it all, I lost me.

Thankfully, I eventually figured it out. I had managed to become a mini version of my sister, a person my parents and people around me approved of. I had finally become the 'princess loved and adored by all'. But I was miserable.

I didn't have an epiphany. It took me a long time to achieve self-acceptance. I stopped doing things to get people's approval and started doing thing that I wanted to do. That was the key all along. The first step was to shift what I was studying from the department my parents had chosen for me to the one I wanted. My grades soared and I graduated first in my class. Because of such decision, I was able to meet like-minded people and I made friends who liked me for me. Once I accepted and started loving myself, I also found a person (my fiancé) who loves me for me, in all my glorious nerdiness.

And my sister? She recently had a quarter life crises and decided to drop out of school. Apparently, all those years she had been under so much pressure to please everybody that she had been following not what she wanted but the things people, especially my parents, expected of her. My beautiful princess of a sister had been deeply unhappy with herself. People had managed to mould her into something she was not. I discovered that she had insecurities as well. Thankfully, she came to a realization as well. She is now fiercely pursuing her dreams while not giving a damn what people think and I fully support her. Years of comparison had driven us apart but now the two of us are finally as close as can be. And my parents? Well, they still haven't' learned and still compare us but my sister and I have decided not to give up on them just yet. After all, they are our parents, imperfect as they may be.

This was not the story of a princess. It was the story of the princess' not-so-royal sister. But hey, royals as well as non-royals have problems with self-acceptance. We just have to close that gap and support each other. After all we're all girls and we all have crowns.