Dysmorphia of True Potential

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Ever heard of picture perfect? Clicking posts, attracting attention, wanting to feel validated. Validated. Something so many teenage girls, like me, crave the feeling of.

Ever looked at yourself in the mirror and not seen your true potential? All you see is what others want of you. All you see is a dysmorphic image of who you seem to be, a monster to you, and a so-called ‘perfect girl’ to others.

My name is Joana. I am 14 years old, and I am living through the challenges that life throws my way. I have written this piece so you can truly grasp the importance of staying true to yourself without losing yourself in the process. This piece is about coming to terms with self-acceptance.

Does Life Have a Meaning?

“I will never be good enough… Why am I not as pretty as her?”, I say, watching my phone, admiring who he chose to spend the ‘rest of his life with’ instead of me because she was more ‘popular’.

Gaining popularity. Popularity. But at what cost? Social media has killed pure intentions, leaving a mask of jealousy towards others and a deep insecurity towards your appearance. Trapped in a body where you must be how others portray you, never being yourself. Emotions get bottled up so deep, causing loneliness and thinking people will never understand you for being you.

Stereotypes. Boys cannot cry because that makes them weak. Girls have to keep a full face of makeup, or else they look tired and sick.

We are in constant connection. Our generation is constantly online, yet somehow, loneliness always creeps in. We feel connected to others, creating relationships, meeting people from social media. But are these connections ever really there?

Constant rumours, people judging because they don’t really know the real you. The urge to show off, to feel like you are worth something. Did we ever have the freedom to be ourselves?

Then the feeling of having no one emerges... Somebody just walks away because you dared to show your true self. Was it worth it? Was it ever love? All of a sudden, nothing is as bright as it used to be. Loneliness is a room of black and white. An unbearable escape. Feeling everything so deeply, yet nothing at the same time. You have no motivation. Why live?

Once you reach that room, only changing your mindset can get you out.

Living Loneliness

Loneliness. It has driven me to do crazy things, leaving my mental health to deteriorate rapidly. There were times when I felt like the only way to distract myself from this constant aching was to take it out on myself. “You are stupid, you are ugly, you will never amount to anything”. I am the worst voice in my head, the darkest, the most dangerous of all.

Connections. Connections. I have many connections now, but the idea of who I am supposed to be ruins the way I present a perspective of myself.  Every relationship I ever had was never deep. I question every day if any of my friends ever enjoyed my presence. Hiding will forever be easier than putting myself out there just to get judged.

Then I lost everyone and everything. All in a couple of hours, just because my so-called ‘friends’ made comments about me over a simple photo. Mockery, backstabbing, absolute betrayal. Oh, how shallow it was, everything I had. It could go away so rapidly.

Loneliness. I feel worthless. Because no matter how many times I would put myself out there, no one seemed to care enough to give me a “like”.

This is how social media works. It’s the Insta, Snapchat and TikTok game. Either you hide your true self forever and get considered popular, or you choose to be yourself and get constantly judged by people who do not know any better.

It is hard to enjoy little things when you are stuck in something so big. And oh, is it scary... You are scared you will do something so bad that no one will be able to save you, just because you feel like you have no one.

You have no one to call. You have no one to open up to. Feeling this is a deep melancholy of sadness. Thinking, feeling, watching. Watching. Watching everyone live their lives while you struggle to get out of bed.

You are lonely. Fighting your inner demons, you may say. But you’ve grown so comfortable having them inside your head that fighting them feels like you will have no one in the end. Becoming too comfortable with these mind-eating demons that maybe, if you keep them a little longer, you will learn how to make friends with the darkness.

Never has a day gone by when I didn’t feel like a walking ogre. Destroying everything I touched, leaving remains of happiness, until it turned to putrid ashes. I believe I am everyone I have ever loved, making me an incredibly difficult person to comprehend.

Finding a life worth living. A term used by my therapist. I always felt like therapy never worked; however, if you do not want to change, then no one can save you from the hole you are digging. Deeper and deeper, entering a pit of loneliness and despair, until you look up and see how far from the sky you’ve dug. How do I get back up? Too much work, might as well continue digging, maybe there is a way out using less effort.

After spending countless days drowning in sorrow, I got up. I started slowly shovelling dirt back into the hole I had created, not to bury myself alive, as I thought, but to reach the sky.

I still constantly reminisce about the days when I was happy and such a sweet, innocent soul. But life goes on, and getting up is the hardest part of growth. Trust me, I would have buried myself there, letting the worms feel my empty heartbeat and taste everyone I have ever let in, in hopes of being finally understood. But I did not.

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Life Worth Living

I never thought I would make it past 12. Yet here I am, still pushing and trying my hardest to become the best possible version of myself. There is always a way out. Even if you lose yourself in the process.

Finding myself again will forever be worth everything I have done to get to where I am today.

Because what is a life worth living without the constant mistakes and lessons you learn along the way? Everyone has their struggles, making them the people they are. Minds are a complicated thing to depict. This is a good thing, otherwise, who are you without everything you’ve been through?

We are playing the game; we experience loneliness like no generation before. And we get blamed for it by the same people who invented social media and put a mobile phone in our hands at 7 years of age. But we are stronger than that.

I am Joana, a 14-year-old girl who has struggled to get where she is today. That is the joy of living. And there is so much more to life than staring at a phone the whole day.