First Draft

Beauty Comes From Within

Women have certain expectations placed on them by society. Do we have the right clothes on, does our hairstyle display the new trend, and do we succumb to the right body type? Women and men are constantly being examined by not only others but by the inferences on their own selves. As a woman in society, I have learned that the impact of my surroundings have contributed to the facets of my own identity. With all these influences of beautiful models and cosmetics to enhance the beauty, only encouraged further to completing my beautification. I know now that not only can the media impact the pressures of being a woman, but also can drive someone to try to achieve the inevitable of the perfect image. There is no perfect gender! You can be skinny, tall, short, big boned, white, black it doesn’t matter because we all go through many facets in finding our true identities. The true beauty comes within and believing in your own beauty. Once I learned to believe I was beautiful on the inside was when I realized I was beautiful on the out.

Women in the media

We watch the stars on television and read all these tips in magazines on how to be beautiful. What we don’t realize is that our younger generations are feeding in to the misinformation. Women struggle the most with body image. Some women don’t feel good about themselves or even comfortable in their own skin. I didn’t feel confortable in my own skin and always felt I was being judged. Why did I think the only way to be accepted was to look like the perfect women? Women are constantly being examined and stereotyped because of what we look like. I definitely never realized how impactful the media was on me to the point where I believed the only way for me to accomplish beauty was to engage in the transformation.

How I felt in the beginning

Being a girl never affected me until the start of puberty. I was a late bloomer and my sister, who is 
two years younger, began developing much faster than I. At the time, I began to think that I wasn’t “normal” and probably wouldn’t be the ideal beautiful girl that I observed from so many others. I am fortunate though, I wasn’t born with physical ailments or facial distortions, than why do I feel so distorted? Why did I think that others were looking at my blemishes and scars rather than my inner beauty? The reasoning was behind the media and influences of my peers. Us women find power in beauty and the only way to achieve that is if we abide by the standards. I found my true identity within the darkness of feeling ugly, but found myself in believing in my inner beauty.

As an adolescent teenage girl, trying to achieve perfection with my skin was nearly impossible. I was so angry that I had these rough spots on my face because it wasn’t considered beautiful, not one bit. I felt that I could just pick them away and the problem would go away. This obsessiveness drove me into the most depressing time of my life. I thought this small picking problem would take away the blemishes but it only created a nasty cycle that made me dislike my body and the image it portrayed. I felt disgusted in myself and thought that my beauty was unachievable because of this nasty urge to pick away at nothing. I created more problems for myself and didn’t know how to explain my issue with others. No one could relate and no one understood. How could I tell my friends I couldn’t stop picking? They would reciprocate with, “just stop picking”, but I couldn’t explain or show how I felt. I experienced the wrath of this compulsiveness with the added stressors of coming to college. The stressors that I experienced here were ones I never thought would affect me as bad as they did. It was very disappointing to me when I thought my face was always being examined. I would pick at things on my face that weren’t even there. I again, created my own problems. Whenever I got stressed instead of binge eating or even excessively drinking like some, I chose to pick at my skin. I had to realize that I was not perfect and could never achieve it! How could someone who came from a great family have such a problematic setback? This issue changed the way I thought of myself, my worth, and even my beauty. Our society portrays femininity as being perfect and beautiful at all times. Being so engulfed in the idea of perfection I weakened my personality into an introvert. I never could seem to be myself or even develop an identity that I could call my own.

 I didn’t think I was worthy enough or special enough to consider myself beautiful because of the obsessiveness to pick away at the blemishes on my skin. The anticipation of college was apprehensive enough and making sure I fit in was essential. Being able to meet new people and to experience life, as an independent woman, was building my excitement. I never thought that trying to achieve perfection was making me an obsessive individual. I was enjoying the life of a college student but the pressure of keeping fit and beautiful, while also maintaining my studies, was a struggle that changed who I was. Keeping “beautiful” to me meant making sure my skin was smooth and presentable. I became so obsessed with trying to achieve the beauty society worshipped, that it stirred away from the true beauty I had inside. I was so engulfed in the idea that the only way to fit in as a “beautiful women” was to have the flawless skin. I wanted to be able to look beautiful and feel it at the same time. What I didn’t understand at the beginning of this journey was that I couldn’t achieve feeling beautiful unless I believed it myself. The campaigns that came about by Dove really brought the idea of true beauty into perspective. From the Dove Self-esteem Project, Dr. Jennifer Hartstein mentions that a girl can develop symptoms of depression and anxiety if they do not feel comfortable in their own skin. As much as this seems obvious many women don’t think these issues can come about from feeling uncomfortable in their own body. This issue became so clear to me when I started experiencing these symptoms in the beginning of my first year of college. 

Insight

  
Going through a hard time in college helped me understand the real me. I was so focused on being perfectly presentable and represent what men and women expected out of a typical woman. I was always comparing myself to others instead of proving to myself that I was a beautiful individual. I was naive and young during high school and thought I knew my identity. My identity was trying to please others instead of pleasing myself. I know that perfection cannot be accomplished but it can be achieved in your own eyes. Living with this minor pain pushed me to bury it more and more because of how upset I was that something so small could make me so unhappy.

One thing that really angered me was the fact that I couldn’t change whom I was; I could only change the behavior. I couldn’t get over the fact that my skin was still breaking out at the age of nineteen years old. How was I suppose to think that I was a real women if I was still going through stages of what felt like puberty! This aggravated me beyond belief. I thought maybe I wasn’t a normal woman or a developed woman at that. I always looked at other women comparing myself and wishing that I could look like them. What always caught my attention were the young actresses and singers who looked absolutely flawless. I wished to have perfect skin like them, so I foolishly fed into their cosmetics and acne products in hopes that the blemishes would magically vanish. I felt like my face was distorted from the scars and that people could not see through the ugliness. I was ashamed and really didn’t think I could go out and enjoy my life because of my image.

I was mesmerized by the purity of the women in the media. I never knew that the women were airbrushed to perfection and most of them were just like me. I needed to work for my beauty and it just didn’t occur to me that the beauty was easy to achieve for them. I just needed to believe in my beauty and accept who I was. I examined beauty in our women culture as being the ideal women. I was thriving for that perfect body and beautiful hair. The way I wanted others to see me was something that was not tangible. I never thought that other women felt the same way about their own body image the way I did. The self-esteem campaign that was launched by Dove set out to help women believe in their true beauty. I was really touched by this short clip because it opened my eyes to the possibility that I wasn’t the only one with beauty issues. This honestly began my quest to start believing in my inner beauty.

Perfection

I started obsessing over perfection, which led me into a nasty habit. I began to pick at the blemishes on my face because I believed it would magically go away if I made it flat. That habit did not help the problem, which put me into a deep depression. I could not become the ideal women in my eyes if I had nasty red marks all over my face. This obsessiveness did not help me socially. I thought that people would only be staring at my flaws rather than the beauty behind it. I was always in competition with myself, comparing my face to others and wishing I could look like my feminine peers. This was taking over my life, and by attending college it caused a greater advancement in my need to be perfect and beautiful. I never could understand how these actors and models kept such pretty complexions. Now I know as an educated woman, nothing is perfect. I needed to understand that the only way I could achieve perfection was to believe in myself that I was good enough and beautiful. 

We all struggle from something whether it is with our race, ethnicity, gender, or body image. I learned from others that the things I take for granted could be a much bigger struggle for another person. The way others perceive us can be impacted from societal standards and can be very difficult for some but life threatening for others. I was embarrassed of my self-perception of my body image. The Perfection concept continuously played through my head until I know longer felt I had to be perfect.

In the end

            Dealing with this aspect of my life has taught me to represent the true beauty I have inside. I would think that my problem was no big deal or even worth being unhappy about. I thought I could look in the mirror one day and say, “I feel beautiful today” or “You look beautiful”. This time of my life helped me develop this sense of confidence and strength. I found my identity through learning to accept who I am. Liking the skin I was born with brings so many more feelings of comfort than ever before. I feel like I can be and feel beautiful when ever I want. I can look in the mirror, I can higher my self-esteem, and I can make myself happy. I turned to the higher powers of my family and friends. I looked for help and needed to discover myself before I could know who I was as a woman. I am a strong, individual woman that can handle insecurities and push through hard times. This created a facet that continues to grow with every new challenge that comes my way. I am more sympathetic now, I am more aware of others struggles, I take the time to listen and help the ones who have or are going through a tough time. Finding out who you are can be the hardest part of a teenagers life, but this can be the hardest part for any women at any age. Self -realization can be one of the most liberating emotion a woman can come across. When you feel beautiful you are beautiful, inside and out.