Analyzing Insecurities that Plague Black Girls
Looking into the mirror is getting easier.
Though I can’t say I don’t still nitpick, it used to be worse for me.
From the time I became able to distinguish the difference between the childlike innocence of spotting what made me different from other kids, and the desire to transform into someone else, I’ve always suffocated in my insecurities.
I spot what feels like millions of flaws, but I can’t seem to locate the root.
“I’d never do it,” I often tell myself, but at times, the melancholic beauty of a faded existence feels easier to manage than that of living life through the lens of inadequacy.
“She has pretty hair,” someone said to another who had asked if I could be deemed attractive.
During an argument with someone else, I was ugly.
While I was only a child simply interacting with other children, my hair became my shield when I overheard the negative whispers about myself.
If it wasn’t styled straight or tightly curled, I felt disgusting.
Eventually, I tried to claim my power back through random blights with scissors, but it was never enough, and I always felt less feminine having short hair.
How people viewed me turned into why I began loathing the girl I saw in the mirror.
Her smile was too crooked, her hair too coarse, her skin not light in the right places, her ethnicity not foreign enough, and the scars she created on her body weren’t fading.
She found comfort engaging in malapropos conversations with the opposite sex because as long as they found arousal in her words, she could convince herself she was worthy of love – that they’d give it to her.
“Pick me.”
Such tantalizing words from someone so desperate to find intimacy in what she’s too young to understand.
“Please, I’ll do anything.”
Her reputation was stained before she even reached high school, but she somehow remained untouched.
Many times over the years, I felt as if I was the only one with my problems.
I’ve even tried to minimize voicing or expressing my dissatisfaction with the circumstances presented, out of fear life’s attributes would worsen.
Under the guise of ensuring I would refrain from carnal desires until I became the recipient of a wedding ring, learning about the importance of self-perseverance and love coming from within was seemingly lost in translation.
As the self-awareness of my poor decision-making grew, I’ve come to understand that I have the responsibility of shaping my own will – the will to be more than what I have limited myself to be.
I, like many Black girls all over the world, am faced with the reality that we face chaos when we try to change or to grow because how people perceive us to be during initial encounters is what will remain…in their feelings.
We aren’t allotted the privilege of making mistakes without our names becoming synonymous with negative riddles.
The same words are written on bathroom walls or bleachers to disrespect us follow and impact us even as our ages blossom.
What I wish I could share with Black girls all over the world is that we must move meticulously and redefine the way the world has placed us into a box of being enchantresses.
We are more than the sizes of waists and nether regions, of our lips and hands, or the poor categorizations we’re supposed to digest being placed in.
A message from a former ‘pick me,’ challenge the hatred you’ve forced upon yourself and understand your name and disposition encompass effervescence, brilliance, femininity, and virtue.
Your skin, hair, nails, smile, weight, and body are the personification of all things immaculate.
Ascend above personal limitations and know you’ll touch heaven’s palace.
Realize that no one can take away what you’ve instilled in yourself.
I love you.