I used to see myself as a misandrist. I hated men. They just seemed so annoying and disgusting to me. Why? A lot of reasons, but majorly because a bunch of them are responsible for the major and most downplayed problems I had and low-key still struggle with; insecurity and dysmorphia.
As a kid, I was literally the most comfortable and confident person ever. You could even refer to me as the ‘life of the party’—a way that I now utterly despise being described as—because I was always so hyped, cheeky and full of mischief and laughter.
I never thought anything was wrong with me. I never thought I was flawed in anyway. I never thought I was inferior to anyone. Never.
Everything changed in JS2 (8th grade). I had been standing next to the window, laughing with a friend about something random during recess and the next thing I heard was, “she is so flat, she really looks like this drawing board”.
It was one of those moments when you don’t hear something and after two seconds, you realize that you actually heard it. Loud and clear. It kept ringing in my brain, as I turned to look at the drawing board in the hands of the boy that had made the statement and then at the classmates who were equally laughing.
Truthfully, there were two things going on in my head at the time. One, the boy who was being mean to me was—let’s face it—not very physically convincing, and I could point that out. I could have said he looked like freshly harvested yam and probably would have had people laugh at him too, but I was too stunned to speak, because never in my life had I ever thought that someone could be compared to a drawing board, let alone me. I was slim, but taking another glance at the drawing board, I knew I didn’t look like that. If anything, I looked like a Barbie. But then again, nobody would be laughing if I truly looked like a Barbie. Everyone loved Barbie.
I took my eyes away from the drawing board and it subconsciously made its way towards all the girls in the classroom, letting me notice what I had never really taken note of. Even though most of us were barely 14, they had started growing breasts. Some big, some smaller; but me, none. I also realized that I was the only slim one, so maybe I looked like the drawing board.
I felt bad that I was likened to a board. I felt bad that guys were laughing at me. I felt bad that the girls were laughing too, but I felt worse that I had thought I looked like a Barbie. Delulu.
Getting home that day, I rushed to a mirror. Maybe I’d be able to see the similarities between me and the drawing board, and I did. This was funny because I wondered how I’d never seen it before. It felt like the blindfold had finally been taken off my eyes and I was now exposed to the real world. I even went to watch Barbie that night, but there wasn’t much of a difference between me and her. Barbie looked like a drawing board to me too, but I guess the difference was that she was BARBIE and she had Ken. Ken probably loved drawing boards. I looked forward to finding a Ken ever since.
Another thing I did that night was to get my mom’s sewing kit and adjust my school uniform skirt to be tighter on me. Perhaps it’ll make me look different from the drawing board, but apparently it didn’t, because when I walked into class the next day with my drawing board in my left hand, everyone started laughing as the mean kid yelled, “twinsss!” Believe me when I say it was more embarrassing than the first day. I had to run to the bathroom to loosen the adjustment.
I finally transferred to a different school (boarding, this time) after JS3 (9th grade). It felt like a relief for me, because I had to spend the last two years walking on eggshells and being timid, while struggling with my inferiority complex.
I was thankful it seemed like a fresh start for me. I didn’t know anyone at this new school, nobody knew me, my mom got me padded bras (even though I had still not developed breasts that deserved a bra) and most importantly, this new school’s uniform had a flare shirt instead. It was a relief that my bum wouldn’t be paid attention to, because the skirt was not tight or straight.
Everyone seemed nice and I saw a couple of slim girls like me, but I was still low-key anxious. You don’t expect my self confidence to magically come back, do you?
Being the new girl at this school was a roller coaster. The students in the school were very few, so it was easy for the news to spread that there was a new girl. Some people were nice, some people were snobby, some people just kept on trying to access you, which made me feel weird. I had chosen to go into this school with a high guard, but somehow, I started buying the niceness and attention I was getting from people and lost the guard completely, which was the beginning of my fuck up. I completely loose-guarded.
Somehow, I became a pushover. I was in a desperate quest to boost my confidence, earn friends and whatnot, that I started people-pleasing, lying to look cool and letting people treat me anyhow. It became evident to me at some point that I was making a fool of myself but it was already too late to correct the impression. The fact that they could ride on me was already registered in their heads, that I felt like whatever I tried to do to stop it would not be taken seriously.
I decided to carry on with the people pleasing and validation seeking, but things got worse cause I became hated and bullied. My classmates—girls and boys, seniors, everyone. I think I was even a joke to the juniors.
I can never forget all the times my class boys made me cry by making reference to how ugly I looked or how weirdly I walked or how “flat” I looked. On one occasion, my teacher even told one of the boys that in the future, I might be hot and he’d like me after years of bullying me in school. He’d said “God forbid”, and I did too. But his own hurt me more. Did he think that there was no possible way that I could ever be good enough?
~>•
The class girls weren’t left out in the bullying. I remember being called a ruler by one of them. So basically, at that point in my life, I had been called a drawing board and a ruler. Isn’t that lovely?
I felt so suppressed in that school, that I loved it when I was home. At least nobody thought I was a ruler or a drawing board there. Except my mirror.
The mental stress was so much that I had to write a letter to the senior boys (11/12th graders) to please forgive me for whatever I had done wrong.
They started being nice to me for a while, until I had to cut off all hair to a point where I was almost bald, because it was growing unevenly and I wanted it to grow well.
The taunting came back in double folds. I was called every bad thing you could think of, including an idol.
The worst experience was the day I and a couple of girls went to fetch water from a tap near the school compound and those senior boys were all sat nearby, talking and laughing out loud. Unfortunately for me, while heading back with my bucket of water, I fell right in front of them in a dabbing position and they all started laughing and making ambulance noises. It was so humiliating because even the girls laughed. I had always wondered why girls liked to laugh when boys are making fun of their fellow girls, but you’d never see a guy laugh when a girl is making fun of a fellow guy. I felt so bad, but still kept my cool and counted down to the day I was going to graduate.
Life in the school became better in SS3 (12th grade). My walls had started coming up, I was standing up for myself a lot more, my major bullies (the senior boys) had graduated and I had started speaking to a few of my classmates cordially. It felt like I was starting my rebranding process. I was going to launch it the moment I graduated.