a reflection on the girl who has become Poppy Matters
i haven't updated in any meaningful way for such a long time.
perhaps most of mt readers, if there are any who remain, would not think of me as being capable of serious contemplation of any one issue. I assure you that in this assumption they are wrong. i am a woman of deep though and contemplation, i think i just spend most of my time hiding from myself. i am afraid of what i might see if i sweapt away the mask.
i did it once. i pushed away the happy poppy who is what ever is required for the occasion. it was as if those clothes no longer fitted the girl i was fast becoming. i had always been a socially "different" person. i had oly older friends untill year five, when at the suggestion and decision of my oldest friend, the girl i grew up with, who was my world, we separated. a shudder went through my whole being. i was angry and hurt. for several years we went from being everything to each other to not even aknowledgeing each others presence in social settings. i was destraught. i had experienced my second loss. i knew, or thought i knew, that it was because i was not good enough. not as important and joyous in her life as she was to me. i began to doubt myself. it was just subtely in those first few years. in recent years she apologised to me. we were both so young then. she had neer considered how it must hav affected me to lose her back then. and i had never though of what it must have been like for her to be looked down apn by all the older girls who thought she was weird for playing with me. although i bare her no anger at this turn in out lives (we were only children!) i cryed the night she apologised. there is no accounting for emotion. even now it brings a sharp feeling of pain deep in my belly. i don't know that it will ever leave. despite the fact we are strong friends again now, i love and adore her as i always did, i can not think back to those years without hurt.
well, i soon eonough made friends with another girl who was in my class. she has become one of my closest friends. i hold her close to my heart and cherish her existance in my life. which i near lost at the beginning of last year.but back then all the things started to change in my world. all the girls suddenly seemed to get fashionble. i am not fashionable. all the girls were interested in being beautiful. i am not beautiful. all the girls were finding boyfriends. to thisd day i have never had a boyfriend. i was wrong. at twelve i realised i was not what society expected of a female. i was in turmoil again. my two female cousins, Ella and Sophie, who are both models these days, were everything i wasn't and still am not. they didn't get incensed at pollitical issues and go to demonstarations with their parents for weeks on end. they were very thin.i have always been pudgy. they had boyfriends. do i need tyo repeat my embarrsment? they soon found the similarities in themselves and the differences in me. as most people seem to do, they attacked my difference. they taunted me. they called me fat. they told me i was stupid. they even threw things at me once. for some reason i kept on going basck for more. i wanted desperately to "fit in". i wanted so badly to be one of these perfect girls, but i could never figure out what it was i needed to be. i realised that i was wrong. my doubt grew deeper. but instead of it being projected onto my personality, it became my apperance that was obviously wrong. i have been deeply dissatisfied with my physical apperance for many years. since i was twelve and i realised it mattered. i shoved these thoughts away as i eventually moved away from these girls who despised my very inclusion in their lives. i had new friends at school. for the first time, even if only by teachers, i was being appreciated for my intelligence in class. in year nine i won the respect of even the imaginary popular girls by usin my wit and knowledge base to "knock doooooooown" as kassy said, a leader of their ranks when she, completely unproveked, called me gay. and i don't mean she thought i was sexually oriented towards females. suddenly i was moving up the social ladder. yet i was still without a group. i have never fit in, even to this day. i have not remained with the same group of friends continuously for more thasn two years. i left my friendship group in year ten after having been "put on trial" as to weather or not my best friend and i were good enough friends to another girl. i joined another group and together with tmy best friend and our new group we climed the social ladder at St Aloysious College. i had not realised it till late this year when a friend commented that when i cam eto them they were shoked to have me, who they had percieved as being "popular" and had vieved only through the glass ceiling, come and join them. it was revolutionary to my sense of self.
however, i move ahead. having been at my school fgor eleven years i was well known and respected by the majority of the staff there. even most of the younger students knew who i was. but i still never though of myself as being equal, or even liked by these girls. to shield myself i developed the attitude that i did not care what "they" thought. i even acted as though i didn't. i was nice to everyone around me to the point that i was walked all over by those girls who felt the need to do so. but they affected me little. i never let them get close. suddenly in year eleven i was a member, and i would go so far as to say the centre of a 'normal' group. i was joyous. as one of the girls said "they all fell in love with me". i introduced them to a new world. took them to "poppy's parties" from which i had developed a high standing reputation amongst the older yearlevels at school. we all chaged. for over a year all i could think about was me, we, society. i wanted to be the "right kind of girl" for this group. with the emphasis of this group laying on internal dramas and not the world at large i once again remembered my deep self doubt, even hatred. i wanted to be beautiful in a way i had never desired before. so shifted was the focus of this group (i joined them by supplind gossip and further reason to bitch about a girl i count as a friend now, long since i have released myself from those girls) that i began to again think about what i needed to "be" to fit in. however i knew then. i needed to be thin. so i set about becoming just that. i starved. i lost well over 10kg in just a few months. i was 50kg for several months. i didn't get my period, i threw up, i lost much of my hair, i stared in the mirror and hated. i cut myself off from the people i cared about,. i didn't want to go out, didn't want to see people incase they wante dme to eat. i cryed for no apparent reason, i slashed my body all over, i imagined my own suicide and death in great detail, and i didn't tell a soul. i was even angry at myself for being unhappy. i had no right as i told myself. i had food, was in no danger....... what was WRONG with me? in the end almost every shadow of the girl i had been was disintegrated. i had looked at myself, focused on myself so intently i had begun to destroy me, so much had i hated what i saw.
i lost all my friends. i was alone. my family were so afraid. no one wanted to be around me. i didn't want to be around me. suddenly when i was alone i realised what i had done. what being thin had cost me. everything. i had moved out from my mothers, we fought constantly. i have darkened the path of my little sister and myself. and although i am "better" now, as in i eat and have new friends, i have even gained the old vibrancy i had before i......got lost, i am not happy with my physical apperance. i am on a diet now. i want to lose 6kg in the next few months. i don't think iu will ever resally be the same girl i had been. i hurt so many people. i still find it hard to live in my own skin. although i know it is presant day social construction which means that i am many other girls and boys like me will never feel beautiful, i can not shake free of my own self-hatred.
i beg of humanity. release us all! there are so many more important things to be conserned with, i am privelaged ehough to be able to rise above the very real battle of pure survival many peolpe endure, but enen i cam close to suicide. what then is this world we live in when millions starve to sustain my lifestyle and i starve to be what i have been taugh i must be to "be happy".
i have never been so unhappy as i was when i was beautiful. i hope i never will be again
i am a powerful young wonam, i am embarking on an adult hood of change. the world will never again be as i have known it. either there will be global change in my lifetime or we sentance the future of all things to a bleak and forboding future. i am confident in my ability to take part in, even instigate the change that needs to take place, but i wonder what it will take for people to stop looking for happiness in things that can mold themselves into being and start to find it in things they already are and and what they can do to chage their future.
sorry, just a few things that have been on my mind recently....
perhaps most of mt readers, if there are any who remain, would not think of me as being capable of serious contemplation of any one issue. I assure you that in this assumption they are wrong. i am a woman of deep though and contemplation, i think i just spend most of my time hiding from myself. i am afraid of what i might see if i sweapt away the mask.
i did it once. i pushed away the happy poppy who is what ever is required for the occasion. it was as if those clothes no longer fitted the girl i was fast becoming. i had always been a socially "different" person. i had oly older friends untill year five, when at the suggestion and decision of my oldest friend, the girl i grew up with, who was my world, we separated. a shudder went through my whole being. i was angry and hurt. for several years we went from being everything to each other to not even aknowledgeing each others presence in social settings. i was destraught. i had experienced my second loss. i knew, or thought i knew, that it was because i was not good enough. not as important and joyous in her life as she was to me. i began to doubt myself. it was just subtely in those first few years. in recent years she apologised to me. we were both so young then. she had neer considered how it must hav affected me to lose her back then. and i had never though of what it must have been like for her to be looked down apn by all the older girls who thought she was weird for playing with me. although i bare her no anger at this turn in out lives (we were only children!) i cryed the night she apologised. there is no accounting for emotion. even now it brings a sharp feeling of pain deep in my belly. i don't know that it will ever leave. despite the fact we are strong friends again now, i love and adore her as i always did, i can not think back to those years without hurt.
well, i soon eonough made friends with another girl who was in my class. she has become one of my closest friends. i hold her close to my heart and cherish her existance in my life. which i near lost at the beginning of last year.but back then all the things started to change in my world. all the girls suddenly seemed to get fashionble. i am not fashionable. all the girls were interested in being beautiful. i am not beautiful. all the girls were finding boyfriends. to thisd day i have never had a boyfriend. i was wrong. at twelve i realised i was not what society expected of a female. i was in turmoil again. my two female cousins, Ella and Sophie, who are both models these days, were everything i wasn't and still am not. they didn't get incensed at pollitical issues and go to demonstarations with their parents for weeks on end. they were very thin.i have always been pudgy. they had boyfriends. do i need tyo repeat my embarrsment? they soon found the similarities in themselves and the differences in me. as most people seem to do, they attacked my difference. they taunted me. they called me fat. they told me i was stupid. they even threw things at me once. for some reason i kept on going basck for more. i wanted desperately to "fit in". i wanted so badly to be one of these perfect girls, but i could never figure out what it was i needed to be. i realised that i was wrong. my doubt grew deeper. but instead of it being projected onto my personality, it became my apperance that was obviously wrong. i have been deeply dissatisfied with my physical apperance for many years. since i was twelve and i realised it mattered. i shoved these thoughts away as i eventually moved away from these girls who despised my very inclusion in their lives. i had new friends at school. for the first time, even if only by teachers, i was being appreciated for my intelligence in class. in year nine i won the respect of even the imaginary popular girls by usin my wit and knowledge base to "knock doooooooown" as kassy said, a leader of their ranks when she, completely unproveked, called me gay. and i don't mean she thought i was sexually oriented towards females. suddenly i was moving up the social ladder. yet i was still without a group. i have never fit in, even to this day. i have not remained with the same group of friends continuously for more thasn two years. i left my friendship group in year ten after having been "put on trial" as to weather or not my best friend and i were good enough friends to another girl. i joined another group and together with tmy best friend and our new group we climed the social ladder at St Aloysious College. i had not realised it till late this year when a friend commented that when i cam eto them they were shoked to have me, who they had percieved as being "popular" and had vieved only through the glass ceiling, come and join them. it was revolutionary to my sense of self.
however, i move ahead. having been at my school fgor eleven years i was well known and respected by the majority of the staff there. even most of the younger students knew who i was. but i still never though of myself as being equal, or even liked by these girls. to shield myself i developed the attitude that i did not care what "they" thought. i even acted as though i didn't. i was nice to everyone around me to the point that i was walked all over by those girls who felt the need to do so. but they affected me little. i never let them get close. suddenly in year eleven i was a member, and i would go so far as to say the centre of a 'normal' group. i was joyous. as one of the girls said "they all fell in love with me". i introduced them to a new world. took them to "poppy's parties" from which i had developed a high standing reputation amongst the older yearlevels at school. we all chaged. for over a year all i could think about was me, we, society. i wanted to be the "right kind of girl" for this group. with the emphasis of this group laying on internal dramas and not the world at large i once again remembered my deep self doubt, even hatred. i wanted to be beautiful in a way i had never desired before. so shifted was the focus of this group (i joined them by supplind gossip and further reason to bitch about a girl i count as a friend now, long since i have released myself from those girls) that i began to again think about what i needed to "be" to fit in. however i knew then. i needed to be thin. so i set about becoming just that. i starved. i lost well over 10kg in just a few months. i was 50kg for several months. i didn't get my period, i threw up, i lost much of my hair, i stared in the mirror and hated. i cut myself off from the people i cared about,. i didn't want to go out, didn't want to see people incase they wante dme to eat. i cryed for no apparent reason, i slashed my body all over, i imagined my own suicide and death in great detail, and i didn't tell a soul. i was even angry at myself for being unhappy. i had no right as i told myself. i had food, was in no danger....... what was WRONG with me? in the end almost every shadow of the girl i had been was disintegrated. i had looked at myself, focused on myself so intently i had begun to destroy me, so much had i hated what i saw.
i lost all my friends. i was alone. my family were so afraid. no one wanted to be around me. i didn't want to be around me. suddenly when i was alone i realised what i had done. what being thin had cost me. everything. i had moved out from my mothers, we fought constantly. i have darkened the path of my little sister and myself. and although i am "better" now, as in i eat and have new friends, i have even gained the old vibrancy i had before i......got lost, i am not happy with my physical apperance. i am on a diet now. i want to lose 6kg in the next few months. i don't think iu will ever resally be the same girl i had been. i hurt so many people. i still find it hard to live in my own skin. although i know it is presant day social construction which means that i am many other girls and boys like me will never feel beautiful, i can not shake free of my own self-hatred.
i beg of humanity. release us all! there are so many more important things to be conserned with, i am privelaged ehough to be able to rise above the very real battle of pure survival many peolpe endure, but enen i cam close to suicide. what then is this world we live in when millions starve to sustain my lifestyle and i starve to be what i have been taugh i must be to "be happy".
i have never been so unhappy as i was when i was beautiful. i hope i never will be again
i am a powerful young wonam, i am embarking on an adult hood of change. the world will never again be as i have known it. either there will be global change in my lifetime or we sentance the future of all things to a bleak and forboding future. i am confident in my ability to take part in, even instigate the change that needs to take place, but i wonder what it will take for people to stop looking for happiness in things that can mold themselves into being and start to find it in things they already are and and what they can do to chage their future.
sorry, just a few things that have been on my mind recently....