Growing up I wasn't the biggest fan of how I looked. I had glasses, braces, bad hair and transitioned from bone-thin to obese practically overnight when my eating disorder flipped its switch. I would stare into the mirror screaming at myself asking why I was so ugly, calling myself fat and picking out faults in my appearance that weren't even there. I hated how I looked so much that I'd cover my mirror when I got home because I couldn't stand to look at myself. So I didn't have to look at myself. People would laugh and say I needed liposuction or tell me that I looked like the morbidly obese celebrity of the moment. My cousin's boyfriend nick-named me ironing board and it spread around my year group. Bullying was rampant and, combined with how my mum made me feel about my appearance, I hated the way I looked more and more each day.
It wasn't just how I looked that presented a problem for me. I have been severely mentally ill for most of my life. I started self-harming at 13 and was never very good at hiding it. For a while, I blamed hair straighteners, my cat or moving around too much in my sleep as a reason for my cuts and bruises. I hated myself and cutting was the only thing that made me feel better. It still makes me feel good and I miss it even more than I miss cocaine. It was the only thing that helped but it ostracised me further. At the time self-harm and other mental illnesses weren't as well known about and were often seen as attention-seeking. I didn't want attention, I just wanted the pain to stop.
I've mentioned in other posts that people were often ashamed to say that they liked me. On more than one occasion I was told that I wasn't allowed to tell anyone that they'd said they were attracted to me or that we'd slept together. I was a secret that wanted to be kept because people didn't want anyone else to know. I was an embarrassment. Something to hide. The feeling this gave me still follows me around today.
This is why I'm having such a big problem with my boyfriend not telling his ex that we're together. I trust him completely, I know he's not going to cheat on me and I know he loves me. But there's still that voice in my head and the knot in my stomach that is telling me he's hiding me. That he's ashamed or embarrassed of me, and I don't know how to shake it off.
I want to tell him this, to explain why his not being honest about our relationship is hurting me so much, but he's not been replying to my texts. Once again, I know that this isn't personal and that it's because of how busy he is with the new baby but it's still playing on my mind. I'm working on being honest with him about how I feel but I'm still scared of texting too much. I told my ex I missed him once and he told me he felt like I was obsessed with him and that wasn't attractive.
I really do have diabolically bad taste in men, but that's low self-esteem for you.
Deep down I know that he's not hiding me, that he's not ashamed of me, but I really don't know why he hasn't told her. I get that emotions are high immediately after having a baby, but the child has been born now, and putting stress on his ex no longer has any affect on the child. If I'm perfectly honest I really don't give a shit about how she feels, she's irrelevant to me. But I really, really care about the fact that he hasn't told her about me.
The entire situation is making me feel like a teenager again. Like I'm something to be ashamed of and that he's hiding me. I don't want to keep bugging him about it because, like I said, he isn't replying to my messages although I know that's not personal either. Once you are made to feel like you are something to be embarrassed by that feeling never really goes away, and I don't think it ever will. I've probably quoted this before but, as John says to Abi in Happiest Season I "deserve to be with someone who shouts their love for [me] from the rooftops!" and I do. I just don't understand why he hasn't told her we're together and it's grinding my self-esteem into dust. I don't want to be hidden, I don't deserve to be hidden and I didn't fight this hard to be hidden.
So why do I feel like he's hiding me?
Stay safe on the road
Jess
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