The first time i had a panic attack so bad that had me contemplate the possibility of ending my life – well, it was triggered by my face. The reflection of my face in the dark window of a train taking me home at night.
For the first time, what stared back at me was a face i did not recognise. Of course age had been leaving its marks on my face for a while. But that night all my defences dropped and i was left alone with my personal ocean of insecurities and self hate which soon filled me to the brim and seemed to succeed, this time, in swallowing me.
Everything about that face was hateful, disgusting, scary. I was only thirty years old, i was not supposed to already look like that!! When did my under-eye bags got so deep, my nose so sharp, my lips so thin, my eyes so sunken??? Is this what people see when they look at me? It cannot be.
That face was not mine. It was not me.
This was the sparked that ignited a horrible spiral of despair which made me loath the possibility of life without beauty. That beauty i was made to believe was all i had, all i was. Once the beautiful and youthful shell i was so lucky to be born in faded (and the proof of this already being in a very advanced stage was right there in front of my very eyes), what would remain of me? I am nothing, i have nothing but my beauty, my beauty is the only lovable thing about me – so how will i be loved once the lovely flower of my face lost its soft petals?
The answer that was shouted back at me from within, with a clarity so sharp i felt it cut through my sternum, was simple. You were not going to be loved, seen, cared for, ever again.
You are going to be lonely for the rest of your life and this pain is not going to ever leave you.
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What kept me sane that night was my little dog waiting for me at home.
What scared me most about that night was the complete erasure from my brain of all the love that surrounds me, all the wonderful friends and family i have, all the incredible abundance that this life gifted me with.
After three years from that terrible night, what scares me is the recognition of the same demons in so so many women and people raised as such. Our sanity hangs by a thread so delicate it might snap any time. I see it in our eyes, in the way we look at ourselves and at each other, in the averted looks, in the nervous corners of our mouths, in our fidgeting hands.
In our addiction to our phones.
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An “influencer” friend i deeply respect and admire and with whom i share a sort of personal relationship outside of the despicable platform where we met. She is a wonderful person and a fierce activist, and a mother a few years older than me. Some days ago she shared with her following that she was thinking about undergoing a little procedure to “fix” the bags under her eyes.
After a brief reflection on her feminism and how it had been telling her that beauty procedures are not feminist nor empowered, she vulnerably confessed how this small “imperfection” had been taking more and more space in her head and days and how she had slowly started to come to terms with the possibility that a simple procedure could make her feel better.
As admirable and brave i found her confession to be, i was hurt. Those were my bags too, as mine were those obsessive thoughts. I hate how my under-eye makes me look older than my age and i wish them gone. They were the most prominent feature in that horrifyingly old face that stared back at me in the Berlin darkness of that night of three years ago.
Yet, i also love them – or at least i want to love them.
Why can’t we accept our faces and our bodies and just STOP thinking about them so much??? i screamed at her on the screen of my phone. You look beautiful and you are also an incredible human being, you are so much more than those bags that no one notices! I wish i was you, i caught myself thinking our loud.
Where can i look for role models and inspiration, for courage, for solace – when everyone around me, around us, is getting work done, ever more subtly.
And how can i separate my need for acceptance and self love with the bitter judgement i cannot help but feel in my burning chest whenever someone “gives in” to this shitty society hold and decides to alleviate their daily pain?
I wish i had any sort of answer, even a temporary one.
All i have for now is my determination to try and be the example i am looking for and relieve everybody from such unfair and egotistical burden.
My face is me but is also not me. It does not matter as much as we think it does.
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(am i quitting my corporate job also because i can no longer stand my face in all the zoom meetings?)
Wolfin' Around 
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