I Wish I'd Been, I Wish I'd Been A Teen Teen Idol

I wanted to be more than I was, to be going to prom and parties and drinking beer like my siblings, to be immersed in the teen life that I had seen on the television, telling me that making bad choices was cool and trendy and vomiting in the toilet was fine because at least it meant you were thin and your waistline equates to your worth, right? I wanted to be that girl, sexy and powerful in short skirts and tottering on tall heels, chest out on display for everyone to see and boys drooling. I wanted to lose my childish self and become more, I wanted to grow up.

And then I did.

When I was younger, I always looked through glossy pages of magazine, bought into the propaganda with starry eyes and longing sighs. But I wasn’t like those girls, so I tried to change myself and become them anyway. I hit puberty at a very young age and hated it, shaving my legs began in fourth grade and real bras with it. I hadn’t lost my “baby fat” yet and was awkward, the first girl in my class to get my period. There was nothing I hated more than standing out for being different. To me, unique was like a dirty word, one I didn’t want associated with me at all. In middle school, I realized that part of what drew me to those magazines stolen from my sister’s room was a desire not only to be like those girls, but to be with them. At first, that didn’t faze me in the least because it didn’t seem like a big deal. Then I heard my brother call someone “gay” like it was a disease. From that moment on, I swore to myself I would hide. I told one person but then promptly broke ties with her when she felt the same and we liked each other. An adolescent crush, an innocent desire to hold hands, led me to take sharp objects to my vulnerable flesh. I would wait until I was home alone, take a pair of scissors and rinse them under the tap, before taking the cutting edges to my young skin. I don’t know what drove me to do it specifically, if I heard mention of it in the hallway or something else, but it seemed like as good a solution as any to my pain, to give myself more.

It didn’t stop there. I kept at it until my thighs were a danger zone – I chose that area because no one else ever saw it, I hated my body enough to make sure my shortest shorts covered most of my thighs because no one wanted to see a chubby pale kid with red lines on her legs in short shorts, right? I kept everything so well hidden from my parents, until high school.

When I hit freshman year, I was a little taller, slightly skinnier, and cutting more frequently. I promised myself that high school would be different, that I would make friends instead of losing them. That I would lose weight and have a boyfriend and be like those girls on the TV and in the magazine; that I would be just like my pretty, popular, alcoholic big sister. So I stopped eating and flirted badly with anyone who looked in my direction. I started dating a super-senior who was somewhere around eighteen and a bad person. With an arrest record and a car, he gave me a smile and I fell in love. Not with him, at all, but with the idea that a boyfriend would make me likable and cool. So I dated him, got in trouble with and because of him. Got abused, not physically, apart from one incident that I may never recover mentally from, but emotionally. I relied on him for everything and he liked it that way. I was young and scared and I didn’t tell anyone what happened, acted like I loved every single moment of our sham of a relationship because that’s what I was supposed to do.

Then we cut class and got caught and my parents found out. I lied as much as I could but eventually it (almost) all came pouring out in one tear filled night with my mother. I got help for a little while and recovered enough to start eating and stop cutting.

But things didn’t ever fully recover. I still seek my self-worth in others, I still want to be like those girls, I just know that I don’t want to be the one who kills someone in accident because I drove drunk. I don’t want to be arrested for doing things I should know better than to do. I don’t want to nearly die because my drink was drugged, like I saw happen to someone I know. I don’t want to be so thin that my double zero jeans fall off my frame. I want to be me. Because you know what? To hell with the stuff I hate about myself, being who I am is better than being someone who isn’t me.

So I might still sigh dreamily, sadly, at the television shows with the beautiful girls going out and being surrounded by people who hang on my every word. But I see powerful people who do the right thing and stand up for what they believe. Who are willing to risk everything to achieve their goals and I’d rather be that than lost in the stereotype and without a sense of self.

I may still want to be a teen idol, but being sixteen and suicidal taught me that youth is worth remembering, because it shapes you and your life, regardless of it's glamorous or terrible. I won’t forget that I had such low points and that there are people out there who would just rather abuse you than care about you, but I won’t forget that there are people who will do anything to help you because they care. Being a young kid struggling with my sexuality and depression and an abuse that I suffered at a very young age that I just can’t share yet, it all showed me that being different isn’t easy, isn’t fun and it made me make bad choices. I made myself become someone I truly wasn’t and it hurt. And I won’t forget that the lies are pretty and the truth is ugly. Being a teenager, being a kid, sucks. But we can all make it through, I promise. We can do it. I see that know.

I guess you could call that growing up.