You put too much pressure on yourself.* How often have I heard that, from my parents when I used to rip my hair from my head after softball games and school plays because I felt like I was stupid and incapable? From my therapist when I would continuously tell her how much anxiety I feel on a regular basis, like the world is collapsing on my shoulders and literally pinning me to the ground? Now, from various teachers telling me I will be fine when I have panic attacks with tears leaving trails on my scarred cheeks and cannot stop shaking because the fear for the future and the terror of letting people down seems to be the hands around my neck, waiting for me to black out? How frequent have those words met my ears since I was five and began to look at myself like I was ugly, or at nine when I felt the need to hide what I ate so I would binge in my room, stuff bags of chips in baggy sweatshirt pockets so no one would see me as I cried about my size, but I continued to eat because it gave me some warped sense of paradoxical comfort? And then at thirteen, when I felt I needed to do something about it so my stash moved from my bedroom to the bathroom, the place I locked myself alone for hours and stuck an unwilling finger down my throat so that all of these things that made me so not good enough would find their ways out of my limp body? A good deal of this pressure was self-induced, but it was also learned. You see, being my daddy's girl, every little child's dream, meant looking the part. It meant passing on the chocolate cake on my birthday even though I had been waiting for it all year. It meant being publicly ridiculed in fast food restaurants when I would try to free myself from his totalitarian diet regime and I would immediately be subjected to social homicide no matter who was there as a tactic to force me back into my place. Maybe that's why I still cringe when people come into my workplace and embarrass their kids over petty things that won't matter to them the next day, but will scar the child for years to come. It meant being taught that my only goal in life was to look pretty, and that because I am a girl, my voice means nothing. It means learning to think I deserve the kind of love that tells me I am worthless if I am not a size six. Being my daddy's girl meant that when the first boy I ever loved called me a fat ugly ******* on a regular basis that it was nothing new to me, he was just more frank about it. It meant that when my please, don't's and my I don't like this anymore's were silenced by a friend's unwavering desires for power and control, I figured it was because he cared about me because that's what he told me. After all, being my father's girl meant that I was nothing more than a pretty face, a porcelain doll, who was only good for being someone's *****, even if I was combatting against his advances.
Being my daddy's girl meant sometimes, as a child, I wanted to be a boy, not because I was transgender, but because I wanted to be something of value that was not solely based on the beauty I did not have. Because of all this, being my daddy's girl meant never being good enough. If all I could be was attractive, and it became clear that I was not, then what was left? My sister grew into the skinny robot he wanted her to be. She was my daddy's girl. I never was, and I used my voice to speak out against every value he taught me. He was conservative; I became a raging liberal. He claims to be Christian; I began to question religion. He was a sexist, homophobic bigot; I am a feminist and human rights activist. As in all forms of tyranny, they try to shut you down if you shout the truth from the depths of your being. But my voice will not stop screaming. Still, how I felt about my looks began to affect everything else. My father would try to support me in my activities and in school, but when I looked at him, all I could see was a big glaring manifestation of YOU'RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH staring me straight in the face. And while this snowball has been rolling and building up for years, I have to stop believing the lies. I cannot blame all of them on him; society has taught me that I am not a model, therefore I am nothing. The church has taught me that I must be subservient to some man and that I will never be anything without him. In case you couldn't figure it out, that will never happen. Overcoming this is not easy, and while my thoughts still panic and franticly bounce about from corner to corner, while my mind still travels to evil, lifeless places, I must crawl through the darkness. I must proclaim to the world that I am enough, whether I believe it or not.