Growing up ugly and weird
003: pretty privilege, how people treat you, the lasting effects of bullying and coming into yourself beyond that
“No-one wanted to play with me as a little kid, so I’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since to make them love me and make it seem effortless - this is the first time I’ve ever felt the need to confess.”
- Taylor Swift
I grew up really ugly. You’re not meant to say that, really. Everyone is beautiful, has the ability to be beautiful. Nobody is ugly because beauty is subjective and not everyone sees beauty in the same way. I do believe that - for everyone else. I was an ugly kid though. Maybe not a child - I was a pretty cute baby in my opinion, my mum says I was a pretty baby. I was an ugly preteen, however, and only really figured out what looks good for me in the last year or so. I was ugly and insecure as a result and didn’t care about how I dressed, didn’t fix my acne cause I thought it wasn’t worth it, wasn’t careful with my straw-like hair until I figured out it was meant to be curly and needed to treat it in a specific manner. Everything was all wrong. The main part of that was because I didn’t know I wasn’t a girl, and that all these standards and rules didn’t really apply to me. They didn’t fit. Since I wasn’t aware yet why the things I was doing were wrong, I had no way to fix them. I was already the weird kid cause I was autistic and didn’t really behave right since my childhood was irregular and other kids obviously weren’t old enough to know those things were signs and not just things to pick at. I was bullied a terrible amount growing up. I didn’t look the part and I didn’t act the part. I wasn’t capable of masking yet and I was always on edge, always in fight or flight cause of my home situation. I didn’t make friends easily so I wasn’t versed on how to talk to other kids when the opportunity did present itself so every interaction was a shit-show. I suffered a lot growing up, I think. I mean this as an astute observation. To be honest, if there is a God or someone at a higher power, I would say to them that making me genderqueer really wasn’t necessary if they wanted to teach me humility. Autism, abuse, being gay and being trans? Can I not just pick one and move on??? In all seriousness though, combining all these elements made it hard to grow up and actually like myself. Even now that’s something I struggle with heavily. When my best friend compliments me I find my cheeks getting hot and find myself grasping for the punchline. She can’t mean it - nobody ever really likes me.
Nowadays I have these situations come up somewhat frequently. My best friend has said to me on multiple occasions something along the lines of “I don’t know why you’re always so anxious, Jas; you make friends really easily”. At prom, someone I never met before - A friend of a friend - said “Oh, I know you! You’re famous. I’ve seen you on people’s stories, heard about you from other people” after I introduced myself. Meeting a friend’s girlfriend she mused “Ohh, you’re Jas. I’ve heard about you. ___ and ___ (friends of mine) say your parties are really fun and that you're cool to hang out with”. All of these instances my heart dropped to my stomach before they finished what they were saying. What had people been saying about me behind my back? Are they laughing at me? What did I do? These fears were nothing to do with the individuals, of course. My fears were unnecessary and they were very kind to me. My point is that those wounds - how I was treated as a young kid because of my differences and my looks - drove me to the point of suspecting danger from everyone.
There’s a line in Taylor Swift’s Mastermind from the Midnights album that I featured as the pull quote for today’s article. When I heard the album for the first time, my reaction to that bridge was visceral. Taylor Swift - beautiful, smart, successful, interesting Taylor - understood what I felt like growing up. She related to the sneaky, slimy feeling I had when I started to change myself and hide my irregularities to seem more normal. The sensation of tricking everyone into being my friend or at least leaving me alone for once. Taylor understood how it felt. Only in recent years - late 2023 and nowadays do I really feel like I’m reaching the other side of that. When I was figuring out my transition I still felt ugly and wrong. I cringe when I look at photos from that phase, remember how unflattering everything I wore was because of my dysphoria. I tried to hide the fact I had a body, made myself look huge wearing shirts almost three sizes too big and colours that made me look all wrong. Now, when I finally feel like I know what I’m doing at least somewhat, do I feel like sometimes I can believe people when they call me pretty or a nice person, or fun to be around. I only recently started telling the little Jas inside my head to stop screaming ‘Liar!’ at the top of its lungs.
So, what changed? In my first substack post I mentioned how I’ve started to change my clothes, find my footing in how I want to look and what being non binary means to me. Somehow I keep forgetting that can mean whatever I want it to, so getting to a point of comfort is pretty hard. It mostly started because I got so tired of hating every photo taken of me. It was tiring to feel so hopeless, second guess what everyone said to me. It also felt tiring asking the people around me if they meant the things they said to compliment me. Let’s be honest - it can be tiring being the person to build someone up again. I hated how disgusting and desperate I felt. I didn’t want to be a sad and lonely person for my whole life. This meant putting some effort in and treating myself with respect - nobody will take you serious and respect you if even you don’t. Probably shouldn’t be that way, but that’s reality. I started looking into skincare, stopped picking at my skin, stopped biting my nails. I took better care of my clothes and put thought into what goes with what. I took care of my hair, started buying the right products and let it curl instead of thinning it out or layering the curls out. When my hair was cut short I let it first frizz out and then started to actually find haircuts that let them work the way they do now. I decided that just because other people thought I was ugly and didn’t like me, that didn’t give me an excuse to just rot away until I died somewhere. Then, boom, just like that, I got older, grew into my shape, my face, honed my humor and my personality and became a grown up. Kids stopped being interested in stupid stuff like who was fastest or best at four-square, who had the designer bags or who was most popular. I started getting more friends, had people who enjoyed my company and were just as weird and different as me. I genuinely get impostor syndrome from all the people in my life who feel the same as me and who I feel like are so beautiful and interesting. I don’t know how my friends who I find so wonderful and stunning and talented see me as their friend, too.
I’ve lost a lot of friends over the years - especially recently - and found out how people still think I’m weird, think I’m ugly, think I’m different. It always feels like a bullet. Giant, sucking chest wounds every single time that make me cry in bed the exact same way I did when I was a little kid getting left out on the playground. The kind of breakdown where you can’t even stay laid in bed. You lose your breath so quick that you’re forced to sit up and keep gasping, voice shrill and each suck inwards more scared that you’re gonna suffocate; tears running down your cheeks like dams broke in your eyes and they’ll never run out of water. I’ve cried so hard that I genuinely wondered that if I ever ran out of tears I’d maybe just start to cry blood. I’ve wanted to claw my heart out and place it at the other end of the bed so I wouldn’t feel its ache thrumming through me. I’ve cried and cried to the point where I felt nauseous and had to sit over the toilet’s bowl and just hyperventilate in the hopes my body would slow down. I’ve prayed to God (as a non-believer, mind you) to explain what I did, to please show me what I could do to make things better. I’ve prayed for apologies, for explanations, for those friends to come back and just be there again even though they treated me like crap in hindsight. Anything was better than being alone, being left all alone to my ugly, boring, weird self. Since nobody else liked me I decided I didn’t either. I felt sick with my own company and couldn’t face myself.
I think that’s the real reality. I was so so sick of myself, so tired of being hated and being left alone that I just made myself someone completely different. Transition aside - that was something completely unrelated and inevitable no matter what - I rebuilt my personality and just became what people wanted from me. I abandoned my ‘weird’ interests, weird music taste, weird hobbies. I would rather lose myself - someone nobody liked or would miss anyways - to be loved and seen. That person, the version of myself that I decided wasn’t good enough, lives inside me in a small cage. In my mind she (I think despite being non binary, the person who I abandoned and put away was the little girl I grew up as that everyone hated) has come out a little in the way I’ve started to enjoy the things I do more openly. Yes, I am non binary, but I enjoy makeup and pastels and soft fabrics - things I didn’t let myself wear. I allow myself to feel pretty sometimes, masculine other times. I let myself care about how I look and take small triumphs in people’s flattery and attention based on looks. I never got it before, anyways.
The real sad ending to the story is that even though people in general are nicer to me, I have more friends than I ever expected for myself, I’ve had girlfriends and a boyfriend (albeit terrible and very fleeting), I’ve been told I’m pretty, funny and cool. I’ve had all of these things said to me and yet that won’t fix the damage that’s been dealt. My bullying was extensive and ruined me more than I even allow myself to admit. I don’t know if I will ever entirely believe someone when they tell me they like me or think I’m pretty. I don’t think I can be liked that way at all. Even though I said I allow myself to believe compliments sometimes, I don’t really think I’m beautiful at all. No matter what I do or try or fix, I’ll always be the kid who got prank asked-out, the kid people didn’t want to partner up with, the kid people yelled at for speaking up in class or mocked and chased around to the point of tears. The friend that girls rolled their eyes at behind my back, talked about in private conversations I wasn’t there for, made me the butt of the joke for. Been kicked down, laughed at, screamed at. Formed group chats without. Forgotten for days out, uninvited from sleepovers. Proclaimed I invited myself to events I helped come up with. Called as a last resort. Spoken to when everyone else is busy. Always thought of last, never first pick for the team. I could go on, open so many old memories I’ve packed away. I could detail ever time I was ever wronged or slighted or hurt or laughed at in secret-girl-best-friend-code only communicated through smirks and crescent eyes and conversations that ended when I enter the room. Trust me I noticed it all. I broke into little splinters every time. All my ex friends have a piece of glass that was once my spirit splintered and stuck in the rubber of their shoes; left over from every time they stomped on me when I was down.
I can’t tell you how to stop feeling sad about how people decide to treat you. I can’t tell you whether their apologies are real. I can’t help you heal from disrespect and personal attacks that are lightly veiled by ‘no offence’ or ‘not to be mean’. I’m very sorry because, trust me, from someone who feels how you might’ve felt once, if I could take away the aches and pains and the doubt and the shaking fear and the sleepless nights and the achey empty-stomach-feelings, I would. I’d give you every single step, every piece of advice, the links to every self help book. If I knew how to feel better I would share that info like my life depended on it. I really would. Cause I know my younger self would’ve rather died than go to school every day. I wanted to die rather than see the kids in my class, feel so humiliated just existing in their space. From as young as year four or so (aged 8-9) I felt like I should’ve died for the crime of breathing in the presence of the other kids who hated me so much. I didn’t even know what I did that was so wrong. I just knew nobody liked me and that was enough, they must’ve had a reason and I was too stupid or alien to even realise. I felt that way at eight. Eight years old. There is no debating whether that stuff messed me up. I know it did. Now I’m older and do have friends, that doesn’t fix the feeling of unease that makes me feel like everyone’s playing one long prank on me. Getting away from the bullies and the sadness and the loneliness doesn’t fill the gunshot wound and certainly doesn’t make you forget that it happened. The only thing I think I can really suggest is graciousness. Not only with yourself but with the people around you. It’s okay to be worried and anxious and not know how to feel about the people around you. It’s okay to be honest and admit that people hurt you and that you’re not okay (this one I still struggle to admit to myself or other people. This post feels like a confessional I didn’t know I was going to admit one day). It’s also important to realise that the same thing happens to other people, that you’re not alone and that there will be better days. Cliche and not comforting, I know. Even today I’m reaching for those far away, nonspecific ‘better days’. For this reason you must look out for the people around you, give them room to talk and room to grow. Give people a hand when they need it, a shoulder to cry on. If someone feels something so strongly that they can’t help but react and get overwhelmed, then no matter the cause treat it how you’d wish someone would with your fears or struggles. You don’t know what someone’s tipping point might be. To you it might look like something silly like cancelled plans, a messy room or being late to something - that might be the tip of their own iceberg. My hopes are the better days will come when I finally leave my hometown littered with these poisonous memories and landmarks that remind me of the worst chapters of my life. Pick your moment - the mark of your new start. Then decide to start living it. You will find your community, your chosen family. Someone will compliment you and mean it. Hell, I’ll do it. You’re beautiful. You’re funny, you’re kind. You’re stronger than you think and those things that happened to you weren’t okay. What they said isn’t true. I care, I’ll listen. Honest to God, anything you need to rant about or get off your chest, my comments or my dms are open. I will always have room to talk. There’ll always be a hand waiting to pull you from the ledge. I hope my words come across as sincere as I mean them. You and your feelings - your life and stresses and sadness and anger are all important. Please remember that.
This substack entry in its very nature is very raw and personal and touches on a lot of very intimate themes and ideas. The things I’ve said - admitted to, more like - I’ve held onto for almost eleven years or so. Not only do I feel like the things I’ve delved into were very personal but also very necessary to discuss as I start to gain traction on this app. I’ve talked about my identity, things I like, the people I listen to. This post was your turn to get a little scoop of the deep dark parts of my heart that I intended to show. This post is probably one of the most honest and intense things I’ve ever said or written - in quiet conversations with my best friends or in general company. This is some of the most honest thinking I’ve ever done with myself, too.
My purpose with Getting Personal was to explore growth and the things people don’t talk about whether its due to fear or company or social pressure. In complete honesty, and in the company of you friends who join me on my journey to uncover the dark parts of humanity that nobody wants to address, I am nervous to publish this. Scared, even. Nobody really wants to hear that they’ve been hurtful to someone else, made someone feel that sad. People look at you differently after you say words like ‘death’ or ‘breakdown’ in relation to treatment by your peers. By pressing ‘post’, I’m lifting up the metaphorical rug laid down by society and presenting all those ugly truths that have been swept under without hesitation. I’m not afraid to do it, per se. I want to. What scares me is what people will think of me afterwards. However, what is growth if not challenging the mold and letting go of expectations?
On that note, thank you once again for joining me for another anecdote on life and experiences we all have but don’t discuss. Please feel free to comment anything you’d like to add; the topics of bullying and social hierarchy based on conventional attractiveness as well as the process of recovering from these things are so vast and work differently for different people. In this post I’m mostly just discussing my own individual experiences and feelings. I’d be happy to facilitate all manner of conversations on the matter <3 Please be mindful and respectful, you never know what anyone else is thinking or going through.
P.S This was a big post for me so I would like to add that as well as being scared, I am also proud of myself for opening up and tackling a triggering topic for the sake of discussion and growing as a person. I hope this served you as much as it did me.
As always, thank you for reading, I appreciate your support immensely.
Hoping to catch you next time! Thx for reading xoxo
Yours, Jas. ∩⑅∩
this was both so heartbreakingly relatable and also somehow weirdly comforting — thank you for taking the strength to write this all out. i don’t know you but i’m proud of you all the same <3
Powerful. You're beginning to take control of your life! Keep healing