Skin Deep Beauty

Shine brighter than a diamond

MARY IDOWU

Last week, I was at a "girls’ night out", and we were discussing self-confidence, I didn’t get a chance to speak due to time however, and so I have decided to come share what I learnt; my insecurities and how I overcame them.

Growing up as a child, I was always called 'Oh Mary Mary Kampala', usually in a sing song manner. This habit actually started from my nursery two class teacher. It spread fast, and a lot of people picked up the habit. I didn’t really understand what was wrong with me and why people would seek to make fun of me, as I was 'daddy’s girl' and I got all the love in the world from him. As I grew, I started seeing myself in the mirror, I started realizing that I had different skin colours on me; some part of me was yellow (which is my actual colour) and some part of me was dark, like really dark. I had brown discolorations and I had dark, more like black patches on me. I then understood that I was different. It actually didn’t bother me as such because I had my family around me and they always made me feel better.

However, upon getting into secondary school it became a big issue for me, as I was in a boarding school. A roommate relocated from my room to another because she didn’t like the way I looked. I tried every cure that was given to me, nothing worked; rather, I started getting worse. I would have sudden discolorations on my face, arms, legs, thorax that wasn’t there before and they wouldn’t leave. I started to cry a lot and felt kind of depressed. When my parents asked me why I was sad, I found it hard to tell them for reasons beyond me. I was angry. I was angry at my dad; I was angry at myself for being ‘ugly’.  I could see my parents putting effort to make me feel and look better but it wasn’t helping matters, rather it depressed me even more. I have had people call me a tiger, I have issues wearing certain outfits or even rubbing white powder. I had issues with being comfortable around girls because they would always ask questions that I couldn’t answer.

Basically, being different hurt. Asides that, I was short and skinny. I kind of grew to become average height, but I haven’t got fat. Everyone is always bugging me about my size, either jokingly or intentionally. It always hurt. So, how did/do I cope? Sometimes I like to feel like I have the solution locked down. Maybe I do, maybe not.

I project. Yes, I project my insecurities as jokes. I make fun of how I look, how skinny my arms look, how I am different, and what a special work of art I am. So when people make fun of me, it doesn’t offend me, because I already make fun of myself. When I change rooms and roommates, I have a regular speech delivered to tuck away the inquisitive glare, and just to make myself comfortable around them. I do not look into mirrors as much as the regular girl does, because unlike what my girls at the girls’ night said about looking into mirrors and reminding themselves of how beautiful they look, I only see my scars staring back at me in the face. I already see that on the face of others every time I look at other people. I play a lot, extremely. Oh, and I know that I look so good even more because I have these scars.

Everyone has something that no one wants others to look at or know, we have flaws that we hide under layers of makeup, designer shoes and clothes. Even those models looking so good have cellulitis that they don’t want anybody to see, some of them are not proud of their body; but when everything has been touched and retouched, they seem perfect. The proper term for this is Picture-Perfect. Nobody is perfect, and anyone who doesn’t appreciate you because of your imperfections is missing out on a whole lot of other awesome things about you.

Surrounding myself with people who love me, people with positive energy and attitudes also helped. I know that God, my parents, my sisters, my friends, magpie all appreciate me and most especially I have come to appreciate myself - and that is all that matters. I can only try to be motivational, but the major work lies with how you view yourself. I can only share my experience and how I overcame it. I hope you find a system that works for you so that you can enjoy your new year.

Don't forget to tell someone

Lastly, share and spread love. A little complement, a little concern, a little appreciative complement goes a long way in making people feel good about themselves. Don’t always assume people know how good looking they are.

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