When I Saw My Childhood Anxiety Reflected in My Child

Feeling inferior to others from a young age is one factor that contributed to the social aspect of my anxiety disorder.

I recall being incredulous when a local boutique asked me to participate in a fashion show aged 7 (I no longer believed I was cute). I remember my mother’s confusion when I didn’t want to change in front of the other “models.”

The following letter/poem was written to my daughter after she asked me a question with the same worry in her eyes that I know my mother must have seen in mine that day.

Within it, I pledged to fight against oppressive beauty standards.

I wasn’t able to protect her from the messages that a person’s worth is tied to how aesthetically pleasing they are to others. I don’t want to allow the media, diet industry, filter or photoshop to be what my children use to measure how much they should like themselves.

Dear Daughter:

I worried this day would come;

It seemed inevitable, but I planned to fight!

Pre-approval and parental controls!

Re-watching childhood favorites, then tossing them on the nope pile with other “Classic” confidence crushers.

I omitted or rewrote story books; adventures didn’t need the Princesses to be beautiful, nor the witches ugly.

I tried to instill that their aesthetic had no bearing on their kind or villainous acts.

Then it was time for school…

For which I tried to prepare us both, when what I really wanted was to steal you away,

Like Mother Gothel, so that the world could not reach you…

But I knew someone would come and you would let down your hair, my little explorer.

So when I couldn’t keep you any longer,

We walked through it together…

Experiencing the beautiful heights of diversity, love, self-worth and acceptance,

While explaining the traps and pitfalls of exclusion, shame and self doubt .

Urging your precious brain to prematurely understand,

So I didn’t ever discover you buried.

Stifled in one of those pits of pain!

I was 7 when I first frowned at what I saw in the Mirror,

When the shallow roots of my self-esteem

could not withstand the gale force messages of depreciation

that were howling through society.

That could not happen to you, my love!

I naively thought I could prorogue or prevent its impact,

But today you were 7 years old,

When you looked into the mirror and frowned.

You worried I’d be cross when you asked if I thought you “looked fat”

and when you said you didn’t want to be.

I’m angry at myself for failing you!

And angry at the world for fooling you!

I am broken to find you buried in beauty fallacies,

But mostly I am thankful you used your voice to draw my attention as you’ve been taught.

I promise to get you out of there.

If I can’t pull you out by sheer will,

Then I will tend and nurture you where you are.

We’ll convert the sludge of unworthiness that’s constantly dumped on us,

Into a rich compost from which to grow,

Until you’re so tall and steady,

you can’t see the hole in which you once lay.

The hurricane may still rage on,

But your branches won’t be broken.

Stand proud, my daughter,

Don’t bow your little head to inferiority.

That body of yours first grew within me,

And there isn’t one part of it,

That isn’t perfect and loved.

–Mentalmama

Many of us struggle with confidence and self-acceptance; therefore, it is imperative that we become aware of thoughts, people or things that limit our ability to love ourselves.

Moreover, take steps to protect yourself from them!

Perhaps it’s unfollowing that influencer with whom you compare yourself. Choosing, instead, to follow body positive/neutral accounts like iweigh and Changing the Face of Beauty.

Alternatively, consider writing yourself a letter, promising to stop playing the shame game with yourself!

Whatever it is, do it now and do it with compassion, because you need it after years of internal and external criticism.

We are enough! It’s time we believed it so that our children grow to know they are, too!