Beauty

Ever since I was young, I never really cared what others thought of my appearance. I was happy to leave my house with my dark circles, blemishes and scars on show. I had good self esteem. But for the past few months I've started to wonder if I was considered beautiful. Of course looks aren't everything and I fully stand by that statement but after hearing the same comments again and again it does bruise your self esteem.

Living in multicultural England, there isn't really a set beauty standard since there are there are all sorts of people. It's when you go to countries like Bangladesh, which I stayed for a whole month, is when you see how look seem to be everything for them.

'Don't you eat?', 'isn't there any food in England?' 'Why do you diet?', 'what's that on your forehead?' 'Why do you have so many spots?' 'Have you been to the doctors to get your face checked?' This is just a few examples of comments I received while a way. People would grab my wrist telling me I should eat more. People would stare at my face. People would maje comments about my appearance before they even said hello to me. While there I wanted to get a few dresses tailored and the tailor constantly complained that I was too skinny. Your job is too tailor clothes to fit people better. I can't change my body to fit the dress so you fix the dress to fit me. All this behaviour is considered 'ok' in Bangladesh though. Like I said earlier, I have good self esteem but hearing it repeatedly gets to your head. When I came back from Bangladesh for a week I was stuffing my face desperately trying to put on weight 'I'm too skinny', 'I need to eat'. A few days later it hit me. I'm happy with the way I looked. I was happy before I went away, why am I doing this? I'll admit I don't have the best diet but I eat proper meals, I just have a high metabolism and I don't put weight on easily. I'm that annoying friend. I don't diet or restrict myself and as I'm happy and healthy who cares if I'm skinny.

Another thing I want to talk about is skin color which is major is Asia. Pale=beautiful, dark=ugly. I'm on the darker side of the spectrum so people said I didn't look like I'm from Bangladesh because I look dead (skinny) and I'm dark. 'You wouldn't be able to tell she's from abroad unless she opened her mouth'. THIS annoys me the most. You can't choose your skin colour. Yes you can tan or lighten your skin but at the end of the day we are judged so heavily on something we can't even control. It's bad enough getting rascist remarks from outside your race but to have people within your race insulting you because of your skin colour? Really? WE ARE ON THE SAME TEAM. We should be coming together not moving apart.

Saying all this, what hurts me most is when your own family join in. My aunt would say I'm from the house that doesn't eat, I'm a stick, I'm a giraffe (being 5foot 5 is considered being giant amongst Bengali's). I'm writing this after having an argument with my mum. She told me I should have worn foundation when we went out yesterday. After wearing foundation three times in one week, when usually I go months without it, I wanted to give my skin a rest and just wore powder. But to my mum I looked ugly and should have asked my aunt for foundation. I told her it's not good to share makeup because of bacteria which she responded with 'you would benefit since you would look better it's the other people that will have there stuff contaminated with bacteria'. It made me feel like I was some sort of disease. I was contagious and I shouldn't go near people. I was told I waste money on all this make up that I don't use. But the thing is I do, when I FEEL like it, not for others.  The problem amongst Bengali's is that they care too much what others think. I love makeup but it's no fun if I'm forced to wear it because it's not my choice, it's a chore. After some back and fourth, I made a comment about my mum's cake face and she replied saying 'that's not a nice way of talking to your mum' but calling your daughter ugly isn't very nice either. If your a mum please don't make your child think they are ugly, if they have insecurities about things they should be comfortable to share it with and get support back. My mum suffered from acne herself and to hear her say something like that to me really, really hurts.

I'm sorry if this was a bit all over the place but I'm writing this in my bathroom while crying on and off. I just wanted to end it saying you are beautiful. We all have our weak days were our insecurities take over, I'm having one right now, but at the end of the day you're still beautiful. Everyone has things they would change about themselves but you have to make sure it is for yourself and not for others. As long as you are safe, happy and healthy, the rest can piss off.