Learning to live what you're born with is the process, the involvement, the making of a life. -- Diane Wakoski
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. -- Tao Te Ching
In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” a prisoner, bonded with chains, escapes his reality and slowly adjusts to the light. He comes to terms with the true state of things, but then refers back to the cave. Reflecting on the story, many different experiences in my life came to mind. The most profound story that comes to mind is my battle with my own self image and how I am slowly escaping the cave again and again.
The media or society places much emphasis on beauty and the appearance of being stick thin. When I was younger, I used to subscribe to those magazines with emaciated super models on the cover and flip through fashion ads, wanting to be as beautiful and skinny as them. Even in television or movies, it was always the skinny girl getting the hot guy to fall in love with her. It was my dream to have my knight in shining armor rescue me. How was he going to sweep me off my feet if I was this gigantic bucket of lard?
It didn’t help any that I was made fun of by some family members, “friends,” and classmates for being tall and bigger than most girls. I realize now that when you’re 11 or 12, you really aren’t supposed to take to heart the kinds of horrible things being said to you. For me though, I had remembered every word that they had said and received it as a direct blow to my confidence. I hated the person staring back at me in the mirror. I was too fat and too ugly. I turned to cutting as a mechanism to release my pain and developed anorexia.
I started losing a lot of weight and became overly depressed. I went through fainting spells. I was sent to the hospital several times, for low blood sugar as well as suicidal attempts. I just couldn’t release the idea in my mind that I wasn’t good enough for anyone to even look at. I made up reasons in my head for why I should get skinnier: to get the attention of a guy, to become a great actress, only 10 more pounds to lose, to buy smaller clothes, to look like this person, etc.
It was the reaction of the people around me that caused me to finally realize that what I was doing was stupid. My family and friends confronted me. They loved me for who I was inside and told me that that would never change. It wouldn’t matter how much I weighed. They told me that they were scared I was going to die. Seeing how much all these people loved and cared for me snapped me out of my reality. It took years for my appetite to come back up, but it was with the help and love from the people surrounding me that pushed me to normalize my eating habits and start to love myself.
I see now that I was very close to self destruction. I’m glad to have realized that everyone has their own self image issues. (Also, that the norm for US citizens is a size 12.) From time to time, I’ll revert back to those thoughts of wanting to fit a size 2 or have bouts of depression. When these thoughts cross my mind, it’s hard for me to escape, but I inch my way back up with my family and friends being the sun that guides my way.
3 comments:
Hi Lesley,
Google weirdly limits comment word counts, so I'm splitting my response up into two posts. Here's part one:
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Thank you for sharing this story. I have deep respect both for how open you are in discussing your experiences and for how honestly and introspectively you searched and found yourself: your forthrightness and path to healing and enlightenment are an inspiration and a true tale of personal victory over one of the greatest shadows of society and the media out there. That you broke free from those chains is a testament to your strength and character, particularly because the hold of these shadows and illusions on how we look at ourselves is so extreme in today's world.
And that's why in stories like this, I think it's imperative that we realize that when we are looking in that mirror, struggling with anxieties or low self-esteem, or judging how we see ourselves-- it's imperative that when we are afflicted with these kinds of thoughts, we must realize that they are not our own. The entire thought process is a projection of contemporary society's fixation on image onto our minds. The effects are so all-pervasive in their different ways both for men and women-- and this is evidence for a lot of social critics that as long as they are in this cave, the modern self-image and mind are almost like a computer that's been programmed with a language and identity that are not our own.
As I see it, that such thoughts are not our own can be a liberating discovery to make. When we are already struggling with self-image issues, it hurts all the more because we think there's something wrong with *our* hearts and thoughts: but there is not. If we are prisoners as Plato describes us, and the shadows on the wall and in our minds are not of our own making, then the cave and the puppeteers are which are corrupt, not us. The original self is pure, as is the enlightened one.
part two:
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If media-influenced negative self-esteem derives from another source than our own selves, then this, logically leads to an important pair of conclusions, conclusions which teach essential lessons about self-worth and enlightenment. This first is that, if thoughts like this are not our "own", then we should not base our identity or view of ourselves on them. In their authentic states, our identity and view of ourselves are both reflective by nature and based in self-awareness. This does not mean that society and out other environments do not play a part in how we understand ourselves, but rather that we have the choice to reject what aspects of those environments are detrimental to us and cultivate those which are healthy and productive.
This leads to the second conclusion: self-awareness entails much more than simply recognizing who that person in the mirror is----- awareness is an *active form of looking*, a proactive process of analysis and making decisions about not simply who we are looking at but what constructs that person. If we're analyzing and making choices, the interpretation and process of self-formation and discovery are interpretive: we interpret and therefore define who we are. This is empowerment at its more dynamic and sovereign level (we will be going into this idea more in the Existentialism unit). It's like a painter at work: she has to work with, learn, and understand her her materials (paint, canvass, color etc), but how she paints that canvass is up to her. It's a beautiful and significant thing reading how you are filling up that canvass and repainting it in your own aware self-image, and that you are now the artist at work on your life and view of yourself rather than the victim of puppeteers behind the screen.
For one poignant view into this theme as an essay topic, I highly recommend the movie "A Very Long Engagement". The heroine of this move Mathilde breaks through one of the most elaborate societal illusions I've ever seen represented in film, one which has even fooled her puppeteers. Her example makes for a great story in will power and conviction. That's what Joel has to do too in his own way in "Eternal Sunshine", or as a lesson in the consequences of falling victim to such illusions, "Vanilla Sky" also offers a pertinent set of morals. Finally, I haven't seen it but am suggesting the movie "Secretary" based on my girlfriend's strong recommendation of its connection to stories like yours. She's demanded that I myself see it soon, and if you pick it I'll make sure I watch it before your essay is due. Let me know if you'd like to discuss these or any other movies further, and thanks again for opening up here.
Thank goodness I saved part one! Here it is, sorry about the missing text.
part one:
---------
Thank you for sharing this story. I have deep respect both for how open you are in discussing your experiences and for how honestly and introspectively you searched and found yourself: your forthrightness and path to healing and enlightenment are an inspiration and a true tale of personal victory over one of the greatest shadows of society and the media out there. That you broke free from those chains is a testament to your strength and character, particularly because the hold of these shadows and illusions on how we look at ourselves is so extreme in today's world.
And that's why in stories like this, I think it's imperative that we realize that when we are looking in that mirror, struggling with anxieties or low self-esteem, or judging how we see ourselves-- it's imperative that when we are afflicted with these kinds of thoughts, we must realize that they are not our own. The entire thought process is a projection of contemporary society's fixation on image onto our minds. The effects are so all-pervasive in their different ways both for men and women-- and this is evidence for a lot of social critics that as long as they are in this cave, the modern self-image and mind are almost like a computer that's been programmed with a language and identity that are not our own.
As I see it, that such thoughts are not our own can be a liberating discovery to make. When we are already struggling with self-image issues, it hurts all the more because we think there's something wrong with *our* hearts and thoughts: but there is not. If we are prisoners as Plato describes us, and the shadows on the wall and in our minds are not of our own making, then the cave and the puppeteers are which are corrupt, not us. The original self is pure, as is the enlightened one.
If media-influenced negative self-esteem derives from another source than our own selves, then this, logically leads to an important pair of conclusions, conclusions which teach essential lessons about self-worth and enlightenment. This first is that, if thoughts like this are not our "own", then we should not base our identity or view of ourselves on them. In their authentic states, our identity and view of ourselves are both reflective by nature and based in self-awareness. This does not mean that society and out other environments do not play a part in how we understand ourselves, but rather that we have the choice to reject what aspects of those environments are detrimental to us and cultivate those which are healthy and productive.
This leads to the second conclusion: self-awareness entails much more than simply recognizing who that person in the mirror is----- awareness is an *active form of looking*, a proactive process of analysis and making decisions about not simply who we are looking at but what constructs that person. If we're analyzing and making choices, the interpretation and process of self-formation and discovery are interpretive: we interpret and therefore define who we are. This is empowerment at its more dynamic and sovereign level (we will be going into this idea more in the Existentialism unit). It's like a painter at work: she has to work with, learn, and understand her her materials (paint, canvass, color etc), but how she paints that canvass is up to her. It's a beautiful and significant thing reading how you are filling up that canvass and repainting it in your own aware self-image, and that you are now the artist at work on your life and view of yourself rather than the victim of puppeteers behind the screen.
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