I Am A Beautiful Bitch

“Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it….” I repeated over and over again in my mind.

I know what she’s about to say, and as I anticipated her words, I also anticipated the shame I felt afterward.

“You’re beautiful; you get prettier every year!” my friend’s Mom excitedly shouted, and my stomach dropped.

I had just returned to my stale suburb the summer after spending a shit first year in New York City, newly single and feeling miserable.

My limiting belief I carried with me since I was 12 years old is reaffirmed: the more beautiful I am, the more likely I’ll turn into a stripper.

Did anyone else hold that belief, or was it just me? Did anyone else hate being called beautiful because they associated these words with the belief that the prettier you are, the stupider you are, and the more likely you’d become a stripper because your beauty is all you have?

Just me? Cool.

What was ingrained into my childhood conditioning was my beauty was all I had. The beliefs my father would beat into me every night at the dinner table since I was 12 years old that I was too stupid to achieve my dreams. I would only amount to becoming a stripper when I grew up and only capable of entertaining men for money.

I often wonder why abuse always happened at the peak of dinner. Couldn’t he have until dessert?

In his eyes, my worth was worth pennies or, I guess, dollar bills…(whatever strippers make these days.)

In his eyes, my intelligence was non-existent.

In his eyes, I served no higher purpose in this world but to show my symmetrical face.

All I was, was beautiful, and to only be beautiful was a bitch. My beauty was used as a weapon to hold me back from being treated well by men. As hard as I fought to live a life breaking the limiting beliefs my father cursed me by thriving in the fashion industry with the labels of Marc Jacobs and Tommy Hilfiger, I still somehow swam in a pool of rejection by choosing partners who shamed my symmetrical face.

Every boyfriend started pleasant and well-intentioned, but eventually, they all began speaking to me in that same familiar way.

Boyfriend #1:

“You’re so beautiful. It sucks.”

Then proceeds to cheat on me with a waitress the day before I moved to New York City.

Boyfriend #2:

“I used to think you’re out of my league because of the way you look, but now I see how unintelligent you are.”

Then proceeds to get into a Vespa accident, breaking his leg, and taking advantage of my codependency by guilty me into taking care of him.

Boyfriend #3:

“You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever been with.”

Proceeds to be so emotionally abusive for 5 years which I then turned into a successful podcast and built a career as a trauma writing coach.

The traumas of my past kept me in a toxic cycle of dating toxic men. It didn’t matter how successful, talented, and hard-working I was in my career.

Men who fed the narrative of my symmetrical face were to blame for their insecurities. So, therefore, I was unworthy, making my father right that I would never reach success.

I didn’t ask for these high cheekbones.

I didn’t ask for these glass-like almond eyes.

I didn’t ask for this face symmetry.

If anyone wants it, you can have it because I’d rather reach my dreams instead of becoming a stripper, a fate that men have made me believe I’d fall into for being a beautiful bitch.

I can’t swap my face with another, but I can numb the pain that comes with the compliments of my beauty. I can learn not to feel anything when someone calls me beautiful. I can learn to fall into my imagination if someone tells me I’m pretty or gorgeous. I can imagine I’m ugly, and I’m just a living charity case, showered in compliments to make me feel better about myself.

I can have a radical un-acceptance for my “good looks.” I can convince myself I’m ugly long enough to make my dreams come true.

To keep moving, going, driving, swimming towards the life I deserve, knowing every once in a while, someone will call me beautiful, and the triggers come out like little daggers stabbing at my heart, amplifying the voice that tells me I am unworthy.

Every once in a while, someone will call me beautiful, and the story I was told since I was 12 years old will play out again, making the experience of reenactment a true bitch.