The World “Ugly”
“The first time I found out I was ugly in the fourth grade…you’re so ugly you look like a monkey..isn’t she ugly…isn’t she ugly he screamed, not knowing that the fabrication of the creation of this little girl was being ripped at at the seams”- Olivia Brown (excerpt from poem “Ugly”)
Thus the downward spiral began…..
…Fastforward to Highschool
“I would wear Multiple lashes stacked on each other like glue them all together they would cast a shadow under my eye..I knew it was a lot but I couldn’t imagine myself without them. I hated my face without them.
“Months would pass by and I would leave false lashes on my eyes, it literally got so bad my eyelids developed styes” - Olivia Brown (excerpt from poem “Ugly”)
My freshman year I would change 100 times (which is a hyperbolic statement but it felt so true) before an event and struggle trying to find the perfect outfit.
We (my friends and I) would be late....all the time, because of me.
As soon as I came in the building, I would go to the bathroom and look at myself and then proceed to go into a room. Every time I would leave I would go into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror and then proceed to leave. I never needed to actually use the bathroom, but a panic would settle in and tell me “You’re not okay you need to go check on yourself”…even though NOTHING about my appearance had changed
Every time I would leave a room going to the bathroom to look at myself.
One time I left class...I was having like an insecurity attack (when the lies of the enemy were so overwhelmingly loud in my ears my heart would race).
I came into the bathroom (this was when I first stopped surrendered wearing weave and makeup my freshman year in college) and I was just bombarded with the lies of your so ugly you’re disgusting, you’re not attractive...I stayed in the bathroom the whole class even lied to my friend in the class and told her I had family emergency.
It affected the way I made eye contact. didn’t want to look people in the eyes or be around people all for them to see “how ugly I am”...I was literally hesitant to go around people, go to events, or even go in the hallway of my dorm. This is how paralyzed “ugly” made me.
Then one summer, at a camp I worked at, there was this beautiful little girl blossoming into a young woman we were in swim clinic and she asked me to take her to the bathroom...and I saw it...I saw the spirit and I saw me....I asked her if she had to go she said no.
So I took her she looked in the mirror and then she said ok I’m good...I asked her to look back into that same mirror and I read her my poem “ugly” (my personal story of the lies I accepted about myself that came from the first time I was called ugly in elementary school “you’re sooo ugly you look like a monkey” And explained the downward spiral I went through from that very day until the Lord met me and held me in all my pain and self hatred and gently removed each layer and showed me how He sees me; his precious daughter….she began to cry…I told her....I do this; go to the bathroom to look at myself...she told me no matter how beautiful people tell her she is she doesn’t believe it....crazy thing is this girl is strong so beautiful so vibrant..I never would have imagined her telling me this...
The next night at the camp she handed me a journal and lead me to the mirror in the bathroom. She stood in front of the mirror and told me to write what I see when I see her. I breathed in and asked the Lord “How do you see your daughter” and He began to write the words from heaven about how He views His precious child.
And that’s when I knew….."This is why You brought me here God”.