On responsibility

I remember one of the greatest lessons taught to me both at home and at school was about responsibility. It was such a good trait in a person that even if you owned up to wrong-doing, there would be an incentive for the admission (e.g. reduced punishment). I wonder now what happened to make taking responsibility for almost anything such a dirty affair.

Do you know when people are quick to claim responsibility for things? When things go right! Politicians, for example, are a great at speaking of their triumphs in war, claiming they achieved this or that target. For a moment it would be possible to convince yourself that Barack Obama was literally holding the firearm that killed Osama bin Laden, such was the claim that “we got him”. In science journals a string of names appear as the “researchers”, and if the discovery or finding is big news enough, the person giving the interview will be the person who runs the research institute or the head of the lab – not the little guy who actually did all the intellectual and physical work. Similarly in medicine, especially in teaching hospitals, the name of the consultant will always be quoted as the guy who did the surgery or who treated a patient’s complex medical problems – where in reality the consultant probably has never laid eyes on the patient. But I am, of course, talking about when things go right, the successes. The culture extends all the way to clinical records, as I have had to explain to patients in the past:  “I know the information is about you, and it was collected and written by me, but it belongs neither to you or me apparently but to the person who lent me the pen and paper (or computer) with which I recorded the information”. Or at least this is what I have been told in the past by previous employers… Imagine if the same had been done to the great poets and writers of the past. Mark Twain would not have made a cent from the proceeds of the sale of Huckleberry Finn but the manufacturer of the pen and paper he wrote with would have made some very easy money!

Now, when things go wrong in medicine, it’s not the hospital’s or the clinic’s fault, it’s not the consultant’s fault – then it is all about the little guy. When competitions are won, a whole nation claims victory; but when they are lost, it’s the one competitor or team who is the loser. When corruption is uncovered, it is always said it was just one person’s fault, not the institution or the culture that drove him to it, etc. We have become very quick to deny responsibility for ourselves and distance ourselves from all negative events. Unfortunately, this has come to extend to our personal lives too.

If there is one thing I pride myself on is trying to be an understanding and non-judgemental human being. I have met people, though, who confuse taking responsibility with admitting fault, and therefore they refuse/avoid/delay taking responsibility at all. We are all shaped by our childhood experiences, past relationships, our genetics, formal and informal education, etc. All these things together shape how we are today. Now, one or more of those things may have been a profound traumatic negative experience that has gone on to shape us significantly – and maybe even negatively. As a result of that experience perhaps we become highly attuned to certain words people say (perhaps words bullies may have used) or to misinterpreting body language or we come to expect that certain words will be followed by physical abuse, etc. When you experienced those things before it was perhaps appropriate to retaliate or go on the defence. The thing is when you are no longer in that situation and you continue to react as if you were, that is when our own actions/defence become our offense. That is when we hurt ourselves more, or others too. Now, as I said, I can understand this and I can forgive this. No one is saying it is your fault you are the way you are; and it’s certainly not your fault those negative things may have happened to you (emotional or physical abuse, etc.), but it is each individual’s responsibility to decide whether they want to continue to be and act the same or to change. I see the person who refuses to change, who points out how it’s not their fault, who perhaps feels guilt but not motivation to change, as someone caught up in victimhood. And as I have stated many times before, we are not victims of our past but rather the creators of our own future. And trust me, there are still plenty of incentives out there for those that do stand up courageously and take responsibility.

On excuses, reasons, and choice

I met someone some time ago who had some personality features I didn’t quite like. We were close for a time and so I told her that some of the things she did bothered and sometimes even hurt me. She told me that it was all because that’s just how she was, that that’s how she had turned out after been raped as a teenager by her father. Of course, that is a terrible thing to happen to anyone and I know it takes a lot of courage to tell your own story. And, of course, I also realise that childhood sexual abuse really does mess you up in so many ways! The strangeness of this particular situation was that this friend said to me fairly often “that’s just how I am” and reminded me about her father. I knew; I wasn’t going to forget what she had told me – it was something deeply serious! However, after so many times that she told me that that’s how she is and it’s due to the childhood sexual abuse she had suffered, I remembered that she wasn’t the only person this had happened to. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very sad and disturbing thing and every single person this happens to will experience it differently and will be affected differently by it in the long-term. However, I felt that with me she was using it as an excuse for her behaviour so as to avoid apology, or – God forbid – change.

I have known a very many people who have been sexually abused as children and not everyone was as mean as this ‘friend’ was to me; they weren’t obligated to be mean by reason of their terrible experiences. When I remembered this, and at the last straw with this friend, I walked away from it all. Yes, I know that people with histories of abuse in childhood are more likely to have a personality disorder in adulthood than those who never had those experiences. And yet I also believe in the human potential for change. I know that you can take away every choice from a child when he is abused. I also know that at some point a child becomes and adult and all adults have the choice to continue to be victims to the past or to progress from there. It’s a choice. My friend wasn’t without awareness of how her personality and the things she said and did hurt others (myself included), and she was a very smart woman academically and creatively. When I told her that something she did or said hurt me, she didn’t say “I’m sorry. I will try not to do it again”. No, she would say, “that’s just how I am. You know with what my dad did to me”. Yes, I knew that. I also knew he wasn’t currently doing that her; she was no longer a victim, she was just choosing to continue to wear the victim cloak as an excuse not to alter her adult behaviour. Finally, it hurt me too much to continue to be her friend when she found it easier to say “this is how I am” than to alter her behaviour to prevent hurting those that were simply trying to be a good friend to her.

On me... and turning 30

It’s funny, if you ask some people who have really gotten to know me intimately they’ll tell you that I have several different personalities. These people have at times asked me who is the “real” Vanessa. I can tell you straight out that ALL of them are. If you’d met me some years ago and asked me to list the things that to me are the most important in life I would have told you: family, love, expression, enjoyment, spirituality, and work. If you met me at another point in my life I would have answered exactly the same thing – but in a different order! That is where my “inconsistencies” lie, but actually I am just very average J

The self-hating years

The single most hurtful thing ever said to me was “you’ve had a perfect life”. Yeah, it was hurtful because it was said by someone close to me who obviously didn’t know me much at all. I don’t believe there are such things as perfect lives or perfect childhoods, everyone does the best with what they’re given. I don’t know if I am (or was?) autistic to a degree, but I never really connected with anyone as a child. And it didn’t bother me to have no friends; I was quite happy in my own inner world, my make-believe play, and reading books to learn something that interested me. At age 10 I was faced with circumstances that are actually very common in most cultures but that I would never wish upon anyone. As a result of this I lost the ability to trust, to believe, to feel safe and worthwhile. From then on I started hating more than just my own physical self, but also my future self, believing that I deserved nothing good to ever come to me in my life. It was very draining, and my inner world grew increasingly darker and I became more and more self-deprecating.

At about the age of 20, after I had finished my undergraduate degree in science, the self-loathing and self-denial of my own need to be human finally climaxed. I started psychotherapy for the first time then. What came of it? My single greatest victory was to forgive those that had hurt me and to forgive myself for being hurt. It seems so miniscule and meaningless that I can summarise it in one sentence, but the amount of healing the simple act of swapping the words “sorry” for “thank you” is hardly able to be explained. I finally stopped apologising for being Vanessa, for allowing myself as a child to be hurt, and I stopped apologising for the simple fact of being alive. Instead I started to be grateful to be alive and I allowed myself to have (and not feel guilty about having) human needs of personal fulfilment and achievement. It was a very slow process to accept myself, to disrobe myself of the self-loathing, to finally become and be comfortable in being Vanessa in all my forms.

At 24 my curiosity and interest in spiritual matters brought me to commit to Christianity after having studied several theological and philosophical systems for many years. What lead me to finally make this commitment was that I came to understand that it’s ok to not be perfect, it’s human nature, and that the ability to feel connection to God is not barred to me or anyone else regardless of their past, present, or future. That was spiritual commitment and to some extent also fulfilment. During and after this time I also gradually learnt to not hate or feel ashamed of my physical appearance, of my lack of social skills, of my naivety, and of all these things I had for which I felt I couldn’t be like “normal” people. I guess in all this I may have eventually overshot the mark  :P

The self-loving years

I was around 26 before I could bear the thought of being ok with being seeing as me, as a complete and separate person of my own. I guess by that stage I had allowed people to get to know me, all aspects of me, and to become my friends who I could trust and expect some trust and caring in return. I grew more confident in many things also. I finally was not afraid or concerned to be seen for me. I was nearly 27 before I finally allowed myself to remove my clothes off in front of another human being – someone of my choosing and with my full consent. This part was the hardest step for me, the rest was quite easy. And in fact it probably got to be a bit too easy J

My mistake was that after I learnt to love myself, I probably started to love only myself. I started to consider romantic partners as purely things to increase my own enjoyment and happiness. They say that people with histories of abuse most often become either one of two things in their future relationships: the abuser or the abused. I had decided from when I was 20 and started therapy, that I would never again be a victim of abuse. And so here I was, playing out another role. I had never had a time in my life when I didn’t feel guilty about being alive, but maybe at times it would have been good to at least feel pity for others. Needless to say, several  partners later, I still wasn’t a winner. Despite me finally being able to love myself and form sort of bonds with others, I still hadn’t learnt what it was like to love others. I mean, of course, what it was like to be in love.

The loving years

Wait, having sex and making love aren’t the same things?... No. I eventually learnt that too. June 2010, or sometime after that, I fell in love for the first time in my life! How did I know it was different? Because I found myself missing someone else, wanting someone else’s approval, feeling safe and confident to be associated with someone, feeling a part of something very special. It didn’t last long and I was a different kind of sad to what I’d previously known when it ended. But you know what bothered me most about it ending? Because after all those years it had taken me to convince myself that I was a worthy human being, the overwhelming message I was getting was that I wasn’t worthy of another being’s sacrifice to be with me. My partner wouldn’t sacrifice any of the things I would have sacrificed in a heartbeat to be with them. And that hurt me so much. It was like being told all over again that I wasn’t a worthy human being. But this time I didn’t believe it for long, because sometimes all you can do is let go and remember that regardless of what someone may think of me, I am still Vanessa.

And then the unthinkable happened and I fell in love for the second time in my life. Wow! What a blessing it was. It was beyond what I had ever imagined;  my new love met and exceeded every standard I ever had. This was truly the love of my life, the one person you could have sworn was fabricated purely using every guideline for a good person I had in my mind. Words can’t do this story justice. Of course, I was in love with this person so you’d be right in saying I am biased, but I didn’t care what anyone had to say. The only approval I needed in this world was from this one person . Truly, never have I felt so secure, so safe, so myself, so part of something greater than special, than when I was part of this partnership. Then the worst thing happened! The worst thing to have happened to me at this moment in time after what I’ve been through, I mean. There were reasons for it, but I was left alone again. I only wish I had been given a chance to correct my flaws, that whatever good was at first seen in me (what I think I see in myself too) would have been worthy of another chance, of a sacrifice. Or am I really not as worthy as I think I am?

The years of being loved

I hope in future to be loved, but it’s not enough just to be loved here and now. I hope to have someone fall in love with me truly, to want me, to wish to be with me, and that this wish is enough to motivate the things every successful relationship needs: compromise and self-sacrifice. I am worth it, right? I think I am. It’s been 30 years, and I’m ready to be loved the way I eventually learnt to love too. I am ready for so many things. But I am ready mostly to say that only God can judge me for my life.

On skin

I was sitting in with a dermatologist one day learning about skin conditions of the type that are severe enough to make it into hospital. Before I went in to sit with him (as an observer) I had to wait out in the waiting room with his patients. I noticed a red man there with lots of fine scale on his blue work shirt and around his chair. There was also an older lady who I could not discern anything of note from where I was sitting. Then I went in to the dermatologist’s room to sit in the corner as any good medical student.

The man I had seen in the waiting room came in. He was quite animated and greeted both me and the specialist with a handshake and a big smile on his face. He was having another flare up of his psoriasis because he had been working out on a roof (he was a painter, I believe) and didn’t wear his usual long-sleeve shirt that in the Brisbane summer is only best described as torture. He was bright red (beyond what I had learnt the word erythema meant) and was shedding layers of skin everywhere, even as he talked and sat. He had come in his work clothes and he offered to remove it so that I, the medical student, could see and learn just how bad psoriasis can get. He was not a bit embarrassed, and he thought he owed to show me at least the worst spots of the disease, which extended literally from his feet to his face. After his treatment was sorted out and different work strategies were discussed to prevent such frequent exacerbations, he left with a smile even bigger than the one he came in with. The dermatologist explained to me afterwards that he was an extreme example, that he was the worst even he had seen, and that the man was remarkable to continue on with his employment and in such great spirits. I must admit, until that day, I had never even seen any psoriasis at all except in books – and that was not ‘typical’.

The second patient we saw was the other lady I had seen out in the waiting room. She came in, sat down, pulled her skirt up above her knees, and started crying. There were two small psoriatic plaques on her knees, about 4cm long by 1cm wide. The plaques were raised and had some scaly skin on top. There was no redness. This was devastating to her because this was the second or so time this had happened to her in the last four years. One knee, two small spots, and not inflamed. She apologized for having to show us such “disgusting” things that were on her knees; she was clearly embarrassed. The dermatologist treated her as if he had not just seen actually bad psoriasis and tried to dissipate her concerns and offer medical therapy for her skin. I was stunned to see how incredibly emotional she was and how humiliated she seemed to be!

One day I was out walking with a friend and she was telling me how she had always struggled to feel comfortable in her skin because she had a skin condition since she was very young. I had of course noted her skin appearance, but it had never occurred to me that she felt self-conscious about it. She told me how she imagined people thought of her because of her skin. They might think she is unhygienic and her skin is disgusting, that she is ugly and possibly ‘retarded’ or suffering some greater disorder. She said she imagined people would speak of her and comment on how ugly and disgusting she looked, and they would laugh and make fun of her. Just then a group of adolescents with skateboards went past us and were laughing amongst themselves. She said episodes like that made her think it was her they were laughing at. I felt at that moment not pity for her for having a skin condition, but rather offended as a human being not of what she thought people said of her, but what she thought of us, us people other than her.

I had one question to ask her: what did she think when she saw a person with a skin condition like hers? Did she think they were ugly and disgusting? Would she laugh and mock them? She responded no, of course not! I asked her then if she was special, was there something about her that meant she was a good person and the rest of humanity were judgemental, spiteful human beings? She said no, she wasn’t special. Of course she would never think she was special, her problem was one of low self-esteem not a heightened arrogant one! Well, I said, if she is not special and she would never think that way of anyone, what made her think anyone else would think that of her? Here she was accusing strangers, others, of being spiteful, judgmental, arrogant people with vicious mocking thoughts in their minds. Freud called it projecting, the act of ascribing to other attitudes and feelings you personally have. I believe no medical condition, handicap, special ability, money, or other advantage or disadvantage entitles you to cast judgement on other human beings!

There’s an early movie by Pedro Almodóvar called ‘Dark Habits’ in which a group of nuns take on the names such as Sister Manure, Sister Rat, Sister Damned, and Sister Snake. The aim is to humiliate themselves and remind people how even the “good” ones of us are despicable; they believe that “man will not be saved until he realizes he is the most despicable being ever created”. By the end of the film all the nuns have become either prostitutes, drug addicts, drug dealers, and other such “sinners” befitting of their adopted names. At the end, a higher-order cleric visits them to shut their order down and reminds them that sometimes “humility” can be the worst kind of arrogance when you wear it for a badge. Nothing that attracts pity entitles you to act carelessly or exonerates you from being responsible for what you say or do.

On labels and self-esteem

I was discussing with a friend of mine one day on how sometimes the worst thing we can do is label ourselves. See, ever since I met my friend she told me she’s a very shy girl – and I guess she is, but it’s not all she is.

Now, the issue of shyness is very close to my heart because I was painfully shy up until the time I started high school. And when I say ‘painfully’, I mean it really did cause me a lot of psychological stress. A lot of people who’ve met me in the last few years would find it hard to believe that I was once a shy person, but anyone from my family could confirm to you how true this is. When I was in primary school (both in Australia and in El Salvador), through every year I progressed, my teachers would speak to my mum to ask why I didn’t interact with any of the other children. I guess the concern was that I was autistic or had some sort of sensory deficit. My mum would explain to them, year after year, that I didn’t have a speech impediment, that I really both understood and spoke the language, and that I could communicate verbally. Academically, I scored at least average grades in classes so at least they didn’t believe I was intellectually impaired, but was always just “something” about me. I knew there was something too, but I knew it was from my extreme shyness. Whenever I did speak, I whispered so that no-one but myself could hear me speak. I was at the same time embarrassed to express myself and embarrassed to be so socially awkward. The solution to this problem was to continue silent.

As I grew older and started high-school I suddenly felt almost compelled to express myself – and in many forms. Some of my classmates whom I’d been to primary school with were absolutely shocked to see me for the first time speak, joke around, and finally have something to contribute verbally. Of course, although it did seem like a magical change in me, I guess I had also just been through puberty and the adolescent psychosocial needs of expression and personal identity were also taking over. I also did not improve in all arenas suddenly, and there are some social spheres I still struggle with, but becoming more self-aware of the problem also enabled me to seek help to improve. As with anyone who speaks of self-improvement will tell you, first you have to believe that you can change (and have the right motivation, and the desire to change, etc. etc.). But therein lies the problem of labelling yourself, because once you label yourself, you adopt the role and you forget that you can change if you’re motivated enough.

We often say "I'm shy" or "I'm depressed" and it's a much heavier statement than saying "I feel anxious in some social situations" or "sometimes I feel very down". The difficulty is that once we label ourselves it becomes a shield to hide behind (and not usually on purpose), that keeps us stagnant. If I start believing that I'm shy (or depressed) and I start describing myself as such, I will start acting like that at all times because that's what I've come to accept is my personality. It's very debilitating to label yourself long-term as anything because it limits your ability to grow. Whereas I could say, “I'm feeling sad right now”, if I say “I'm a depressed person” then I'm not describing a feeling but myself - and human beings don't find it easy to change what is essentially a part of themselves. I think of it as the equivalent as describing your skin colour; that's what our personalities can become if we describe ourselves by our character traits. It becomes as inescapable as our own skin. You soon can't get rid of your "shyness" or your "depression" the same way you can't change your skin. And what's worse is that one day it'll stop bothering us and we'll simply say "I can't and won't be happy because I'm a depressed person" or "I won't meet anyone new because I'm a shy person"...

There’s a speech by Margaret Cho, comedienne, that I’ve included below that describes much better than I ever could the negative consequences of lacking self-esteem, which I guess a big part of shyness is (at least in my experience).

From ‘The Notorious C.H.O.’
I have self-esteem, which is pretty amazing because I am probably someone who wouldn’t necessarily have a lot of self-esteem as I am considered a minority.

And if you are a woman, if you are a person of colour, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender; if you are a person of size, if you are person of intelligence, if you are a person of integrity – then you are considered a minority in this world! And it's going to be really hard for us to find messages of self-love and support anywhere, especially women’s and gay men’s culture. It’s all about how you have to look a certain way, or else you're worthless. You know, when you look in the mirror and you think, "Ugh, I'm so fat, I'm so old, I’m so ugly"? Don't you know that's not your authentic self? But that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising. Magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself, so that you will take your hard earned money and spend it at the mall on some turn-around cream that doesn't turn around shit.

When you don’t have self-esteem, you will hesitate before you do anything in your life. You will hesitate to go for the job you really want to go for. You will hesitate to ask for a raise. You will hesitate to call yourself an American. You will hesitate to report a rape. You will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote. You will hesitate to dream.

For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue.

On "becoming" beautiful

I recently bought a new camera and I’ve just been taking photos of all sorts of random things and people. One of the things most people will often say to me when I ask to take their photo, though, is “not now, I look horrible”... Now, to myself I think “but this is how these people have chosen to present themselves today, why would that be ‘horrible’?” As I was thinking this, it reminded me of something I noticed a while ago – and maybe it has something to do with self-identity or the human concept of “beauty”. At the same time, I don’t want to be a hypocrite, and I’ll admit I once thought like those people.

Beauty is a very difficult to define concept, of course. You could say a rose is beautiful and say a woman’s face is beautiful, and not mean that the woman’s face looks like a rose. Also, one man’s wife may be beautiful to him but another man who has just met her may think nothing of her. There’s subjectivity involved, history and knowledge of a thing’s other than physical attributes involved, circumstance, and relativity of one thing to another of its kind.

I’ve always liked to take photos of things – just for fun. When I was younger I started to notice how some of the best photos to take are of children. Not all children, but children who are young enough to recognize themselves in a mirror, but not so young as to be too easily distractible when they’re awake. And when I say “the best photos”, I mean those that are most close to reality, the one’s that replicate a moment in time a little closer to the truth. I took so many photos of one of my nieces at one stage because with this childhood innocence came this absolute sincerity that even a camera (in my unskilled hands) could capture. Now, this little girl was just being herself and making it so easy for me to capture that “self”, so I took so many photos because I knew that the day would come where she would ask me if she looked ‘good’ in a photo. In fact what happened was that she then went to school and was taught to smile whenever a camera was in front of her. Don’t get me wrong, she was still beautiful, her appearance evolving with age (as it never ceases to do during our lifespan), but she had lost that sincerity that once came so naturally to her – and all because someone taught her that an attractive – and so photo-worthy face – must have a smile on it. A smile can make any face beautiful, that’s true, but that was probably first said about sincere smiles.

Before this period, though, my niece went through a stage where she figured out that the thing looking back at her in the mirror was herself. She had learnt before that what the general concept of a human face was: two eyes, nose, two nostrils, ears, mouth, hair, and attached to the rest of a body with arms, legs, etc. We first learn by stereotype, it’s essential; the world is just too difficult to comprehend otherwise. The fun times were standing in front of the mirror, her and me, pointing at this little person in the mirror and she realising it was herself because she is standing next to a person that looks exactly like me. Then she would laugh for ages. Most children will do that. They don’t notice that their clothes are all stained from when they spilt food on themselves, that there is things in their hair that came from the grass in the backyard. All these things are inconsequential details, the reality is that there in the mirror are two human beings, one which is herself, and one someone other than herself. This is self-awareness.

To return to photos, though. What is the first thing you notice when you look back at old photos? Yourself! Inevitably that is what you notice, it’s probably instinctual. You disregard the surroundings and the other people in the photo, and it’s not vanity, it’s just constancy to recognize yourself as you once were (because all moments are always in the past). Everybody has a self-image, a physical image and also a cognitive one that would recognize your own style of reasoning or speaking, for example. So the next thing we do with photos is to compare the image in the photo with our internal self-image, but also to this other image about “beautiful” human beings we have been conditioned to believe. So, often the internal thought process goes “does this look like me? does it look like me at my best physical appearance? and, does it look like those models in magazines and film actors?” When we were children the thought process was, “what is it? is it human?” and “who is it?”. Things were much simpler then. So, I won’t go on about how this “beautiful human being” mental image came to be formed because most people can probably guess it already.

My niece grew up, and she still likes photos; she even knows how to pose now. The skill difference between professional models and the rest of us is that the pros know how to look natural in a completely staged environment. That “natural” look and certain biometric features that some scientists with lack of better things to study have found is what we usually define as beauty. But my niece is beautiful too. She is beautiful because she’s my little girl, because she is a child, because there’s this sincerity about her, and because I love her. I’ve said nothing of her appearance, but you get the concept of a beautiful child like the hundreds we’ve all seen before. She is confident in herself and of her appearance. She’ll always let you take her photo, as long as you know she will always smile on cue for you.

But now, as adults, a lot of the people I come across don’t want their photo taken because they don’t look “beautiful” enough. I didn’t want a photo of a “beautiful” person, if I did I’d have cut it out of a magazine; I wanted a photo of the person who I’m asking. Has this image of un-beauty been so deeply ingrained in us or is it a universal lack of self-esteem that makes us shy away?

You know what else I’ve noticed in the last few years also? That the people that make good photos to take of are, other than children, the elderly and indigenous people with little exposure to western society. People of poor countries also have a tendency to view a request from a friend for a photo as a gesture similar to asking for a glass of water: ‘gladly, my friend, if I have enough to give’. And why do they care less than the average person about their appearance? I think because they think of a photo just as that, a thing that eventually will just come to be on a piece of paper as a representation of an event in time. But what about the elderly? Well, then I started thinking that perhaps they have had more time to have also come to this same reasoning, but also to accept their own physical appearance and it’s changing nature.

I was twenty-six by the time I finally stopped feeling ashamed of my own body. My weight has fluctuated since I was young, and since about the age of 12 I was ashamed of it. I’ve always struggled with low self-esteem despite my family thinking that I was OK because I got good grades at school, inside there was this loathing of myself from the core to my very skin. I felt ashamed of my body, to be who I was and how I was, and the last thing I wanted was to look at myself and let alone let anyone else see me. Mirrors were extremely uncomfortable places for me to stand in front of. Having to have a photo taken was almost an offensive gesture made at me. I didn’t want to look at myself. Anyhow, the whole thing made my life not very interactive and lonesome when I was young, though with study commitments I gradually expanded the number of things I became comfortable doing.

When I was 26, in my final year of med school, I finally came to the realisation that this was it, that this was my body, that this is who Vanessa was and I would just have to accept it. I finally realised that the people who spoke to me, who befriended me, or who were otherwise associated with me had chosen to do so despite of what horribleness I thought I looked like. If others could interact with me so easily, accept me as I was, then why should I not? The realisation sounds so simple now, but it had taken me 26, almost 27, years to reach. After that, it made romantic relationships easier to conceive, both in my mind and physically. I felt more at ease with being my true self. And even though 26 (or since) was probably not my best year in terms of physical appearance, I finally also accepted the changing nature of my appearance. And guess what? I finally stopped caring about what I looked like in photos.