According to a certain student's counselor there are three groups of students. The first two are really just normal students, who are either doing really great or make do. I belong in the third group. We're women in our early 20s, who suffer some kind of mental breakdown in the beginning of the 5th semester. I made it one week into the 5th semester before I cracked. I actually didn't even make it one day before I was sitting in a classroom not being able to breathe.
Why does this happen? No one knows. Guesses are too high expectations from ourselves, perhaps combined with all the harassment from the government, that's been going on for the past maybe 5 years. We need to start right after high school and we need to finish our Bachelor's degree within 3 years. To quote a friend: "Only the fucked up ones get their degree within 3 years".
Finishing my degree this summer is now impossible. I dropped a class. I couldn't go and I couldn't get anything done. When I went I felt like crap. I felt physically ill. Now I'm 25 percent of a semester behind and finishing in 3 years is no longer an option. Finishing my upcoming exam is now a possibility, not an obvious statement.
Women are faced with so many thoughts of what perfect is and how they should achieve it. Diet commercials feature slim women, every picture in the media is airbrushed and even the Dove "Love your body" commercials feature normal sized, but hot women, where none has a ugly mole or a huge scar across their stomach. And they all seem to be naturally hairless.
Women are told they need to look perfect in a very specific way. And not only that, we're also told we need to achieve so many things before we're even 30. Get an education (set by their rules, of course), get good grades, get a good job, marry a nice man, have 1.8 perfect kids, who never scream or throw fits in the supermarket. And be happy. How the fuck is the average woman supposed to achieve all that? I am not happy. I tried to get an education and good grades. I have the best man in the world, but I don't plan on marrying him. Any kids that might be born in the future will definitely scream, have runny noses half the time and demand a breastfeed in the supermarket. I am not a woman then.
I expect way too much from myself. I honestly want to be perfect. Maybe I was born this way, maybe I wasn't. One thing's for certain, my perfectionism does have something to do with society's view on women. What if the media told me I was good enough? What if ugly and fat weren't the most offensive words you could tell a woman? What if someone told girls that they could be anything they wanted and be fucking badass doing it? I think a part of me wants to be perfect so that I will achieve something in my life and so that I will at least be something.
I don't even know what perfect is. I have never met someone, who was perfect. Perfect, flawless homes and people actually scare me. Yet I want to obtain that perfect. If I am to hand in 10 assignments and one is just a teeny, tiny bit wrong, I won't even care if the others are graded "good" and "very good". If I go to a party and have a nice time, the only thing I'll think about the next day is that awkward moment when I tripped in the pit. And that I probably looked ridiculous.
I really want society to change. I'm fucked up already, but I really wish that newborns today wouldn't have the face the same shit that I have faced. I don't want my kid cousins to have to live up to some fucked up standards of how they should be as women. I want a new world.
So I'm gonna start off right here. I am not perfect. My body is not perfect. I look to thin and scrawny and sometimes my own ribs disgust me. My left boob is bigger than my right. I get bladder infections and can't have sex with my boyfriend. I have a huge patch of very pale skin on my leg, that will never tan before of a pigment defect I was born with. I have scars all over my body. I have an ugly tattoo. I have a big nose. My teeth are not straight. I have a beauty mark a place you'd only see if we got naked together. I hate myself. I get depressed. I self harm. I get drunk and puke. I am way too touchy. I cry a lot. I get anxiety attacks. I'm picky about my food and will secretly hate you if it is cooked in some very specific ways. I am a perfectionist.
But I am still a woman. I have been happy before and hopefully I will again. Maybe one day I'll even love myself
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