self-im∙age//

Let's talk about it.

This is low-key a very rambly #RealTalk post, so if you get through the whole thing, you're a real one 💛

So, recently I made a big change in my appearance. I cut about 8 inches off of my hair. This may not seem like a big deal, but to me, it was a huge milestone of self-growth and self-identity. It made me feel freed.

What is self-image?

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self-im·age /ˈˌself ˈimij/ noun the idea one has of one's abilities, appearance, and personality.

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In my final semester of university, we were tasked to write a Personal Value Reflection. Upon writing mine, I received feedback from one of my dearest professors. I had written in my PVR that I'd always been very girly and loved to dress up from a young age. I had also written an insert about growing up with childhood cancer.

My professor hit me with this:

"After reading your PVR, I feel like I have such a better understanding of who you are, and why you are the way that you are. Have you ever thought about why you enjoy getting dolled up, having long hair, eyelashes, nails, and wearing heels?"

He said to correct him if he's wrong, but he felt like all this was almost my way of subconsciously OVERCOMPENSATING for the time I had spent being bald and mistaken for a boy numerous times (when I lost all my hair from chemotherapy.) That I had taken on this aesthetic and need to be hyperfeminine-- quite literally so no one could mistake me for a boy again lol. Funny, but not funny. Heh.

This is weeee lil me when my hair was growing back, and when I relapsed I think. There are pictures of bald 3-year-old me, but that's a little too depressing lol.

Damn Angela, why you gotta make everything so damn emotional and serious 😒

With that whole, "losing all my hair" numerous times thing, I had grown the most obscene emotional attachment to my hair. It was everything.

My long hair was my femininity, my desirability, my identity.

I think what made this attachment even stronger, is that after finally having the long hair I had always dreamed of, and spending years INTENTIONALLY only getting trims once every 1-2 years, I had to go through it all over again. In f*cking highschool. I was a wreck lol.

My hair went from this:

To this:

... In a matter of months. The first picture is wig btw. If you went to high school with me, and you're reading this, I wore a wig for basically all of grade 11. 🙃 The second picture was after I completed my full course (1 year) of chemotherapy.

So yeah, I kinda wanted to die lol. Once I was done with chemo, I vowed again to never cut my hair lol. So after about 2 years, all of my thickness came back and I grew it out again.

And then I had a dream-- NO LIE.

About a month ago I had a dream that I cut off all my hair. I had a lob. When I woke up, I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks. I literally made a split-second decision one morning that I was gonna get a lob. What triggered me besides the dream? My mom looked at my ends that morning and said, "Oh I think you're due for a trim." And that was it.

*second picture is me 10 years ago with the same haircut lmao*

SO SORRY 'BOUT ALL THE RAMBLES

But back to the main idea: self-image

For those of you who don't know, I got the quote "I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become" tatted on me. It is my life mantra.

I try my best not to let what I have gone through, and what people say and think about me affect how I see my ability to do things, my personality, and my physical appearance. Self-confidence plays such a big role in your self-image. When you are confident in yourself, TRULY, it's hard for someone else's opinions to sway your views about your own person. I think growing up thinking you don't look feminine enough or thinking you're just plain ugly, kinda f*cks up how you behave and socialize. I was really shy growing up. Like REALLY shy. At times it could be debilitating. Looking back now, I feel like a lot of that shyness stemmed from thinking I wasn't pretty enough and that people wouldn't like or value me for that. A lot of that also probably came from growing up in a predominantly white community, where everyone popular was white lol-- race tying into this is a story for another time heheh. But I think what I'm trying to get at is this: It takes people a really long time to find themselves, grow, and understand that what other people think really doesn't matter. If you're going through a shitty time or went through a shitty time in the past, don't let those events dictate your life decisions.

Now back to my tattoo: even though I say that's my mantra, I don't think I did a very good job of LIVING through that mantra. I let the little "are you a boy or girl" comments when I was a bald lil sick kid control how I looked and how I saw myself. Honestly, up until recently, when I thought I looked bad, instead of saying "I'm so ugly today" like a normal person, I'd say "I look like an 8-year-old boy." I made things that other people said or thought about me into my identity. And that, ladies and gents, is just no damn way to live.

That little bit of growth took me 18 years. But I am SO happy to know that I am growing and changing constantly.

Take the time to self-reflect, make changes that scare you, don't let peoples' words define you, and never let other peoples' opinions blur your self-perception.

Sorry that sounded so cliché, but it's true, man.

Self-image, as vain as this can sound, is immensely important. And although self-image is about YOU and how YOU view YOURSELF, outside noise sometimes has the greatest influence on your own self-perception. Basically, be nice to each other, it makes it easier for us to love ourselves.

Spread the love.

💛

xo,

Ange 🦋