Love Me: The Manoir

Short Hair

I did something that only people have an early life crisis and think of themselves as far too edgy would do - I cut all my hair off. My friends had warned me subtly when I had suggested it before, telling me that my long hair was much nicer. But I didn't listen, and I was so sure that with short hair I would look chic, cool, and mature.

But instead I looked like a boy. It was the true trigger point for the next few years of self hatred, because not only did it look terrible, but people began to tell me it looked terrible. And I made the mistake of laughing this off, like a joke about the weather or something stupid I had done.

Top tip for not making people slowly grow to despise every inch of their being: don't make fun of something a person can't change. Don't make fun of someone's acne, or awkwardness, or the length of their hair, their braces, their body. Because the chances are that you will be the direct cause of years of emotional trauma which will haunt that person for the rest of their life without you even knowing.

I had always been a general figure for comedy, but thirteen marked the year that I became the unwitting jester for my friends. I was incredibly awkward. I had bad skin. No boys liked me. I was an easy target for any kind of joke. And like a punching bag I took each and every one. They were my friends, it was just banter - right?

It was one day in the lunch queue, a memory I will and never will be able to shake from my head, when a girl turned to me, examined my face and simply said to her friends "My acne isn't as bad as Ella's though". This was the same girl who had asked to pop one of my spots the day before. An offhand comment which she will have forgotten by now, but one that sometimes still makes me eyes well up at the fact that I simply took and digested that comment and went about my day.

The very idea that people noticed my skin, that they had opinions on my skin, made me want to rip it off in chunks because a bloody mess would be better than people acknowledging the small bumps that covered my face. Everyone I spoke to, I would watch and see where their eyes went. Did they maintain eye contact or would their gaze drift casually across the mountain plain on my forehead, or the speedbumps on my cheeks?

At night I would sit with toothpaste, tea bags (once even surface cleaner) and pray that the next morning I would wake up and they would be gone. That I would discover some magic cream and my skin would clear instantly. I would look longingly at the beautiful clean skin of everyone around me and wonder how I had become so cursed.

For one secret Santa when I was thirteen I received concealer, spot cream, and oil blotting strips. When I asked why, I was told that someone had suggested to get me 'face stuff'. I don't think I ever particularly gave any indication that I was obsessed with skincare products, but my skin spoke for itself. It became a defining feature of me.

What people don't tell you about having acne is that it changes your perception of self forever. There is no going back, you will always see yourself as someone with spots. You will always value your appearance in relation to whether you have broken out that morning. The first thing you see in the mirror every single day is how many new pimples you have acquired. It is one of the most important aspects of your life, and I was consumed by it.

"Why don't you just go to a dermatologist?" would be a frequent, often un-prompted question that someone would normally ask, clearly examining the mess on my face to feel better about themselves.

I was scared of the prescription drugs, scared of someone being so close to my face that they could see everything. Sometimes I would watch those pimple popping videos to make myself feel better. I stopped watching them when I began to see my own face matching the severity of what I saw.

This naturally dropped my self confidence below zero. In my head I was overweight, ugly, and altogether untouchable. The closest I would ever get to talking to a boy was in my own head, concocting strange fantasies and obsessions about certain boys on Instagram - knowing that we were destined for each other.

Thursday 14th May 2015

FROM SHIT TO UNREAL

Today was shit till 2.00ish. So I get into school and watch some harmless makeup vids which prompts the convo that guys get tricked by makeup and Emma did something that knocked my confidence way back, months of fitness, washing my face, plucking my eyebrows, convincing myself I'm pretty – gone in an instant. She told me that I was ugly to my face, that's legit what she said. 'Oh yeah Ella's ugly but she covers it up'. I wanted to cry there, right on the spot. It was such a hurtful comment and the worst part is that she just laughed and didn't apologise. That left me in a horrid mood until Clara sent a pic to Elliot on my phone and at first I was pissed off but then HE REPLIED TO ME. OMG I FREAKED OUT. We mainly spoke about Matt though which pissed me off. Emma made me feel horrible about myself and set me back in loving myself and I don't think I can forgive her like that, it hurt me so bad.

You know what, I'm not fucking done, as I'm lying here crying I need to vent, to say what's on my mind. I wish I had someone who would ask if I was ok and I could tell them that I'm not ok. In fact, I haven't been 'ok' in a while. And I shut it off, try to stay strong but I can't anymore. Everyone says they're ugly but they don't mean it, there's always things people like about themselves or days where they think 'damn I look good'. But me, I hate myself. I hate what I see. I don't like anything, I am ugly – Emma called it. I'm not pretty enough for anyone and I look like shit all the time, and I'm fat and spotty. I'm so unattractive that I just want to hide away and cry. I try so hard but then someone makes a comment and I'm back to square one. I can't even see what I'm writing through the tears. I know we're supposed to love ourselves, but I can't. I can't love myself because I'm unlovable. Maybe I should stop trying and realize that I will always be this way. I will always be the ugly one of the group.

-    Ella

***

It was around this time that I began to search for validation in other areas of my life, and I stumbled across a new faucet quite organically. Sat in an English lesson with very few friends in, I was introduced by the girl who sat next to me to the app called Wattpad. While marketed as a writing platform which allows for any to self publish, in the early 2010s it was the hub of all One Direction fanfiction. I was a quiet fan girl of the boyband, scared to voice my love for them too loudly because of the social prejudice.

After reading all the fanfiction I could absorb, I began to branch into the other categories, and soon my own narcissism led me to believe that I could create a masterpiece heads and shoulders above the standard that was displayed. This was how my science fiction masterpieces came into fruition, racking up a measly 1,000 reads in the first year. However, at the time this felt like the whole world was watching me. I felt famous, like at any moment Warner Brothers would ring my phone and ask to adapt my story because it was unbelievably new and innovative.

In reality, there was a spelling mistake on the first page and a number of plot holes.

But it was a project; something for me to get my teeth into where I didn't have to show my face. The one or two readers I had only knew one thing about me - I loved eccentric plots and odd character names. I would later go on to make two more accounts on Wattpad that would have books stacking up to 800,000 reads on them, but as I got older I slowly became more disillusioned with the idea of people younger than me reading my crappy chapters that I would write in half and hour on the bus.

However, Wattpad didn't just offer me praise from strangers, it gave me the illusion of having a hobby. Whenever people commented on the fact that I never participated in extracurricular activities, I would simply cite my growing platform as my sole and only focus. I was doing something outside of school, I was 'preparing for my career'. In reality, all I was doing was pandering to my own obsessive need to memorialize every idea, every thought, and every story I had into writing.