Sticks and Stones

*** Disclaimer: For purposes of this blog, I have decided to not disclose my sexual orientation. After all, if I am on a journey to love myself the gender of the person(s) I am attracted to doesn't factor in to MY self love. It doesn't matter if I am bisexual, straight, or lesbian and as such I'm going to remain gender neutral in my blogging when referring to any relationship or sexual experiences and will use s/he him/her. The only exception to this is when I refer to the fathers of my children because...well, its obvious sperm comes from men. ***

To be perfectly clear and blunt - this past year has been hell for me on a lot of levels but, especially, in terms of self worth and self perception. I become pregnant in February of last year and the biological father of the child was not kind to me (that's an understatement, but I will not digress).

For several months he bullied me via texts, IM, Face Book, and phone calls. He called me a bitch and a liar, he told me I was fat, he said I was ugly, he told me that he was drunk every time we had sex, he said I stupid, naive, and a dumb broad, he said he never was attracted to me and just used me, he said, and I quote, "I'll never f#$* a fat chick again." Starting to get the picture?

Needless to say, these are words NO ONE ever wants to hear - but when pregnancy hormones are thrown in to the picture those words cut deeper and messed with my head in ways I can't fully explain. My already weak self esteem and perception of myself and my body took a hard, hard hit as a result. I, obviously, wasn't at a place of fierce self love and so I attached meaning to his attacks. Those insensitive (and inaccurate, if I may say so myself) remarks took on a life of their own in my mind - they festered, grew, and took over.

Fast forward to this Friday evening when I found out that someone that I have known for a little over a year, unannounced to me, has been attracted to me the whole time. Let me make it clear that this person saw me on days when I had makeup on, fixed hair, and form fitting "cute" clothes AND on days when my hair was in a pony tail, I didn't have a lick of makeup on, and I was in sweats. S/he knew me through the entire pregnancy and has seen me through weight loss and gain in the months following the end of the pregnancy. I have been 100% myself around this person 100% of the time because we're friends and I never knew about his/her thoughts about me. I never felt pressured to put on an act or be anyone other than me.

Finding out about her/his attraction towards me has been insane for me to process, especially when I think of the countless times I cried myself to sleep at night because I was unwanted, unloved, mistreated, and rejected by the sperm donor. And, at the same time there was this other person admiring me and attracted to me and all the while my view of myself was so low that I was contemplating ending my life.

Just as I'm learning not to place my self value based on others' negativity towards me, I also am trying to not attach self-value when others have positive things to say. I am not sharing this story to make a statement that there are people out there who find big girls attractive. Nor am I trying to make a "so, there" statement to the sperm donor ("ha! So, there! Take that! I AM attractive and I can PROVE it because _________ said so!").

My process in this is to ask myself why I couldn't (and still have to work so damn hard even now) to see value and beauty in myself just as this person did/does. Does it feel good to know that I am attractive to others and that people out there sexually desire me? Hell yes! Does it hurt to know that I am unattractive to others and people out there find me undesirable? Hell yes! But, here's the place I'm trying to get to: it doesn't matter! What matters is that I find myself beautiful, attractive, and sexually appealing (and that's only the external stuff).
I'm processing, changing, and allowing the emotions of all that entails to freely flow with a fierceness that is growing
within me.

My hope for all of us is that we will not shrivel to nothingness at others' negativity and that we will not melt to a puddle of happiness when someone compliments us or shows us affection. If we can learn to love ourselves, independent of outside influence, then we have truly discovered self value and there is nothing more fierce than that!