Detached and Desperate

Makeup made me dysphoric.

Let me start from the beginning. I started wearing make up in 6th grade. And I don’t just mean clear mascara and lip gloss- I mean I would take my mom’s full coverage lancôme foundation and powder and do a full face of make up at the age of 11.

I continued this routine of a full face up until college- I became horrified of my bare face and my dark circles under my eyes and my acne scars. 

If you could erase all of your flaws with a $7.99 concealer, wouldn’t you?

I would avoid sleepovers in middle school due to the fear of a friend seeing me without make up. 11 year old girls should not be afraid of that, they should be afraid of forgetting their locker combination or what mystery meat the lunch lady will serve. Us zoomers were deathly afraid of being seen without concealer because Kylie Jenner just posted a ‘#nomakeupmonday’ selfie and her skin looked fucking luminous.

Why can’t I look like her? 

All of this left me in my mid twenties feeling confused, dysphoric and completely unattached to the way my face actually looks. When a rash appears on my neck I usually throw myself into a panic, because the thought of a non-perfectly sculpted complexion is unacceptable.

The issue with eczema is two fold; 1. it’s chronic, so it will never ever ever go away. and 2. it’s cyclical, so one day I can have clear skin and then the next day I may have a rash all over my eye lids. Waking up and wondering ‘what will my skin look like today’ is exhausting. Knowing that there is nothing you can really do about it, makes living with it impossible. 

Society had developed this horrible view on beauty. When I go on instagram and see models with smooth flawless skin laying on the beach or strutting down runways, I can’t help but think ‘why can’t i look like that?’ ‘all my problems will go away if i looked like her’ .

i just want to be perfect i just want to be perfect i just want to be perfect i just want to be

 These thoughts make you want to lock yourself in a dark room and never come out. They affect my relationship with myself, my partner, the way I act at work and the way I move about on earth. And it’s so hard living in the year 2024 and I am afraid that there is no solution or fix to this social media induced-gen z-perfection obsessed syndrome that we all seem to have. I guess this is just a reminder that no one is perfect (?). Social media is a curse created to get helpless children addicted to the instant gratification served to them through artificial ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ that pose as the love we never got from our parents. Or is that just me? 

(hey, here are some resources if you’re really feeling alone. these accounts make my ig feed a little more bearable)

on ig:

@_peacefromwithin

@dearmyanxiety

@health_anxiety

@healingfromptsd