Being The Ugly Kid Isn’t a Death Sentence

You don’t need Justin Bieber to tell you to “Love Yourself”.

by Jameel Raeburn (Twitter: @MeelzTV)

In second grade I was made fun of for having a big head and big lips, almost exclusively. No one cared that that I couldn’t grasp the concept of a silent letters in words nor that I was a year younger than everyone else. For my elementary school years, if I wasn’t being called by my name it was either “big head” or “big lips”. In fifth grade and sixth grade, my chipped front tooth was added to the mix. No specific names for that, but it didn’t do me any favors. At some point in 9th grade I thought all the name-calling was going to stop in a new school with complete strangers. It wasn’t until some comedic genius made the now-hilarious (then, kinda scarring) joke of calling me the Notorious L.I.P. Let that one simmer for a while. Yes, it burned. While it may not have fully clicked in my mined before — at that moment, it was definitive that I was an ugly kid and for most of my teenage years, and I accepted that.

If my confidence were a rock traveling down a river stream, my childhood years consisted of me smacking against every other rock in my path. Each other rock (rejection, name-calling, depression) contributed to slowly chipping away at my confidence. It wasn’t until my adult years where I hit my stride. My confidence rock finally reached a brook where a gentle stream of water began eroding and smoothing out my edges caused by a tumultuous childhood. It was all good. But as I stepped out of the doctor’s office on February 2nd 2016, I felt like a huge boulder of LIFE just dropped on top of me and chipped away another piece of me.

Fast-forward to the present (two weeks before my 26th birthday, I might add), I stand in the mirror with a legit hole in my face. Years of ignoring a painless, seemingly-insignificant cyst blew up in my face (almost literally) when out of the blue it became infected. This purple, swelled-up, pus-filled volcano sat on my face for a couple days, attempting to hide under a band-aid that was probably too small for it. Eventually I’d see a doctor who spent half an hour prodding my face with needles to numb my cheek, windshield-wiping oozing pus, and picking out most of a seriously enlarged cyst. I sat up from the exam table, and with a bit of a disappointed disposition, the doctor let me know that he’d have to leave it open so I could spend the next week washing out any infections/bacteria remains. After years of progression and improving my own self-confidence through mental and physical strides, I felt like I’ve been set back a thousand steps. Let me repeat this: There’s a fucking hole, in my face. The only moment comparable to me walking onto a crowded subway platform with bloody gauze strapped to my face with medical tape, was walking into a classroom at 9 years old as the chunky kid with a big head, big lips, and a chipped front tooth.

It was because of my looks that at an early age I learned humility against my own will. Of course my very West Indian parents taught me to respect others no matter the appearance because it was the right thing to do. They taught me that no matter how you look, it was your character that defined who you are. But when it’s instilled within yourself that you’re ugly and re-affirmed by your sixth grade peers, you become grateful for any friend that you make. Even then, my friends didn’t care about my self-anointed inadequacies because you know what was important? School, Pokemon, and what The Rock did last night on Smackdown. Through all of the name-calling and jeering, I learned respect, I’ve learned to share, I’ve learned how to allow my personality to shine through when no other surface-level qualities could, but I still never had full confidence in myself and that was because I was never confident in the way I looked. On one side, while I learned humility and modesty, I never acquired the confident traits to seize the opportunity, socially.

I was never the type to initiate communication a girl because usually I thought that I was too ugly for her. Forget what she actually thought, it was my own thoughts compromising my ability to socialize. Why? Because why face rejection when you can just avoid that wound altogether? It was because of my lack of confidence in my looks that even when a girl would eventually approach with some interest, I questioned her motive despite the approval and support of my own friends. The result would always be another squandered opportunity.

All of these feelings and lack of self-confidence took me to my 22nd birthday, where I was at the lowest of lows. I was literally months away from graduating college, and I couldn’t find an inch of happiness anywhere around me.

It took meeting a great girl for me to understand my own worth. For some reason, it took someone appreciating me to serve as the catalyst for getting my own shit together. At some point I stopped playing the victim in wholeheartedly believing that women only go for “the assholes” and learned that maybe I was also the one to blame. Maybe I wasn’t doing my best to be the best person I could be, and maybe it’s time to find that guy. At 22 I learned to accept that there are people in the world better looking than me, and that may be to their advantage, but why am I focused on them when I should be focused on me?

And I did just that, I focused on me. In the process I accepted and boasted my strengths as opposed to keeping it humble for the sake of not making any waves or drawing any unnecessary attention. Eventually I lost a ton of weight and was finally able to fit into some good looking clothes. The clothes don’t make the man, but for some reason I felt good being able to look good for once. I pointed out every self-diagnosed flaw and either improved it or embraced it. It took me a long time to reach a point where I felt positively about myself to the point where I am confident and assured in the man that I am..

Back to this mirror, I can see the hole in my face but now I’m smart enough to know that these things will pass. As much as my initial reaction was to dwell on my situation, I know that these minor imperfections are just that, minor. I’m happy now that I’m old enough to realize that life is what you make of it, and you ultimately choose the path you want to go down. Your thoughts don’t have to be your own death sentence once you discover how vast your true potential really is.

If you liked what you read for sympathized with my ugliness, please click on the little Recommend heart. Thank you!