I see myself as ugly, stupid, and unworthy of love. I have little to my name, and not much, if
anything of which to be proud.
Why do you think
those things?
The perception I have of myself was developed very
young. I went to elementary school, and
it was a struggle to make friends. I
didn’t have many, and instead spent my days just trying to avoid being picked
on. The worst of this bullying was
received during junior high. I would
ride the bus to and from school. Unlike
being on campus, however, there was nowhere to hide. These kids saw me every morning and every
afternoon. They called me fat. They called me ugly. They spit in my hair. They threatened me every day. I remember one day on campus my locker had
been broken into during PE. I came in to
find my belongings all over the stretch of lockers, and my shoes in the
toilet. The teachers did nothing. There was nothing they could do. And I felt so alone. So hated.
So miserable. And I was doing
nothing to provoke them! I wouldn’t even
fight back. And still they hated
me. I felt like I must be doing
something wrong for them to treat me like that.
There must be something ugly about me that I couldn’t see that made me
deserve all that. And I began hating myself. Life became an act of survival.
I look at the men
you’ve dated…and I’m not impressed.
You figure when you’re not worth much that you don’t
deserve much and that you can’t get much.
From my perspective, I was dating people I didn’t think I deserved—thinking
they were even too good for me. Or, at
least, I thought someone was better than no one. I let myself go through so much, because I
never thought I was deserving of love to begin with and thought any man who
would lessen his standards to care about me—even in the slightest—was a
godsend. In high school, I met my first
boyfriend. He and his friends humiliated
me on a day to day basis. High school
had been my opportunity to begin anew, and instead he trashed my reputation. The first man to “love” me ended up hating me. It was an entirely new hurt. And I felt even more unlovable, which would translate
into every relationship from then on.
How do you feel
about marriage and being married?
I love the idea of marriage. Loving someone through the difficult times is
what love means to me. Anyone can walk
away. Love stays. But, if you mean as far as what is in store
for my future, I don’t believe I’m meant to be married. Even after all the work through which I’ve
gone, I don’t believe it is something I will ever have, because deep down I
still don’t believe I’ll ever feel ‘good enough’ to deserve something as
beautiful as that love. And, plus, after
being hurt so many times by so many people, the idea of being tied down to one
person, honestly, terrifies me. What if
he loves me in the beginning and finds out I’m not worth loving and starts to treat
me terribly? It could happen. And with my track record, it surely will.
I keep hearing you
say you’re not worth anything…how does that line up with God’s love for you?
I feel useless. I
feel like I don’t have anything to offer the world. And I know it doesn’t line up with who God is…how
I see myself. Because what I’m saying in
that is all He did for me was worthless.
But it’s hard to combat two decades of abuse with the thought that
someone—especially the all-powerful being who created everything—loves me—you know,
could truly love me and see me as worthwhile.
Do you think you’ll
feel differently about yourself at the end of the challenge and even beyond the
challenge?
God is amazing. He
makes the impossible possible. And I
have grown so much within just a few months.
It’s almost amazing—in a not conceited
way—to see how He’s changing me, how I react different to someone than I would
have months ago, a year ago. I think
anything is possible, and I hope He really leads me to a place of humility and
knowing my true value in Him. And I don’t
believe I’ll have gone through a year of growth and not be different. I
initially began this challenge wanting to prepare myself for a better marriage. And along the way it morphed into just wanting
to be a better, healthier, more loving Christian woman. I think this challenge is changing my life
forever.
