"Girl" is a subjective concept that is ultimately derived from nothing except what society considers "girlish", "womanly", "feminine"—all of which do
not at all exist in material reality, only in perceptions
created by people. Money has no value except what people collectively bestow it. Money only has material power because the subjective opinions of its value make people willing to give material things in exchange for pieces of paper. The value of a specific currency changes from country to country; there are countries where U.S. dollars will buy nothing—where the local currency has value—and countries where U.S. dollars can buy many things.
The way that you feel about your own body (especially in relation to questions of "is this body girlish? am I really a girl?") is heavily influence, if not
decided by what you hear from other people about your own body and about girls/women in general. When people say things about our bodies—or say things about our gender in general—we are influenced by these things, and can even be led into repeating such perceptions
to ourselves, in our own minds. This is called "internalizing": where external ideas and perceptions about ourself end up echoing in our heads, influencing how we feel and think.
I was born a girl, but I don't feel enough like one.
The societal concept of "girl" and the biological concept of girl are two very different things. In some cultures, girls wear dresses, and have long hair. A biological boy who wears dresses and has long hair may be considered girl-like. But there are also cultures where boys have long hair and wear dress-like articles of clothing, where those very same attributes considered "feminine" in one society are considered "masculine" in another.
"Girl" is a biological reality, mapped onto a social experience. Imagine there is a society where a biological girl is not considered a "real girl" (i.e. socially considered a girl) unless she has a tattoo.
That society's definition of girl would be "biologically female + tattoo".
What is a "real" girl? What do you feel may make you feel like a girl? <3
I want a lovelier face, I'm sick of looking homely.
Beauty is so subjective that how someone looks can even be influenced by something as transitory as angle and lighting <3. There ARE people who will see you as beautiful ♥. There
are people who will see you as absolutely beautiful, even if your beauty to yourself feels hidden or even absent now <3.
No matter what, you are always a human being, and you
are a real girl, no matter what people say. Just because your face looks a certain way, does NOT mean you are "not" a girl. ♥
I understand me saying these things does not automatically solve all of your feelings about your own body and identity <3. But I want to give you a truth about how we form self-perception. Find people who can support you emotionally, who will affirm the identity you truly want for yourself. The words of people affect us strongly; what they say about us affects how we think about ourselves. This can be a real problem. It can also be a real solution.
We can change our self-perception by changing whose words are going into our ears. We cannot simply migrate to the perfect-most-affirming social circle, but we
can find individual people who will tell us things about ourself we may never expected to have heard ♥.
There is no objective measure of beauty: beauty is whatever people think it is. And many people think differently. Many different people can experience different emotions from the
same face. What is beautiful to one person may not be to another. And what is not attractive to one person can
very easily be attractive to another <3<3.
In the end, we are all more similar than different. We all have shared humanity that expresses itself in many different ways, more profoundly than any differences do. This applies to beauty too. There are many sources of beauty outside the face. Voice, gestures, interests, choice of words, there are so many ways to express yourself, and there are so many ways to exist. There are ways to express yourself that are both enjoyable and comfortable for you as well as interesting to you too. You don't have to choose between pleasing others and being comfortable; it is totally possible to have both. The right people will enjoy the same person that you enjoy being. There are countless ways you could form your personality, along with countless kinds of people, each with their own preferences. Choose the people who want to meet the person whom you
feel comfortable being.
If you tailor yourself for others' pleasure at the cost of making yourself uncomfortable, and you happen to find people who love that self you construct for them, then you might end up being constrained to keep up that uncomfortable self to continue pleasing them. This causes the discomfort to continue.
Find people who will not police your existence and expression. These people will allow you to form a version of yourself you feel comfortable expressing as, because they will give you comfort and feelings of security, through the ways they treat you.
I'm sorry you feel forced into having to express yourself a certain way. When others police us, this can lead to us policing ourselves, out of fear of being insulted by other people.
This is not your fault. This is your brain trying to feel accepted and embraced by other people. It
is possible to be embraced and accepted.
The right people will embrace you for who you are, as well as what you can become, too. The mere existence of such people in your life expands the possibilities for the ways you can craft yourself. They open up possibilities for expression, and self-formation. There are endless people you can become. And there are so so many of them who would enjoy being, too :).
You were born female. You get to express that however you like. You do not have to conform to what society views as "the perfect girl"—you get to be your own girl. You
are a girl. You get to be a girl however you like. You, as an individual, with a body, and a mind, get to decide how you express your own body.
You are the sole owner of your own body. Your body and clothing, your expression, gestures, and however you express yourself, deserve to be embraced, and your person accepted, by good people who will make you feel secure, safe, affirmed, and ready to venture out into the world to both discover new things as well as express yourself too ♥.
It's not just you. It's how
people see you. What people see is influenced by what is in
themselves too. It's not just you: it's people's own filters for their perceptions of you, too.
When others' views of us are distorted, that distortion can infect our own self-perception too. In the same way, people who have affirming, healing views of us, can infect us with that same acceptance and love, causing us to feel better about ourselves.
When others affirm us, it is much much easier to feel at peace with ourselves.
You feel disconnected from your own self because your self feels threatened. When other people try to police who you are, we can feel like it's not safe to express ourselves how we want. We feel like we
have to express ourself "the right way" to be accepted, to be embraced, to not be policed and threatened.
There is no single "right" way to express yourself. There are people who will not police your expression, who will find beauty in you (women as well as men, friends as well as love interests),
as you are.
Come as you are. But not to just anybody: to someone who will not police you. To someone who will find something in you that they personally relate to. Such a person will see something in you that is within
them too.
The issue is not you: the issue is other people policing your self-identity, causing you to feel forced into a specific way of being and expressing.
This is the source of your pain. Not your own essence, but how
some people project their own policey ideas onto you, trying to force you into their way of being.
They give you hell for no good reason.
There are people who will love your features
exactly as placed, and not only your face, but your interests, what you like to do, how you talk, and even more, there are people who will like all those things about you and even more,
as you are. As you
currently exist.
You are a human being and a real person above all else, no matter how other people view you. But I understand that simply telling someone "you are human" is not the same as actually feeling human and affirmed for who one is. When someone who not only sees us but
feels us—
feels our emotions, our loves, our hates, our interests, our views, jokes, pains, ideas, gestures—when we find someone who makes us feel seen, found, understood, and truly felt—someone who, upon seeing us, does not reject us or try to force us into a certain way, but
takes us as we come,
as we are, this person, has the ability to unchain us from the arbitrary laws that others may police us on. They give us a new source of freedom, by making us feel we can be whoever we want around them, without getting policed. They teach our
nervous systems that we can exist as who we want
without being policed for that. This is MORE than being told "you are human and valid"; those sayings go into our heads but not our feelings about our bodies, whereas someone
present with us,
hearing us, witnessing our soul,
feeling our mind and what vibes it radiates, such a person's affirmation flows through our heads through our bodies and minds, freeing us, putting us at peace.
There is a real way to take a step towards feeling this. Find places where you can meet people. Be it a cafe, bookshop, school club, even just public places where people hang around, any place where people come to because they like to, is a fine place to find new people :). The name for this kind of place is a
"third place", in the study of sociology. If there are none within walking distance, then the options of public transport or even carpooling could work too. You could also ask someone you know to drop you someplace. A good idea—if they are restrictive about where you go—is to say "I am going to X place" (that happens to be within walking distance of where you
really want to go), and then actually go to place Y. You can use a stopwatch to track the time it takes to walk from X to Y. You can then set a timer for when you need to be ready, and when you need to start walking, so you can be at place X at the time you're being picked up.
Wishing you most well with all peace from harmony with good people to come.
Our environment influences us. But we can change our environment too
.
