False Perfection

When we are unhappy with reality, we dream. I was unhappy with my reality, so I dreamt. This is the story about an ordinary teenage girl who went to the extreme to feel included in society. Everyone has moments where they envision themselves as someone whom they have always wanted to be; I just took my vision a bit too far. The moment I became a teenager was the moment I became extremely self-conscious. Before I had turned thirteen years old, I was completely confident and comfortable with whom I was as a person. I was not the shy person I am today. I was never afraid to speak my mind. I suddenly became some inverted, miserable being. I was confused with myself. Every day, I would wish that I were someone else. I often found myself comparing who I was to others around me. This seems normal, right? Most teens at that age compare themselves to those around them. It all comes with the process of finding oneself, doesn’t it? If this is what you’re thinking, you’re opinion is bound to be changed once I share with you this next bit of information. I began imagining myself as Miley Cyrus, a pop icon whom I idolized at the time. These thoughts were nothing compared to the thoughts of Frederick Douglas as he imagined himself as a renewed, freed man* or the thoughts of Daisy Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby as she imagines how her life would be different if she would openly express her love for Jay Gatsby.** These thoughts I was having were not normal. Similar to the thoughts Emily Dickinson had as she imagined she was dead.*** I knew this, but I also knew that these thoughts set me free from my unhappiness with myself. When I was younger, the thoughts that went through my head were: “I wish I had blonde hair”, “I wish I had a good singing voice like Miley Cyrus”, “Why do all the boys like her? I wish I could be like her”, etc. It is true that the mind is a scary place. However, my mind was the place where I was the happiest. I was the happiest when I was enclosed within my own mind because, as said by Emily Dickinson, “The Truth must dazzle gradually/ Or every man be blind-.” In my head, I created a new self. One that was of perfection and that had all the characteristics of the person whom I longed to become. The girl in my head was perfect. The girl in my head was the most popular girl in the world. Everyone was jealous of her. This girl was me. I was Miley. She was everything I wanted to be. I remember going to one of Miley Cyrus’s concert during the time of my obsession. After the concert, I got in the car and began replicating the concert in my head. Everything was the same except for the person who was performing because I was imagining that I was Miley Cyrus and that it had been my concert. At school the next day, I listened to my peers rave about the concert, causing me to want to imagine myself as Miley Cyrus even more. I guess it felt pretty good to listen to my classmates praise “me”. If I could go back in time, I would tell my younger self that perfection does not exist and that, if I kept imagining myself as this perfect being, it would make me extremely unhappy with myself in the future years to come. However, this was not possible, so I remained ignorant to the important things in life. When I reached the start of my high school years, my crazy imagination completely took over me. I was completely dependent upon the girl in my head, while becoming unhappier every day about who I was in reality. I thought I was overweight, so I made Miley extremely skinny. I did not believe I was pretty, so I made Miley a model. I recall thinking that, if I imagined myself as Miley often enough, maybe I could become her in reality. Crazy, right? The things we will do to be happy. As I began feeling happier with whom I was in reality, I imagined myself as Miley less often. I have come to accept that I will never be perfect. However, I still do not understand what stemmed these thoughts in my head. Will I finally understand it once I become fully comfortable with where I stand in society? Could it be that there are many people out there who share the same experience, but who are too afraid to speak out about it just like I am?