The Roller Coaster of a Little Girl's Self Esteem
A constant rise and fall
At 55 years old this picture still makes me cringe and tear up at the same time.
I wish I could go back in time and hug this 5’6”, gangly, buck-toothed, struggling 11 year old girl and tell her, “Kristen, I promise you, life will get better”.
In elementary school I had tons of friends, excellent grades, enjoyed school, was active in Girl Scouts, had a nice sized loving family, complete with all 4 grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and enjoyed my life in small town Connecticut.
I played outside, rode my bike, went ice skating and sledding, swam in the Atlantic ocean, jumped in huge piles of leaves, took weekly outings to the public library with my dad, did lots of arts and crafts, and had a generally, happy, childhood.
Then the bomb dropped.
Before you continue, one of my recent posts, Things Get Real, isn’t mandatory reading but is a good precursor to the bomb drop and gives a glimpse into some of my earliest mental health memories.
My parents came into my room one day and did the dreaded “we want to talk to you” speech. Such serious words for such a young girl.
They proceeded to tell me that my dad had gotten a new job and that we would be moving…
…to Texas.
Initially I got excited but then my questions started to flow:
“When are we moving?” (January 1980, approximately 6 months later).
“What will it be like there?” (we’ll find out when we get there).
and the big one…
“What about Robin?”.
Robin will stay here with Patty.
“But it’s so far away!” I exclaimed.
Immediately my world changed. I would be moving 1000-ish miles away not only from my sister who was my best friend, mentor, and protector, but also away from my entire extended family, friends, neighbors, school, scouts, and everything else I’d ever known and loved.
That’s a lot to take in for a 6th grader.
Now I’m not going to blame all of my problems on the family move to Texas, but… it drastically changed my life.
Moving across the country at the worst, most awkward, stage of your life is hard for anyone. I was just shifting from a cute little kid into an absurdly tall pre-pubescent girl who had wild curly hair, glasses, and huge rabbit teeth. A ton of my baby teeth were late coming out which made the 2 front teeth look even more enormous. I was also still one eye surgery away from correcting a severe head turn I had from being born with pediatric strabismus, AKA crossed-eyes.
Gawky is putting it mildly.
To add insult to injury, the Connecticut yankees were heading deep in the heart of Texas which wasn’t always very welcoming.
Upon starting 6th grade in my new state I was immediately bullied. Day two. No kidding. Some kid started leaning over towards me making noises and comments like “duhhh, hey doofy”. This was a first time experience. I’d never been made fun of.
It was horrible. But not as horrible as getting home from school, hopping on my bike, riding down the street, and seeing him. The bully. Standing in a front yard 1/2 dozen houses down the street from ours. He called me over and asked me what I was doing there. I told him I lived down the street. He just smirked and said, “I live here”.
Dear God.
I was lucky. He backed off shortly after that and I never had another class with him my entire school career.
I wasn’t so lucky heading into middle school as I would be bullied brutally in 7th and 9th grade. For some reason I had a reprieve in 8th grade. Lucky me I suppose.
The 9th grade bullies were mean girls in my 4th period Spanish class. They made fun of everything about me. My hair, my clothes, the way I talked, you name it. My mom worked in fashion retail, so I always had nice clothes, but it didn’t matter,. If I tried to dress similar to them they’d clock it and use it against me. They even made fun of my peripheral vision. Because of my eye issues and surgeries, I could give a pretty epic side eye. That was another notch against me.
That same year my bottom jaw started growing at a crazy rate, and unexpectedly I developed a huge underbite. Now I have braces added to the package.
The ugly just got uglier.
Then they gave me a nickname.
While it isn’t really a secret, it is something that I choose to leave in Mrs. Snows 4th period Spanish class. If it gets leaked out, so be it. I’m a big girl now and I’ll move on.
Every first day of school from that year forward was filled with massive anxiety. I would get to each class and look around for the mean girls. I suppose they’d matured because I had 2 of them in different classes through high school and neither said a bad word to me again. Praise the Lord.
But unfortunately, the damage had been done.
I went from a very extroverted, outgoing child to a somewhat introverted, shy, anxious, teen unless I was around the closest of my friends. In groups I didn’t mingle and I was terrified around anyone that looked like a mean girl.
Until I started drinking.
The full story of how that happened will come at a later time but I will say, I was only 13 years old.
I didn’t immediately become a “drinker”. I accepted an occasional beer when offered because I didn’t want to be a nerd. If the group was drinking that meant they were cool kids and I was desperate to be accepted by them.
Drinking gave me acceptance, notoriety, and eventually, courage. My sense of humor came out and so did “Kristen the performer”. I would stand at the front of the crowd, acting out scenes, telling animated stories, and making people laugh. As I got older, it had been suggested to me several times to try my hand at stand-up comedy. I never did and sometimes I regret not trying.
Liquid courage became one of my best friends.
I could say what I wanted, be who I wanted, and act how I wanted when I was drinking. I was accepted and got attention. Lots of attention. As I got older, it leaned towards the wrong kind of attention.
In 11th grade, the rest of the body finally caught up with the giant buck teeth. Boys had finally bypassed me in height, I had corrective jaw surgery, got contacts, and started blending in quietly with the rest of my peers. I became somewhat invisible and I was perfectly fine with it.
On the first day of school after having surgery and getting contacts, I walked into 6 different classes and people I’d known for years didn’t recognize me. It was strange, yet freeing.
Each teacher would call my name for the first time, “Kristen Neill?”,
“Here”, I’d boldly reply.
Countless heads turned and stared at the once ugly gawky girl who was no more.
“Oh my God, I didn’t recognize you!” I heard no less than 20 to 30 times that day, “you look so different, what did you do? You look good”.
My shit self-esteem took that as, “girl you look good now but wow, you were a walking nightmare before, nice job!”.
To be clear, I am not boasting. I was not gorgeous, or a stunner, or a brick shithouse. None of those. But all of the characteristics that were against me, the ones I couldn’t control, were finally gone.
Or so I thought.
Changing your appearance is easy. Those scars fade.
Changing your mental and emotional state is hard. Those scars are for life.
The cut of a scalpel, the snip of the brackets, the removal of glasses, the trim of your hair, or the change of a wardrobe, put temporary patches on the hurts. But as the years go by, it doesn’t take much to bring your minds muscle memory back to that first day of school in 6th grade, or to Mrs. Snows 4th period Spanish class to remind you of the hurt. It may not be as intentional as a group of mean girls taunting you, but one word, one situation, one sound, one comment, one tone of voice, and you’re emotionally right back where you were at your most vulnerable.
And that’s where alcohol soothed so many hurts.
Everyone thinks you have this happy-go-lucky life because you spend your summers playing around at Six Flags. However, you’re secretly dreading the next 9 months in the classroom and struggling through the occasional beers with your bad-girl friends to try to redeem yourself, even though you secretly hate the taste of alcohol.
Regardless, through multiple years of parties in mall parking lots, city parks, frat houses, homes of random students, or the house with the “cool mom”, I finally graduated high school.
The once straight-A, gifted student who started reading at age 2, and was considered a prodigy, graduated in the bottom 3/4 of her class. A prodigy no more. My good grades and basic comprehension of most subjects plummeted right down with my self-esteem.
Drinking allowed the positive feedback to come in night after night, weekend after weekend, party after party, and became a mental and emotional addiction. It healed all of the hurts. It was a liquid band-aid on a decade of adolescent trauma.
This, my friends, is addiction.
As I left for college my self esteem got a fraction better as I was starting over. I was going somewhere unsupervised with several of my best friends and I looked different, better. But I was so geared up for partying over studying that I ventured into the wrong crowd and was taken down the rabbit hole even deeper.
Put a pin in it and stay on the lookout for “Texas Tech and the Frat Boy Scene”.
I’m not whining, I promise, I’m not. This is a call to action. To parents, to friends, to siblings. Pay attention. Pay attention to your kids. To your friends. To your family.
Think long and hard about how decisions you make will affect them in the long run. I’ll say it again, I am not blaming my parents for anything, but making major life changes in a childs life, especially during adolescence, is excruciating. That doesn’t mean all teens who move house will turn to drinking, but kids have a hard enough time in school. I can’t fathom how they do it now with social media. The bullying takes place 24/7. It no longer shuts off at the end of the school day, hopefully to be forgotten tomorrow. It’s relentless and ruthless. When this happens, kids need something to turn to to make themselves feel better and accepted. In my case, it was alcohol.
At 55 years old, by some standards, (anyone under 30), I’m an old lady, by others, (anyone over 60) I’m young. Regardless of your viewpoint, I’m still the same little girl in the picture with the big, buck teeth. I still have my self esteem issues, my ugly days, and those post surgery moments where I feel pretty again. I’ve had moments, years, even decades, where I’ve felt like a strong, gorgeous, smart, successful, bad ass woman. But I’ve also had traumas, losses, and downfalls that take me back to the school locker.
This is normal, real, life, and this is where addiction will hit you.
In your emotions.
In your hurts.
Wherever you are in your self esteem journey I am here to encourage you that drinking, drugs, or any other kind of addictive habit is not the answer. It doesn’t solve the problems, it doesn’t take away the hurts. In fact, it has a tendency to make things much, much, worse in the long term. The only way to deal with the pain and the hurts is to face them head on be it through therapy, addiction treatment, AA, DAA, or whatever your choice of help may be.
Find a hobby, a positive one. Find a support group, also a positive one. Not a wine women crew or beer buddies, but a group of people who want to help you celebrate who you are, as you are, with all of your bits, pieces, and flaws. The true you.
Because no matter how low you and your self-esteem can go, the natural highs are much more rewarding than the artificial ones. Let your true friends and family help you keep that little wild haired, overly tall, gangly, buck tooth girl inside you, tucked neatly away in the past where she belongs.
Stay safe, stay sober,
Kristen xo