It’s Day 2 of the Body Image Interview Series and today, Amy Pryce shares her story of living and coming to terms with a birthmark that makes her different than anybody else.
Body image has been an issue for me since I was literally less than two years old. That’s when I had my first lesson in “not-normal.” My parents took me to a teaching hospital, where I spent the whole day being examined and tested by a crowd of residents.
Apparently, the kind of birthmark that covered my leg was often accompanied by brain damage. My mom says I didn’t make a peep all day (confirming suspicions of delay), until I suddenly commanded, “Put my clothes on and take me home!” No delays, then.
Body image issues are different when your issue is not just “less attractive,” but actually “abnormal.” {Click to Tweet}
Our brains are hardwired to look for differences. Have you ever noticed how you can be looking at a crowd of hundreds, and your eye will be caught by the one person there who’s missing a limb or sporting an obvious scar?
Even when the last thing you want to do is stare, you can’t help but do a double take. It’s an evolutionary adaptation, and a very uncomfortable one if you happen to be the subject of the double take.
I am lucky in so many ways. My birthmark doesn’t hurt, although sometimes when it’s hot or I’m on a plane my leg swells up from the extra blood vessels and I have to wear ugly old lady shoes (I mean the shoes are ugly; I think old ladies are beautiful). And it doesn’t disable me in any physical way.
I can even hide it by wearing pants or tights and avoiding beach parties, but that’s a double-edged sword. Too often I’ve opted out of situations in which my legs would show, thereby diminishing my life. In high school, I was a cheerleader for football (pants) but not basketball (short skirts), even though I loved those twirly skirts and the electric atmosphere in the gym.
Sometimes, when I see someone with a less hideable scar or birthmark, I feel a little ashamed, like I’m just “passing” for normal. I want to run up to them and whisper that I know exactly how they feel, but of course I don’t. Like you, I never know whether they want me to say something, or to pretend that I don’t see?
I wish I could say that growing up with a large, disfiguring birthmark has led me to develop an ultra-enlightened, Teflon-coated self-image based on “what really counts,” as my mom always put it. As I grow older it’s faded a bit, and I don’t get invited to as many pool parties, but I’m still just as tense when I have to reveal it to people who don’t know.
There will be the awkward moment with the averted gaze, or the sometimes more awkward questions. (Mostly it’s: “What happened to your leg?” People assume I was in a fire and are usually embarrassed to learn that it’s only a birthmark.)
Now that I’m at the “find a moral and wrap it all up with a pretty bow” part of the story, I find that I’m drawing a blank. Did I learn compassion from this experience? HELL, YES! Would I rather have been able to wear cute skirts and strappy sandals? (um… yes?)
Sometimes there isn’t a pretty bow waiting at the end. Sometimes, it’s just something you learn to live with, more or less. {Click to Tweet}
Amy Pryce is a writer, editor and life-long learner who blogs at www.professionalstudentoflife.
