Abandonment

I've not posted onto here lately at all.
I'm going to just copy and paste something I posted a short while ago. after this, I don't think I'll be touching this blog again. I just don't have anything positive to share, really.

On the 1st September, many of you who are joined together on my Mortiis.M FaceBook page, you may have noticed a post I made about my sister. I have 2 sisters, and my eldest passed away in the early morning hours of the 31st August at the devastatingly  young age of only 30 short years old. 

At this moment, 6 and a half weeks later, it is still only speculated that her asthma induced a seizure, in turn inducing a fatal heart attack. As we remain in waiting for a final official report, we are left in the dark with many unaswered questions revolving around what really happened that night. They called it unexpected "Sudden Death Syndrome".

Sarah; despite her being such a loving, intelligent and extremely talented beautiful young woman, could never seem to appreciate herself wholly. You would think that someone, who had only just entered 'teens and yet already told across the country from inviting orchestras that she was 'better than Acker Bilk' for her ability to play clarinet and read music on-the-spot; or be published for her captivating writing; would at least have a little idea what the fuss about her from her family was about. 

At a very young age, for some reason, she got it into her head that she was unattractive.  Whether the pressure of media or a funhouse mirror skewered her views; the damage was apparently set in stone and seemingly irreversible, impossible to reason with. Like hitting a brick wall in a car crash, her beautiful work was ceased.

Sarah's own worst enemy was her lack of self-confidence. It would drive me crazy to both-hands-on-head moments. I can't grasp how someone so helpful and talented could overlook their abilities so much, to the point of believing they weren't good enough. Years, almost decades, of her life passed by thinking she was not good at much at all. We tried all we could to convince her to have a proper think about  who she is, and what she wants to achieve because whatever she wanted, she was the sort of person that just could. It was futile. Any fragments of confidence from her youth were deeply buried and hard to unearth. 

A lot of her life was spent unsure of herself and sad. Everything we has tried didn't work and we had no idea what to do. We rarely saw her, in good months we would see her perhaps once a week, in bad months it would be once every few months- if that. She never wanted to leave the house. Trying to take photos of her was impossible unless you pretended very well that you were just playing on your (camera) phone. Her work life suffered as her confidence fell greater. 

I am upset we never had the chance to take a sisterly photo together. The only photos we have where we are in the same shot with eachother are sneaky holiday ones or ones from below the age of 10. I wish she ould have seen that, despite appearance being irrelevant to happiness, she was absolutely beautiful. Just like a porcelain china doll, a tiny mouth and huge green eyes.

It was only nearer her death that she had seemingly begun to understand or accept. 30 years old. At 30, she was probably on her way to understanding her self-bullying was over nothing. At Sarah's death, we were handed her phone where we found only a few photos of herself on it. They were taken by herself so that nobody would see the photo she was taking before she could have a chance to think about deleting it if she didn't like it. Still, this was a huge step for her. I am heartbroken at everything that has happened and devastated how she percieved herself as a whole; but I am so happy she finally mustered a small fragment of confidence for her to have taken a photo of herself on her own phone. To me, that is marvellous.

But being so happy to tears that someone you love has taken a photo of yourself, from a brief outside view is absurd. When did things get so bad that it's such an event? I know that Sarah is not alone in these feelings, and that is heartbreaking to know.
Your image does not correlate with ability. How you look doesn't affect your ability to laugh or make use of your talents. 

Too much of our lives is thinking "there's always tomrrow" or "I can't try that because I may fail". There is too much "I wish I had that". I'm still guilty of feeling this way myself, as are too many others across the world. There's a lot of time worrying about how we appear, and not enough time exploring, appreciating or understanding. 

I made my Missy Mortiis FaceBook page a few years ago for this very reason. I wanted to help other people who feel this way. From about the age of 8 I began turning into my own worst enemy for my appearance. I convinced myself foolishly that fat was a negative thing, and that I was the epitome of 'fat'. At 8. You're too young to think the feelings toward yourself aren't normal at such an age, so you don't mention or question them. Instead, you agree with them and they worsen and they become the canvas of your future self.
I've put myself through dark times because I listened to the impossible portrayal of the human form, for some silly reason. Such a simple and seemingly avoidable position, but a very poignant state the media contributes many people to feel.
It is still engrained in my veins but I will try now, more than I ever did, to get rid of it.
Everytime you question an image, or leave the house non-comforming to the mass pressured image you will bleed it's effects out of you.

Big ugly businesses make money by helping to push people to think that if you buy their product, you will feel happier by feeling more attractive.
What will happen to the businesses that can't sell their product, because we're all already happy? 

Anyway, I'm going to leave this long post where it is. I hope I may have helped a few people who feel familiar to this, despite derailing off-topic constantly throughout it all. Sorry about that.

PS- here's a photo of my beautiful big sis Sarah, stolen from her photos on her phone: