NF & Halloween: A Love/Hate Relationship

In my post-Spooky Halloween, I express my dislike for October 31st. In this post, I want to go a little more in-depth on the psychological effects that these comments had on me. I think it is essential to have this conversation because words hurt and can have catastrophic consequences.

As an adolescent, I already had a poor self-image and spent a good portion of my teenage years comparing my body to that of my girlfriends. Not only was I already insecure because of my face, but I was also petit, I would look at my girlfriends and saw their bodies transformed, mine did not( at least not in my eye).

So the last thing I needed was to receive comments about something that was entirely out of my control. Especially when I am doing my best to put aside my insecurities and socialize.
Despite everything, I do have fun memories of Halloween as a teenager; of course, these all involve me hang-out with friends and family. My cousin Caro and I threw Halloween parties for a few years, and I went trick-or-treating with a group of ten to twelve friends, so nothing bad happened.
This was not always the case.

The last time I went to a haunted house, I was accosted by one of the zombies. I remember walking a few feet away from my friends, I heard someone approaching me, so I decided to play it off, when he approached me I laughed and said," you didn't scare me." His response, " your face is scary." That brief encounter ruined my entire night.  For the rest of the evening, I kept replaying his words, I did not understand why he would say something like that when all I did was joke with him.

On other occasions, people would focus on my face and not on my costume. That just made me feel like there was no point in joining in the fun when the only thing people would see was my disfigured face.  And so, I became reclused and avoided everything having to do with Halloween.

As a student in USF, I attended the Halloween party that the Hispanic club would host on campus. I would always go with my group of friends. However, that did not save me from the comments. On more than one occasion, some idiot would say something, and instantly, I would shut down and want to go home. Thankfully my friends have always known what to say and would turn things around for me.

Words hurt. Words cause deep wounds that are hard to heal. I am 32 years old, and I can still vividly recall the mean comments that were said from 15 years ago.

The picture I am sharing in this post is from 2014, I dressed up for work. I still remember my hesitation as I was getting ready because, in my mind, all I could think of was that my co-works were not going to see that I was Olive Oly. Instead, they were going to see this petit woman with "awesome eye make-up" and nothing else.  I almost chickened out, I made myself believe that is was stupid, silly, and pointless. I thought, why bother, it's not like you can be Olive Oly! Clearly, I was wrong.

What do you think?