Photo by: Alisha Light; Instagram: @alightp
This sexy skin I am in.
It’s the skin that I feel has been taken away from me. It has been abused. It has been taken for granted.
Even in the photo above, I was in excruciating pain.
I can remember the times I would go and “be sexy”. But I never felt sexy in anything that I was doing. It was all a mask. It was all a cover. It was all something I was hiding behind. I was hiding.
I think back to the times when I say “I can’t wait to get back to being me”..
But if I am being honest, completely honest, as I am very honest. I don’t know how to get back to being me. Not quite sure that is something that I want to do.
Why?
Well, the “me” I am referencing is someone I no longer am. It is someone that lived in pain every single day of her life but learned how to play it off. I learned how to laugh through it. Make inappropriate dark jokes and continuously finding ways to avoid the pain.
I was/am in constant pain. However, currently I am in physical pain. The person I am referring to was in constant physical and emotional pain. She would spend her days smiling to the world and no one would notice her sad eyes. She would be smiling and behind that she would hiding an abusive relationship, emotional pain from her past, nightmares, extreme PTSD. She would turn her music up too loud and dance with tears in her eyes because it was the only thing that kept her going. She would unmask for her best friends but arm back up to face the world every single day.
There wasn’t a single time that I was not in pain. Emotionally. I would go to photoshoots like the one above (for those who don’t know I also model) and I would pretend like my life was okay. I would pretend as if there was nothing that was bothering me. I would pretend that I didn’t have a blistering and swelling headache. I would pretend that I wasn’t thinking about the argument I got in the night before with my now ex boyfriend and cried as I did my make up. I would hide it. I would pretend as if it didn’t happen. I didn’t face it. I wasn’t even sure how to handle it.
I would go out to the club every weekend and wear something super sexy and do my make up. I would go out and have some drinks and dance as hard as I possibly could. Dancing is one of my absolute favorite things to do. So I would dance and drink all night. I would come home and go to bed and wake up feeling all of the emotional pain I was trying to ignore. I would go wash the make up off my face that I would fall asleep in and try to wash the pain off with it. It would always stay.
This sexy skin I am in..
In every time I would go do a sexy photoshoot. Put on a sexy outfit. I wanted to make myself feel what everyone else said they say. Although, I never felt sexy (until recently) I would fake it until I made it.
But this disease I have. This disorder that I have. This pain the I feel felt. It has a way of pretending to be something it is not. So I would pretend to be something that I was not.
This physical disorder that I have that continues to deteriorate who I am every single day has a way of reminding you of who you are in the moment.
I am not in the sexy skin I was in before. When I was able to fight through it. When I was able to resist the pain that it brought. Before I knew what it was. I was able to go and stand in front of cameras and ignore what my body was saying. I was able to. And right now I am not.
The person that I was before all of this… isn’t really the person I want to be. Because although I say it was before all of this. Before all of the abuse. Before all of the health issues. Before it all. I was still damaged and abused. I was still ALWAYS in pain. So there was never really a me to get back to because I was always in emotional pain and in physical pain. I have been that way my whole entire life. And that is something I don’t want to go back to at all.
But this new me. This new woman I have learned to love. The woman who I have worked so very hard to become mentally healthy and mentally strong through all of my physical pain. That is the woman I can’t wait to be after this is all over. I have worked through and continue to work through my past. I continue to work through my emotional pain that has been lifted off of my chest with time and with a series of therapy sessions with two mental health professionals a few times a week.
This sexy skin I am in. The skin that I have holding me close every day. I can’t wait to bring her out on camera. I can’t wait to show the world this new confidence. I cannot wait to show the world who I am and just how sexy, bold, strong, and confident I can be! I just have one task left of me and the road to recovery beyond that is going to be for the story books.
This sexy skin I am in… will keep glowing!
