I want to talk about my body. I want to talk about my brain. I want to talk about how my changing body has affected others perception of my brain. And I would like to talk about how that affects me, too. I was always scrawny, and I was always highly intelligent. My sister is beautiful and just enough older that her development preceded mine by a few years. Those years were hard. No one noticed me like that. No one thought my body was beautiful. But they always thought I was intelligent. Always noticed the off the charts testing, the correct answers without studying, the SATs in sixth grade, college classes in seventh and eighth grade. Then, puberty hit. And it was like I wasnt allowed to have breasts and an IQ. People assume I am stupid. For awhile, I fought this perception, still aced tests, still tried to show my intelligence was there. At best, people were surprised. It makes me have a messed up relationship with my body where I resent it. I resent that I cannot wear a tank top without my perceived IQ dropping thirty points or more. Resent that I am distrustful of whether someone is truly interested in my thoughts. Resent that people automatically assume Im stupid. Partly because it just sucks, in general, and partly because, as a little girl in a scrawny body, I spent so long improving my mind because I had no control over my body...for nothing.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 20:08:22 +0000