So this is the year 1994 and we are back home, although having a home was kind of a hustle. After war countries are tricky, especially if you come back to that country decades later with nothing to your name. This was the situation of many of us returning back in 1994 and as I remember it, it was quite traumatizing for me to have to move 7-8 times in a span of a few months and sometimes going to school and returning to a different home, but I totally diverge, let’s go back to the brain altering moment of this piece.

I was 10 years old and we had settled in a home where we would stay some months, or maybe a year or more, I can’t remember anymore. What I remember is that I loved that place, the house was big enough and the compound was beautiful. It looked is though the owner was some sort of architect, it was modern enough and I don’t remember thinking that anything about it needed to be changed. But let’s remember that this is 1994, in an African country, post war and therefore the electricity is on and off, mostly off those days and as a normal 10 year old would do, during evenings, I was playing, sitting on the floor and I was quite clumsy, always fell and my knees can testify to this, as the scars are still present, I guess it would be attributed to ADHD nowadays. 

While playing one evening, the electricity got cut and there I fell headfirst on the cemented floor and chipped my left front upper tooth. I had no idea that it was chipped, I felt pain and at some point I think I cried and once the electricity came back on or was it when a petrol lamp was lit, my mother noticed that half of my tooth was gone, I do not remember her asking me if i was ok but I clearly remember her telling me that nobody was going to want to marry me with a chipped tooth. I dont know how confident or how worthy I felt at that age, but I just thought to myself, well this is it for me, I am never gonna get married, which I think is still one of the main goals of any young African girl, especially in the 90ies. I dont remember a single instance where my mother tells me that I am enough and deserve to be here, I only recall her telling that i had such a bad personality , and in that moment I realised that messing up the one thing I had going for myself, my beautiful face, no one would ever want me.

This is probably not the first time I thought I was worth less than nothing, I always heard that I was an accident/unplanned, I deducted from that that i was undesired, and hearing over and over that i was so difficult, I couldnt tell why as i was first or second of my class all of my primary school, confirmed that I was truly unwanted. My chipped tooth sent me into a spiral that I can barely get out of, even in the present day. With that chipped tooth, I learnt to smile on one side in a way that no one would notice that I had half a tooth on my left side. My face sort of became crooked but I mastered that smile that if i wasnt laughing out loud, i dont think I ever did in those times, you wouldnt have noticed it. 

Imagine my overthinking 10 year old self trying to find ways of camouflaging my chipped tooth while I perfect the art of people pleasing and turning into a devotee to serve everything and everyone around me. This tiny little moment of inattention changed my life forever, I blamed myself for not paying attention and I have just recently realized that I have always felt that I needed to be perfect from that moment on, it has only been a few months that I am aware that I always wanted to prove that I could still be enough although my tooth was chipped.

The said chipped tooth was repaired 18 years ago, but my worth not quite yet, I still feel like a fraud in all things, at work, in relationships, in sports, in passions, … As though I have a big secret that would make anyone step away once they find out that I am hiding a chipped tooth. Discovering this made me feel anger towards my mother for not being just mean but also being so shallow in that moment, I was so happy to become aware of the origin of my not enoughness and I thought that I could just go on and flip the script, it did not happen, some months after that aha moment, I feel as though a drain was opened on many other instances after this incident. And in my mind, it feels like things only get worser from here and for a few years at least.

I still can’t believe that I accepted that a missing 0.5cm piece of tooth could forever determine my worthiness and lovability. I am almost certain that nobody around me would believe me if I told them that I hated my smile, therefore my face and thought that I did not deserve to be here because I was not perfect. I have tried to be perfect as far as I can remember , is it my mother’s fault? I would say yes. But did she know better? In those times and societal weirdness, I would say probably not. Does it cut deeper as I felt that I got bullied by my own mother and not other kids? Yes I would say so. As a mother myself, I hope I had never had words out of my mouth to my daughter that would make her feel anything but loved, cherished, wanted, valued and worthy of all things that the world has to offer.

I am not here to play the blaming game although the above might sound so, I am here to release those feelings and emotions, at this point I can’t keep holding on to them to keep the shame out of my family’s story, not any longer, I am ready to be better. I want to finish on a positive note saying that I feel that it’s not too late for me to reparent that ten year old me, teach her that she is enough, worthy and deserving just as I did with my daughter. If I could do it with my girl, it was way easier and natural, I can also do it for myself. I refuse to give up on me, I feel that there is more to this life than trying to prove others our worth. I am ready to convince myself that I am lovable by loving myself as I am, to understand that I am enough as I am and if I want to improve any area of my life, it will be because I want to, not because I fear rejection.

To anyone reading, never ever give up, if you are suffering of invisible pains and going through it alone, you are never alone, keep going until you find out what made you become who you are today to become who you want to be tomorrow. The voices in your head are mostly not yours but someone else’s implanted ideas and they are all lies! Cheers to a mouthful smile and to appreciating the beauty around us without questioning our own.

with so much love, Bella