The Mean Girl In My Head
Can’t live with her, can’t live without her.
The mean girl in my head is a total cunt. She is relentlessly cruel and unapologetically hot. She looks like every girlie on social media who aspires to emulate Haley Bieber, only prettier and skinnier. Her skin is always glowing and her eyebrows are perfectly groomed and shaped. Recently, she got an eye lift surgery, after Lindsay Lohan made her comeback. There was so much speculation over what Li-Lo had done to her face. The mean girl tracked down Lindsay’s doctor in Dubai and flew halfway around the world to replicate the same glow-up. First class, obviously.
The mean girl’s face is pumped full of botulinum toxins and her skin is as pore-less as a pre-pubescent. She’s one of those horse hair girls. You know the type. The kind of girl who has virgin hair, never been colored or chemically treated, that cascades down her back and is the perfect shade of honey-blonde with naturally occurring highlights. One week in the Bahamas and she returns with dewy bronzed skin and sun kissed tips. Sometimes she throws her hair up in a perfectly messy bun but it otherwise falls effortlessly past her shoulders.
It never kinks or frizzes. I guess I’m just blessed! She touts whenever someone compliments it, which is often. The mean girl has no shortage of compliments being tossed her way. Even after an aggressively heated yoga class with weights, her hair and skin maintain their effortless beauty.
I sweat from my head. My hair is wet and matted at the end of a workout. My face beat red and enlarged pores hungry to swallow up the sweat that is pouring out of me.
The mean girl controls my life. She dictates what I eat, what I post on social media, what I wear, and how I conduct myself in every social interaction. She is a condemnatory tyrant, never shying away from pointing out exactly what is wrong with me, which is apparently a lot. By picking me apart, she tells me insidiously while fixing her lip gloss in her phone camera, she is creating a better version of me. I wouldn’t do that, she whispers as I reach for another fry or try on an adventurous outfit or am about to hit “post” on social media.
I’ve attempted to extricate myself from her but then there she is, to remind me that I would be ugly and friendless without her. Our attachment is intrinsic, seemingly baked into my DNA. Her tough love approach is necessary, so she claims. I want to kick her out but she stubbornly refuses to give up the real estate she has claimed in my brain.
Although her every move is calculated, she operates with such effortless precision that no one notices. Her greatest fear is being judged, looking stupid or silly, or god forbid — ugly. Ugly isn’t an option.
The mean girl in my head hasn’t touched a carb since 2011. She sustains herself on Celsius, cigarettes, sugar-free gum, and popcorn. Popcorn is the perfect solution to starvation. It twists her stomach into knots, filling her up and giving her the illusion of being full and sated, while her stomach silently pleads for real nutrition. She groans about how full she is while I help myself to another french fry.
The mean girl in my head doesn’t have many friends but somehow still appears to be so popular and widely adored. Her armor of beauty and feigned self-assuredness protect her. She gives blow jobs generously with a giddy, eager focus. She reminds me constantly that I am a sexless troll who is her subordinate. By contrast, I am painfully aware of my many flaws. Shame curdles inside of me at the thought of my own desires. The mean girl’s desires are namely to control me and keep me quiet. To keep me small and silent in her shadow. She is painstakingly good at this.
My therapist suggests that I learn to live with her, harmoniously, which seems impossible. I want to extricate myself from her entirely. I want her to disappear into her self-involved delusion and stop picking on me. I’m sick of trying to impress her only to be met with snickering insults.
I hate that she has a hold on me. I want to break free from her, but how?
The truth is, what I would never say to her but I’ve come to realize recently, is that I feel really sorry for her. She is lonely and insecure and so fucking scared all of the time. Her aim to control me is a way to temper her own pain. I am her mirror and she is terrified to look at it.
When I look at my reflection she taunts me, telling me exactly what is wrong with each of my features, holding nothing back. Did I mention the mean girl in my head is a total cunt?
Many of us are, I’m sure, familiar with the saying in reference to sometimes men and sometimes women. Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em. I would happily live without men, however I cannot live without my mean girl. She is my main bitch and I hers. Round and round we go. We must find a way to be copacetic.
She hasn’t vacated, but we have come to an agreement of sorts recently. We are strangely and perhaps sickeningly codependent. We need each other to survive. For five minutes a day I give her the floor. I let her scream whatever obscenities she wants about my body, appearance, personality or otherwise. And then, when she is tired (which doesn’t take long since she is so malnourished) I kindly tell her to shut the fuck up and I get on with my day.
