u/Downtown_Slide_1229

I think for almost my entire life I’ve wished that I could have skin like my mom.

My relationship with my parents is very complicated. They never married. I was basically a one night stand baby. My mom was much younger than my dad, and he was using her to cheat on his wife he already had. So I spent the majority of my life with my mom. Only saw my dad very occasionally, usually for summer break. Haven’t spoken to him since I was 15.

I remember being very young, growing up in a tiny town in Pennsylvania, looking around at all the kids in my school and realizing that I was the only kid with brown skin. I remember thinking my mom was so pretty and how I wanted to look exactly like her, but because of my skin I thought we didn’t look anything alike and it made me upset.

Now I’m an adult, I don’t talk to my mom anymore because of stuff that’s too complicated to get into here. But I still have that feeling occasionally, when I look in the mirror or I try on clothes that I think are so cute but on me they just don’t feel right. I’ve been thinking about and trying to find my own style for years now but nothing ever feels like it fits. I want to embrace who I really am, but I don’t know who that is. I’m finally on my own and I no longer need to conform myself to what my mom or my dad expects me to be, but I’ve also never had the freedom to discover who I really am before. My whole childhood, my whole life was spent in survival mode, and I feel like just this disgusting confused amalgamation of all the different people that have all left a mark on me for better or for worse

Don’t really know if this counts as a rant or an identity question or what. Just wanted to know if anyone else can relate I guess. First time posting here, sorry.