WHY I GREW UP BELIEVING I WAS UGLY!
A reading from Chapter 13: “UGLY”… from the Memoir, “No Tears for my Father”
Vigaland Book Podcast #15 of the Memoir, “No Tears for my Father”
I grew up believing I was ugly. Folks are incredulous when I tell them that. They’ll say “but you were beautiful..and still are!” Well, I’d dispute the latter part of that statement when I look at my wrinkled 71-year-old face today. But, looking back at photos taken by my husband when I was in my 20’s, 30’s etc., I realize now I was anything but ugly. So why did I always feel so UGLY?
I have to give credit to my father, my abuser, for that. It was just another one of his ways to keep me chained to him…another part of the way he manipulated my psyche. He would constantly remind me how lucky I was to have him to love me as no other man would, since, well, I was just UGLY! 
You know how impressionable young children are, and how terribly insecure teens are during puberty and into even their later teens. When you are constantly told you are ugly, bad, stupid, or whatever, you start believing it. You internalize it. And it takes years to change your thinking about yourself. Many of us never fully succeed in shaking the titles our parents, teachers and others hurled at us when we were growing up. 
And of course, when you’re a childhood victim of sexual abuse, you feel UGLY for a much deeper reason than just your physical appearance: you feel ugly because of  the abuse being inflicted upon you; you feel ugly for letting the abuser get away with it; you feel ugly because you’re so weak and can’t get on top of or out of your situation. So you simply grow up believing you are UGLY!
Chapter 13 of my book, NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER, relates how and why I felt so ugly. I haven’t podcast the full chapter as it’s too long. But if you listen to what’s there, you’ll get a good idea of how it went down when I was being abused and mentally manipulated by my own father. You’ll need to buy the book to read the rest of that chapter. 
In fact, if you’re enjoying listening to the podcast of my book, you might consider buying it soon as I’m contemplating stopping the podcasts of NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER. I’ve shared a good deal of it for free. I’ve made it as affordable to buy as I can. My sincerest thanks to all who have already purchased a signed softcover or digital edition from my website or from Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Smashwords. Thanks for listening. 
©Viga Boland, 2017
 
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