The Trauma of Having a Mask Forced On You

My senior photos are one memory that will probably always stick in my craw.

I’ve forgiven and moved on from a lot of things about high school. My friends hanging out without inviting me, typical teenage back-biting. The twenty minute argument with the idiot friend who didn’t understand how bomb reenforced walls worked and how they couldn’t protect you if you were inside of the walls with the bomb. (We kept getting increasingly frustrated because how could anyone be that stupid. He never caught on to the logistical error of his thesis.) Not the fashion, obviously. I am still devoted to 90’s fashion as any of my friends will tell you with dramatic eyerolls.

I’d tried several times over my high school years to get into wearing makeup and carrying a purse. I felt like I had reached an age where it was basically mandatory and I was pushing boundaries by not going along with it. Even my low key, low maintenance female friends at least did their eyes. So I’d give it a go. And it would last one, maybe two days, before it felt too uncomfortable on me and I stopped again, my skin crawling.

But for senior photos, something I wasn’t excited about to begin with, Mom insisted I get my makeup done. She never wore a lot of makeup herself, but when I baulked and pointed that out, she replied that, “Your senior photos will represent you forever. You need to look your best for them.”

“I don’t wear makeup at all though,” I reasonably pointed out, though probably with more shouting. “They won’t be an accurate representation of me at this age if you make me wear makeup.”

Despite the indisputable logic of my argument, I still found myself trailing along in her wake at the mall on the day of the photos, heading to one of those stores that would give you a makeover in an attempt to sell you their product. After all, it’s not like Mom knew enough about makeup to do it for me.

I still remember the visceral horror I felt as I followed her. I had never felt so trapped and helpless in my life. I wanted to turn and run away so badly, I could feel my legs shaking with it. But where could I go? She’d driven. She was my mom. Ultimately, I had no say over my own life if she decided to put her foot down. By the time we got to the store, I felt sick and horrified, rather than angry.

I only realize now how clear a violation of my consent the whole thing was. I’d said no. She’d said it didn’t matter what I said, it was happening anyway.

Just because it was only makeup didn’t make it okay.

I felt like a scammer the whole time I sat there patiently as the helpful sales girl put makeup on me. She was doing my makeup under false pretenses, I was thinking. Though she wasn’t, actually. She was there to show us how it looked, and Mom dutifully bought a few items. (Notably my favorite, a face shimmering powder. Never let it be said that I’ve pretended to dislike a good shimmer.)

I looked . . . fine.

I’d been conditioned by Maury to think that all of my tomboy tendencies at seventeen were because I didn’t think I was pretty enough, so I was mildly grateful to look okay ‘for once.’ To look conventional.

It felt unnatural, but after all, so was I.

My spirit broken, what could I do but go along. Mom made me get changed into a nice shirt, and she used the curling iron to curl all of the wayward ends of my shoulder length hair under. I hated how feminine it looked, but she insisted it was necessary.

Photos were taken in a blur of discomfort and then I was home and washing my face off.

When the proofs of the photos arrived a few weeks later and it was time to decide which one to order so I could trade them with my friends, the results were horrifying. I hated the sight of them immediately and choosing the least bad one to be my senior yearbook photo was a trial.

Mom ended up ordering none of them. “They just don’t look like you,” she explained.

She conveniently forgot that I’d been saying that the whole time, but I don’t even remember pointing that out. I’d swallowed too much shame on that lost argument.

When my friends started trading theirs at school, I had to explain that I didn’t have any. A few friends still gave me copies of theirs, but quite a few wouldn’t if I had nothing to give them in return. I was embarrassed and felt even more like an outsider, not getting to participate in this semi-official cultural ritual with my peers.

Mom promised at first to get do overs. It wouldn’t fix the yearbook photo, but at least I’d have something I could give my friends. That never manifested and after a few years it was kind of too late.

My sister got hers. She looked just like herself. Mom bought those. Dad put a copy up on his mantle. It felt like another reminder that she was his favorite child.

I still grimace if I flip through my senior yearbook and see that photo. Forced smiles are common enough in those things, but my eyes look flat and dead in a way that stands out. I don’t look like myself superficially, though in a way that mask did serve to strip away the one I usually managed to keep in place, revealing how miserable I really was under everything.

Even writing this, I still feel ashamed that I’d given in to Mom’s unreasonable demands to look the way she wanted me to look. She was living vicariously through me, I suspected it even at the time. She’d never felt pretty so she wanted me to be pretty for her. To have that beautiful yearbook photo she never got.

Instead, she gave me a very profound dose of shame and body horror. So much for giving me a unique experience she wasn’t intimately familiar with.

It’s one thing to try to put a mask on yourself to cover up the truth. When I put makeup on, I felt awkward and uncomfortable, but at least it was my choice. It’s a different thing entirely when someone you love and trust looks at you and sees the same thing you’ve been trying to hide and makes it very clear that they also think you need to cover that truth up — and then they force you to do so.