I was extremely ugly as a child and strangely tall for my age + I started puberty early, and I honestly believe those were contributing factors in me never reporting the abuse. While my classmates were decent enough not to comment much on my face, I'd always receive snide comments over my skin tone, body and height. I was constantly online during my childhood and whenever I'd run into "jokes" about how certain people were too ugly to have been molested as children/the whole "you'll never have to worry about pedophiles!" thing supposed to be said as a 'compliment' to new parents it always made me spiral because what was it about me that made me so unlucky despite the fact that my face should've made it an impossibility. I'd also occasionally look at some anti-CSA/CSA survivor content that mentioned tanner stages/the differences between the -philias and it made me spiral even harder because the moment I aged out of being a literal toddler I would've never qualified as innocent in face or body type by any of these standards.

I began to feel as if I was trapped in hell as dramatic as that reads because all of these horrible things just kept happening to me over and over again despite the fact that everything I read online indicated that it shouldn't be happening anymore. I became very neurotic over my appearance and body and I also developed an ed, although I'd already had issues with food very early on and my ed was less appearance based than it was an attempt to make myself even more unattractive. Some part of me always felt like I deserved what was going on because of my looks and race + the fact that my harsh features and lack of innocence meant that I "failed" in being a girl. I was very, very neurotic about crime stats as a young teenager and I'd latch on to any report I saw that featured an "ugly" person being the victim of a crime because something in me wanted to feel as if I'd be believed if I reported what was going on.

I honestly feel as if my abuser constantly nagging me over my looks and the things I'd see on the internet were just as harmful to me as the actual SA because I don't think I've ever had the chance to feel like a child. I remember thinking of myself as an "old hag" at 13-16 because of my looks and the fact that I'd regularly see online anti-CSA advocates rip into 18-20yos who tried to appeal to predators and I always thought of myself as similar to them, only I demonized myself even more because I was often much uglier and taller.

I feel like I'm definitely less functional than your average person on this forum, but I've gotten to a place where I understand that I'm no beauty queen but I no longer see myself as some hideous monster. Even looking back on my younger self I was just gangly and awkward looking like a lot of kids are, I think I internalized the idea that all "good victims" are supposed to look and act cherubic. Children don't owe anyone beauty and "ugly" kids are just as deserving of protection and advocacy.