The Authentic Type?

 

As a college theatre major, I once took a television performance class. The students were asked to serve as the casting director and label what “type” of look each filmed student had.

Concerning me, several classmates made comments like, “exotic,” “a foreigner,” “a gypsy.” But one comment stood out:

“She looks like that woman from ‘Misery.’” (After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, my professor mercifully named the actress, Kathy Bates).

And then, everyone chimed in with “yeah, she’s a great crazy woman.”

Um… thanks?

As a theatre major, I was cast- or rather, typecast- in certain roles. I was the “character actor,” rather than the ingénue.

Still, I couldn’t get past the ingénue’s mystique. I associated that type with beauty, a/k/a, inherent worth.

And, since I linked beauty with extreme thinness, well, things went awry. Hopelessness, despair and wrong views of my personal worth started the ball rolling. Physical and emotional complications, like full-blown eating disorders, an irregular heartbeat and suicidal thoughts were also some fun highlights.

Types. Do we believe only certain characteristics are worthy? What types do we covet- and what types do we disdain?

A 1929 Armand beauty ad once promoted different beauty types, touting its “Find Yourself” campaign, complete with each female type’s matching names. 

Here are those descriptions…

The Cleopatra Type: “Masculine hearts pound when she goes by.”

The Godiva Type: “Anglo-Saxon, blond, winsome and how!”

The Sonja Type: “Dark and mysterious, she has a way with her.”

The Cherie Type: “She brings the boulevards of Paris to America.”

The Sheba Type: “Dark-brown hair and a queenly air.”

The Lorelai Type: “Blond and aggressive, she ‘gets her man.’”

The Mona Lisa Type: “Light-brown hair and a devastating smile.”

The Colleen Type: “She has more pep than a jazz band.”

Within that extensive list, however, there is not one mention of an “Authentic” type. That’s probably by design.

Inauthenticity is more profitable. It can create a spirit of competition emphasizing aesthetically pleasing, surface values, rather than the more significant matters of life. Everyone gets obsessed with appearance, so they miss other things that are happening around them. I know I was not preoccupied with world affairs and helping my fellow man.

Rather…

 “...They were now competition for me. If I could be thinner than these women, then I’d be better than they were as well… Competition grew between me and any thin girl or woman. Mirror, mirror: I had to be the thinnest one of them all. It was life or death importance, anything less than that was unacceptable. Gaining any weight, whatsoever, meant failure, simple as that...What I didn’t realize at the time was that my eyes and mind were incapable of seeing anything but a distorted image...”

(Excerpt from “Thin Enough: My Spiritual Journey Through the Living Death Of An Eating Disorder”)

However, no matter what I did, I could not attain that coveted standard. No matter what, I never felt “beautiful.” I never felt valuable.

And, of course, I never felt authentic.

Breast cancer has since radically shifted my sense of body image.

Now, gritty reality, loss and potential death have eclipsed any kind of type, ingénue or otherwise.

Yeah, this was real. This was happening.

Breast cancer targeted every element of my femininity and self-image. Most impactful? Well, I no longer have my breasts. How’s that?

I’m not the first woman to come to this brutal confrontation; sadly, I won’t be the last, either.

Nevertheless, my breast-less body has provided me an education nothing else could. If I no longer have this, arguably, most identifiable, feature of womanhood, am I still a woman?

I say yes, and, yes, doing so has been hard-won. I face my breast-less chest daily. I am getting used to this newer, different version of myself. And I’m choosing to love and it.

I am not my breasts. I am not a physical attribute. There is far more to me than a physical body.

However, it is within my best interest to embrace, not reject, my physical body. My body is what it is. It’s not bad; it’s not ugly, no matter what “type agenda” tries to convince me otherwise.

And this has been a powerful shift for someone, like me, who once held such a narrow definition of beauty and worth. It’s all opened now. Rediscovering and accepting oneself, the actuality of it is personal, difficult and ongoing…for the rest of one’s life.

That’s authenticity and I’m learning it, day by day.

Grief and fear exist, in my life in a different way now. I have had to mourn not just the loss of my breasts, but the changes forced upon my life. There’s no willing it away; it’s a byproduct of a life-threatening diagnosis. One’s mortality become real; death becomes real. I’m not constantly pre-occupied with these thoughts and feelings 24/7, but, nevertheless, they are there. And, of course, being a particular “type” does not create immunity from this newer normal.

That’s authenticity and I’m learning it, day by day.

Physical discomfort, likewise, is a newer reality in my breasts’ absence. Surgery simply did not just remove these body parts. It also left a scar, with its scar tissue, along with a change to how my chest looks and feels. Think plastic-y breastplate I cannot fully take off. That feeling. Being a “Sheba Type,” other any other offered possibility, like the Armand ad promises, cannot do anything to change that experience.

That’s authenticity and I’m learning it, day by day.

I am more direct now. And this is probably the greatest transformation to my person, even greater than losing my breasts. Authenticity presents itself in such rawness.

Before my diagnosis, surgery and treatment, I had the luxury of not needing to face my issues head-on. Yeah, sure, I’d been in therapy for my eating disorders and abuse experiences, but I was merely skating around various issues. I could still play the game, play the role, play the type.

Now, I’m facing things, with less flinching than I was before. Call it mortality, perhaps, yet again. Call it age. Call it maturity (well, that one may still be up for debate).

Whatever it is, there has surfaced a different boldness to tackle things. I don’t have the time, the energy or the will to avoid getting to the point.

I’m now more involved and earnest in this process because, let’s be authentic, my life may not be as “lifelong” as I previously thought.

Mortality.

No one gets out of here alive.

I’m not doing it perfectly. For anyone who’s been in recovery from anything in life, we know it’s an imperfect, ongoing process.

That’s authenticity and I’m learning it, day by day.

Now, it’s less about being some delicate expression of a beautiful girl or a certain “type;” it’s more about being authentically me, beyond image, beyond presumption, beyond the pleasing scripts we so often find ourselves voicing.

Authenticity. More than a type, more than a look. It is a way of being in the world and, day by day, you and I make choices concerning it.

How real are we? How honest?

You may not be going through a major health crisis, but right now, you are going through something, aren’t you?

How are you playing into a type?

And really, is it working for you?

It’s time to question the importance of type versus our authentic selves.

Where’s the disparity? Why do we need the shell of a type instead of simply being ourselves?

Each of us is worth participating in our own unique authenticity. No image, manipulation, personal experience or other individual’s opinion are required to qualify that.

Therefore, right now, let’s dare to type ourselves as authentic beings of integrity. Its effects are everlasting.

Copyright © 2021 by Sheryle Cruse