So there I was. I had my dream job. I had great friends and family. My Guitar Hero scores were getting better. (Well, I was still stuck on Hard, but at least I was enjoying myself.) Everything was good. (No, great!) And then, suddenly, it wasn’t. done with it.) It sounds exciting, and it was, but in a weird way I was removed from it all. Disney executives were making all the big decisions about Hannah. I just got told where I had to be and when I had to be there. On the set, after work, weekends, I was going full steam. It definitely took a toll on me.
I would like to say it was exhaustion or the pressure of new fame, but that’s not why I couldn’t get out of bed on that particular morning. The truth was, I couldn’t get out of bed because my skin looked awful. I didn’t believe I was beautiful. Nothing could change that fact.
My dad had had bad skin as a teenager, and mine had slowly gotten worse as the season went on.
I’m sure all that stage makeup didn’t help. And as if the mirror wasn’t sending the message loud and clear, people on the Web started making comments. (Makeup, check. Stress, check. Lack of sleep, check. Fourteen years old, check. Being made fun of on the Internet, check.)
Beauty is the enemy. We try to conquer not feeling beautiful all our lives.
It’s a battle that can’t be won. There’s no definition of beauty. The only way to achieve beauty is to feel it from inside without breaking it down into individual physical attributes.
How could I show up at work? I couldn’t let them film me looking like this. How could I go outside? I couldn’t let a fan take a photo of me. I usually go to the gym in the morning. But how could I deal with all those mirrors?
I couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t just the zits. I honestly believed there was nothing special about me. I refused to get up. I couldn’t move. Hours went by. Then it was two p.m., and I was supposed to be at the studio for work. My mom had been coming in to check on me, and by now she was threatening me, saying, “I’m going to call your dad. He’s going to have to fly home.” She wanted to get me out of my bedroom and back into the real world, out in the daylight. But it wasn’t that simple.
Eventually my mom got me to go to work that day, but the darkness didn’t go away. I’d see myself in makeup, or Photoshopped in magazines, and see this perfect, airbrushed version of myself.
Then I’d look in the mirror and see reality. You know how all those magazines are doctored, how none of the models or celebrities or stars look as good in real life as they do when they’ve been dressed, styled, made up, and airbrushed? Well, if you ever find yourself wishing you looked as good as Miley Cyrus in some photo (and I’m not so vain as to assume you would), just remember: Miley Cyrus doesn’t look as good as Miley Cyrus in that photo. Take it from me. I became obsessed with the way I looked. I’d stare at the mirror for hours, hating myself outside and in. If all eyes were on me, why did I have to look like this?
It started with my skin, and then it snowballed. I didn’t like my looks, my body, my personality, anything about myself. Why would God do this to me? I know, I know, melodrama. A few zits don’t exactly make me Job. But cut me some slack. I really am a teenager. On better days, I know that superficial things shouldn’t matter. I know I’m supposed to put it in perspective. But that doesn’t mean I’m good at it yet.
We needed to at least try to fix my skin. So I went to a dermatologist. I had high hopes. I figured:
this is Los Angeles. L.A. doctors had to have all sorts of magical ways to instantly make actors look perfect. I thought they’d, like, airbrush me in real life with special cover-up that would last until my twentieth birthday. Yeah, not so much.
If you’ve ever had acne, you know that there’s no instant solution. I walked out of that office more depressed than when I went in. My mom tried to reason with me. She said, “Every day when you wake up you have a choice to make. You can decide to be mad at the world, or you can decide that this isn’t going to affect you. You won’t have this problem forever. We’re working on it. But meanwhile you have to remember that there are a lot worse things in the world.” I know Mom learned that way of living from Mammie. Mammie always says, “All things work together for the good.” But this time I rolled my eyes. Of course there were worse things. Now I was ugly and self-obsessed. But Mom went on, “I know that doesn’t make you feel better, but you do have a choice about how you’re going to deal with things every day. You can be angry and upset. Or you can tell yourself that you have acne just like everyone else.” I listened to the words she was saying, but they just floated around me. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—take them in.
The whole end of the season was a miserable, hard time for me. I wasn’t talking to anyone on the set, I was surly, I was late. I didn’t really talk about it to most people. For the most part, they had no idea how twisted up I was, though at some point the AD (assistant director) on the show, was like,
“Where’s Miley? This isn’t our Miley.” He was right. It wasn’t me. I don’t usually hold on to thoughts that drag me down, but this time I couldn’t let go.
When the AD came up to me and asked what the deal was, I told him about my skin (although that wasn’t all of it), and he talked to me about his own struggles with acne. I looked around, and it occurred to me that everyone has a history of obstacles. I knew I wasn’t the only teenager with acne, but I also got it that people live through it. You deal. You survive. You grow up and you build a career. And you remember these big/little hardships. They make you human. Talking to the AD, to my mom—none of it was the magic cure, but I slowly managed to keep getting out of bed. That was the best I could do.
When the season ended, I was busier than ever. I was about to go on tour and didn’t have time to think. I was always dancing, sweating, out late working. The distraction helped. But when I went home, and the distractions were gone, the self-hatred would hit me all over again. I’d lost perspective.