Mia Tyler - Creating Myself: How I Learned That Beauty Comes in All Shapes, Sizes, and Packages, Including Me

I just want everyone to stop judging others, stop hating, and realize we are all beautiful in our own ways. We shouldnt have to answer to anyone who thinks otherwise. Therefore we mustnt all be the same kind of person. I want everyone to just be themselves and tell anyone who says otherwise to screw off.

Everything in this book is true to the best of my ability to recall events. I have changed some names. I have also altered the names in and the content of the e-mails referred to and quoted in the text in order to protect the privacy of individuals who have corresponded with me on sensitive issues. But their messages have remained true. I treasure all the trust people have put in me.

The End

On a warm spring night in 2001, a few months before my twenty-second birthday, I had an absurdly stupid, pathetic, and desperate thoughtone few would have suspected coming from me, a successful plus-sized model featured in magazines and typically described as a self-confident role model.

I was going to kill myself.

I was up in the Hollywood Hills, at a home filled with a couple dozen people partying their brains out, some jumping naked in the pool and others dancing to music that thumped loud enough to feel like a series of small earthquakes.

Was it possible to be around so many people and still feel absolutely alone? Yes, sadly, and I was proof.

I opened a sliding door and stepped out onto a balcony that was cantilevered over a deep canyon. Standing there, I had the sense of being on a platform over nothing, a six-foot-long sidewalk suspended in the sky. Straight ahead, far beyond the drop, in a carpet of twinkling lights, clouds, and stars, sprawled Los Angeles, the City of Angels. Corny as it sounds, I wondered where my angels were, whether they were out there, and if they were, would I find them?

One thing I knew for sure. If I jumped, no one would find me at the bottom of the canyon.

I sat down and let my legs dangle over the edge. I puffed on a joint that Id brought out with me and tried to figure out how Id ended up in this spotme, the daughter of rock star Steven Tyler and legendary 70s glamour girl Cyrinda Foxe. I knew better than to think that a gold American Express card and a famous last name guaranteed anything more in life than entry to a club. Then, as in the past, I had to ask if I wanted to be anyplace where they only cared about my last name.

What about me? What about my first name?

But never mind how other people reacted to me and what they thought. What did I think? How did I feel about me?

Why was it worthwhile going on? Was I happy? Had I ever been happy? Was there any meaning to my life?

Those questions and others went through my head. After I found myself repeating the word no, as in no, Id never been happy, and no, there wasnt any meaning to my life, I stood up, gripped the rail with both hands, and with tears streaming from my eyes I prepared to jump.

Thoughts of the past and the future vanished from my head as I girded myself for whatever the end would feel like and the start of the next experience, if there was indeed some kind of life after death. I felt my heart beating fast and hard, and I filled up with fear. I wondered if it was going to hurt. If it did, it wouldnt matter for more than an instant, right?

Then, as I began to count my breaths toward the last one, I looked up at the sky. Through puddled eyes, I searched the stars and, though not religious, I asked God for a reason not to jump.

Just give me a sign, I cried softly. God, please give me a sign if Im supposed to go on. I dont care what it is. Just give me something that will let me feel like I have a reason to face tomorrow.

Nothing happened.

God?

I dont know why, but I was waiting.

Less than ten seconds later, my cell phone rang. The sound startled me. I didnt get service up in the hills. I took my phone out of my pocket anyway and saw that I had a message. I noticed that it had come in earlier that day, but due to what I supposed was bad cell reception, it didnt get to me until that moment.

What a moment, though. Right?

The message was from a talent executive at MTV saying that Id been hired as the networks new metal chick VJ. He wanted me to return to New York immediately.

We know you dont have any experience doing this, he said. But we saw your tape and we like who you are. So let me know when you can get back here and well get you on air.

I listened to the message again. Then I sat down cross-legged on the balcony and cried till I ran out of energy.

Knowing that call had saved my life, I was overwhelmed by emotion. More important than the job was the message itself. Someone had found something worthwhile about me when I had no sense of my own self-worth. Someone wanted me when I was ready to give up. The timing was freakishly amazing. Id asked for a sign and received a clear statement.

We like you.

That moment was a point when my life seemed to stop and restart, like rebooting a computer after it freezes. Some of the reasons for that were immediately obvious (like the fact that I didnt kill myself) and others became clear to me as I worked to figure out why I didnt like myself, why I was so unhappy, what I was supposed to do with my life, and how I could change to make things better. I remember saying to myself, One day the pain will be worth it.

At various times I could only hope that was trueand fortunately its worked out. Transformation is a lifelong process. The sun doesnt come out overnight. It didnt for meand I still have days when the sky is dark and gloomy. But you can change no matter how desperate or dire your circumstances are. For me, it began with baby steps in a direction other than the one Id been going. In other words, I faced my demons instead of running from them. That was never more true than when my mother lost her eighteen-month battle with brain cancer in 2002, and thats what this book is really about: dealing with life rather than hiding from it.