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by meghan Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ · Letter/Memo · Emotional · #2222678
My personal struggles with body image & thoughts on the matter regarding beauty standards
In a society plagued by this dogma of ideal beauty, how a girl should look or act, it can be more than difficult to feel confidence in yourself. Since I was a little girl I have struggled with body image, confidence, happiness. From the mere age of 7 I have allowed the paranoia and anxiety to get to me, strip away the carelessness and joys that should fill childhood memories. All the happy times have been replaced by insecurities, and 'look how fat I was.'
Why are people so cruel?
Now, with beauty standards outrageously unobtainable, and judgmental hypocrites lurking around every corner, it's nearly impossible to feel comfortable. Everyday I wake up, scared to leave the house without makeup. I look in the mirror and I pick apart every little detail about myself, dissect it and scrutinize until the beauty is deceased. This needs work; I hate that; no one will ever love me looking like this.
How horribly disappointing to live in a world where little girls have to fear not the monsters under their beds, but the merciless critics out in the world--the people who care more about physical appearances than they do anything else. We have created an entire generation of narcissistic assholes obsessed with nothing but pretty faces and slim-thick bodies.
By the time I was 8, the only wish I made when I blew out my birthday candles was to look like the other girls.
"Stop eating"
"You're too heavy"
"Pull your shirt down"
"Do you really want to wear that?"
Day after day of these discouraging remarks from my peers, my friends, my family..
Skipping breakfast turned into skipping lunch too turned into not eating until dinner and then crying myself to sleep.
Years later and nothing has changed. The vicious cycle continues. I eat when people expect me to, because I don't want to worry them, but I despise myself for it. Every time I put food in my mouth, I feel ashamed.
It's not even that I'm overweight, I just don't have a perfectly flat stomach like is expected of me. I spend hours trying on outfit after outfit just to end up wearing something that will completely hide my midsection. Because God forbid if the world knew I was anything less than perfect.
I'm 16 for Christ's sake, I shouldn't be worrying about my future, about remaining unwanted and unworthy of anyone's affection for the rest of my life. I shouldn't be obsessed with calories, waking up at the ass crack of dawn to run because i'm terrified of what people would think if they saw me, wishing I could start my life over and change everything, or dripping tears over my keyboard because of something I have absolutely no control over.
It's all getting a bit repetitive now, my depression over this unrealistic goal that I have to look a certain way that I can never achieve. But it's hard to just make peace with something you have battled for more than half your life. This insecurity about the way I look, it's a part of me now. I need to just cut it out, remove the tumor, and go on with my life. But the thing is, I don't know if I can. I constantly find myself comparing the way I look to everyone else in a room without even meaning to.
I just want to be happy and comfortable in my own skin, but it's just so fucking hard when everyone else is constantly ripping you to shreds.
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