Loving Yourself Is Hard

The struggle started when I was eight years old. I remember looking at my parents and asking them if I was "fat." At eight years old, no little girl should even know what fat means, but I did. I wasn't fat, and I wasn't even chubby, but the little girl I was looked in the mirror and saw an extra 50 pounds on her body. I thought this was normal. Little did I know, this was merely the beginning. Fast forward on to middle school. My parents had divorced and so we moved from my hometown just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio to a small place called Clay County, Kentucky. This, in a sense, was the beginning of the large-scaled problems I had, and still have to deal with today. This middle school was different than other school I had been to. It was a small school, probably no more than 200 kids at the most, and this meant that everyone who went there knew each other. This made it very difficult for me as an incoming seventh grader to make friends. Everyone knows nowadays that kids can be really cruel, and I can vouch for that saying. I was a very short, small girl in middle school, and many people took advantage of that. I was pushed into lockers and told to go back to where I came from. I was bullied by boys that were bigger than me, was called a prude and a “city slicker,” and never really felt like I fit in. This gave way for my self-hate to sneak its way back into my life. Since then, I have continued to struggle with loving myself and accepting myself the way I am. It lead the way for my eating disorder to begin, and my life got really dark, but that is another story. Today, I am a freshman in college at the university of Kentucky, and I’m a major in Elementary Education. My goal for this year has been to learn how to love myself, and although I haven’t quite accomplished that yet, I am still working on it. Everyone is unique in their own way, and that’s okay! Being you is really the only option, because being someone else will only make you a clone. You are amazing just as you are, and when you realize that, a whole new sense of happiness will engulf your soul.

In closing, I wanted to share this story to be as a light for the rest of you who are struggling with this problem. I want to challenge you all to name 10 things you enjoy about yourself, and try to love the skin you’re in! Always remember:

Be brave.

Be bold.

Be beautiful.

MY TEN THINGS:

1. My kindness.
2. My passion for the environment and teaching.
3. My commitment to self-improvement.
4. My insecurities.
5. My freckles.
6. My strong sense of determination.
7. My voice.
8. My eyes.
9. My love for all people.
10. My heart and its fragility.