We Must Become the Role Models that We Needed

I wish that more people realized that the media puts out an unrealistic expectation for people. I was probably only 8 years old when a friend of mine (the same age) commented that she was better than I was because she had less stomach rolls than me. I can remember looking down at my stomach and wondering why it mattered so much and trying not to let get me down, even though it did. During my childhood, I moved around a lot. We always stayed in

the same town, but I was shuffled around from different elementary schools due to the city changing the districts so often. It was never the best, as I was (and still am) a shy person by nature. It also wasn't the easiest when one has a name such as mine and end up hearing the same jokes, i.e. "Cinnamon Toast Crunch", "What's your last name? Sugar? Get it, Cinnamon Sugar?" And like other children, I just wanted to be liked and usually was. I was a nice kid and whenever I transferred to another school, everyone seemed to like me.

When I was a in elementary school, I ended up being in the popular group. The group with pretty girls who always had the best Barbie Dolls and who everyone always wanted to be invited to their slumber parties. There are good things that I remember, like the time that we watched Bring It On and attempted to do the cheer moves. Or the time where we scared the wits out of each other while telling scary stories and were amazed that some of us were wearing training bras and we wanted some too. Then, there are the bad memories that I wish that I could forget.

First and foremost, I would like to tell you that I had a happy childhood with a family who always told me that I was beautiful. Of course, the more that other people outside of the family start to treat you as someone who isn't desirable, you start to believe the people putting you down. After the incident when I was eight, I began looking at my body differently. I began worrying about how my body looked, even though I had no idea what it was exactly that I was looking for. Then, when I was 10, I realized what I was supposed to be hiding: love handles.

At 10 years old, after coming out of a stall, a friend of mine at the time had finished washing her hands and noticed me. She smiled and walked over to me and I smiled back. Then, she grabbed my love handles so tightly that I thought that she was going to draw blood. She didn't have love handles and she was taller and skinnier and suddenly, I realized why I was different. It suddenly became clear why the boys didn't tease me like how they teased her and our other friends who could have been carbon copies of her. It also suddenly became clear why I wasn't invited to the Spin the Bottle party.

After that, it was all down hill. I struggled a lot, especially because my mom and all of her friends said that I was too skinny and my former school mates thought that I wasn't skinny/pretty enough and therefore, not worthy of their time. I wanted people to like me and starving myself seemed to achieve that. The whole time, I would compare myself to everyone and I never seemed to be good enough.

Once high school was over, it suddenly appeared that I had transformed from the ugly duckling and into the beautiful swan. I was almost 30 pounds lighter than I had been my freshman year in high school (why the bullying had been at it's peak) and people started treating me differently. They actually started acting as though I was someone special.

Even though everyone viewed me as better, I still felt the same. I wasn't happy with myself. I would still look in the mirror and see the same me that everyone had hurt. I may have dropped a few pants sizes, but I still didn't feel as pretty as everyone made me out to be. I was still comparing myself to others. Like my friend at the time who was a cheerleader, I wasn't ever as good as her. Her back handed compliments helped with that though, i.e., "Maybe if I was bloated on my heaviest day of my period, I would be able to fit into your pants."

Struggling with my looks, I decided to change my hair. I cut my down-to-my-belly-button mermaid hair to a reasonable shoulder length and added light blonde highlights. I was the perfect Barbie (or so I've been told), but it still wasn't what I thought it would be. When I was a kid, I remember wanting to be like Cher from Clueless. Everyone always seemed to love Cher, and why wouldn't they? The only thing was I never realized what would happen once I became her.

Soon, my single friends saw me as competition. A threat. Jealousy is an awful trait, especially when it's in the people who you thought were friends. My friends in particular started to act different around me. They stopped wanting to invite over. One time in particular was because a friend of mine didn't want the attention taken off of her when she went to play ultimate Frisbee with a group of her high school classmates (her and I had met through work and had gone to different high schools and graduating in different classes). Which, if you've ever met me, you would know that I highly dislike attention and am still very shy.

Then, there was the time that the friend mentioned previously, a mutual friend, and myself went to Warp Tour. I don't remember all of the bands that we listened to and I can't recall just how hot and humid it was, but I will never forget how angry Friend B was with me when two strange men talked to me instead of her. She was wearing a bikini top for sobbing out loud!

I had never had very many friends to begin with, but it seems like all of the friends that I lost were after I "became pretty." A few months after Warp Tour, Friend B was in a new relationship. She then decided that I should be in a relationship as well and attempted to set me up with one of her bf's friends. Of course, it didn't work out as she had hoped and I ended up dating his brother. She wanted to do everything with us, at first. Then, it became a competition and she attempted to ruin my relationship. She also decided to turn our mutual friends against me. By how things played out, it didn't take much persuading.

I had done everything that I was supposed to do, but I wasn't happy. So, I decided to focus on who I was as a person. It seemed like almost every day I was asking myself (a) was I grateful for what I have (b) did I do something nice for someone else. The more days that passed, the less I started caring about what I looked like. I was practicing yoga and was finally (FINALLY) starting to accept myself.

Until I was diagnosed with several autoimmune diseases that caused intense chronic pain and chronic fatigue. I had to stop doing yoga and I gained back all of the weight that I had lost in high school and then some. It seemed like a cruel joke for me to be at such a terrible low. I'm in therapy now, to help me become more accepting of my illnesses (and the fact that I will only decline with age). I feel so foolish to have spent so many years torturing myself because I didn't look like the girls that I went to school with or the women in magazines. I still struggle with wanting to skip meals and it makes me so furious. We should be lifting each other up, not putting each other down! We need more body positivity. I don't want anyone else to go through what I have gone through, especially not my little sister or my nieces. We all deserve to love ourselves!

**first posted on bodypositivity.com**