Take one stubborn and slightly insecure thirteen-year-old. Give her a ridiculous height, back problems and a lack of social skills (or a lack of motivation to brush up those awfully rusty social skills and put them to work). And voila, there you have me, or at least how I was about five years ago. Yes, I’m eighteen now and I feel a little old for that. But well, life goes on and there is not much you can do about it.

    Five years ago I was at the point that everyone around me started to become insecure. I don’t know when teens reach that point in their life where they suddenly feel the need to be perfect. It probably depends on the age you actually hit puberty. I was quite young, eleven to be exact, when I got my first period. Which was basically a nightmare. Imagine being the only one on her period, the only one with those awful things you call boobs and then you know exactly how I was feeling back then. Anyway, I already had that period of self-hate and ohmygoshwhymewhymewhyme. I guess so. I was already past that. So by the time I was thirteen I was supposedly mature enough to conclude the following thing:

    It’s a waste of your energy to be insecure.

    You know why? Because this is the you you’re going to get. There is only one you and that is the person you are looking at in the mirror. Don’t like your nose? Nothing to do about that. It is your nose, it is part of you, you should love it! Because your nose makes you you and you are most definitely awesome. And mostly: worth being loved.

    I concluded that it was a waste of my time to think of myself as ugly and unworthy because this was me and there was not much I could do to change myself. I could only love myself and try to improve myself by studying a little more to get my grades up, by being nice to friends, by being a good person. I didn’t want to waste my time on useless thoughts.

    That’s what I told myself at the age of thirteen, though I am not entirely sure if it was the age of thirteen I concluded that. Might have been when I was already fourteen. Anyway, it was as if something in my brain had switched and I felt more confident about myself.

    In the following years I would slowly start accepting myself more and more. I would become the girl whose stares could kill because apparently I am slightly arrogant – or look slightly arrogant. I would become the small girl because of my length. I would become the confident girl because apparently loving yourself gives yourself a certain attitude of confidence. Which is good. Confidence is good. I loved myself for that. I loved the person I was becoming. Of course I had my moments. The moments like shit am I putting on weight or ugh I hate those glasses I need to wear. Or she looks so much better than me, she is so much more loved than me, why can’t I be like that? I had them. But then I thought: would I be happy as a popular kid? No. Because somehow I am the type of girl that enjoys spending time with books and the internet and I would chose it every time over some stupid party with stupid people who only care about their status in this stupid school. After all it was not like I would ever see them again after graduation.

    Meanwhile I kept struggling with back pains and in May, a few weeks before I would turn seventeen, I got the news: I had to undergo surgery. Apparently there was something in my back that was so broken that it couldn’t even be fixed – no, it needed to be stabilized, to prevent it from further progressing. The surgery would hurt. It would hurt like hell. But at the end it would be worth it because it would get rid of the pain, or at least, most of it.

    And there was me, just turned seventeen, going under on the eleventh of July, two-thousand-and-thirteen.

    After my surgery there was still a long road ahead of me filled with physical therapy, schoolbags on wheels and braces around my waist. So that’s what I did. I did exactly what was asked from me. I went to school with a schoolbag on wheels, which is basically social suicide if you are a freshman obsessed with popularity but luckily I was a senior. Not that I looked like one, but I was one. So I couldn’t give a damn about what all the minors thought of me. I couldn’t even care the littlest. I just cared for my health.

    Then there was that miraculous moment where I could get rid of the brace. And three months later, that even more miraculous moment where I could get rid of the schoolbag on wheels. And I was finally back again. Me.

    But there was this other thing that had been bothering me for a while now and that was my weight. After the surgery I lost approximately 11 lbs due to the surgery and the pain I was in afterwards. I went from 119 lbs to 108 and that’s a great loss of weight considering my height. People kept telling me how great I looked now I had lost some weight. Not that I was fat or anything before – most definitely not. I had a perfectly normal body. But yes, I had a bit of a stomach. And my legs weren’t the thinnest. They still weren’t after the surgery but I had a nice waist-line now and apparently that made the difference.

    Because of all the compliments on my looks and because I lost weight in such an unhealthy way, I started to become terrified of gaining it. So terrified that I slowly started to become a person that counts calories – the kind of person I would have frowned upon before the surgery. I started to eat less, just because I feared gaining weight so much. I lost another two pounds. I never became anorexic nor developed another eating disorder because I simply like eating too much but I did become very aware of what I ate. I still am. I try not to be, more and more, but there is still this voice inside my head telling me that I get fat if I eat a cookie – which is, of course, nonsense because I exercise enough and one cookie doesn’t immediately makes me fat. But the voice is still here, as much as I try to get rid of it.

    A part of me wants to go back to who I was, to that girl who was so sure of herself, despite not having the waist-line I have now. Another part of me looks back at those pictures and thinks gosh I really weighed ten pounds more back then. I love my looks because I know I won’t get anything else and because, honestly, my looks are not too bad. But my weight is kind of a sensitive subject right now, despite how much it bothers me that it is.

    I am still on my journey towards self-acceptance, even now, a year after the surgery. But I think I will get there. After the summer break I will leave my parents’ home to live on my own. I will start to attend university – med school, to be exact. I think that once I start to have my own routine, I may even get rid of that voice bugging me in the back of my mind. Because it’s not worth it. It’s not worth to waste your time on something so irrelevant as your looks. Of course it matters. Of course you should try to look nice because people do judge you on your appearance, despite what all those feel-good-blogs may say. But please, don’t become obsessed with your looks. Even if you are a little overweight, you can still be gorgeous. Even if you are short, like me, you can still be sexy. Even if you are tall, you can still be cute. Even if you are thin, you can still be beautiful. Everyone is amazing in their own way. So please, don’t let people tell you what you should look like. You are amazing just the way you are (oh gosh I am quoting Bruno Mars now).

    People love you. Don’t forget that. Your mum loves you. And maybe she does that because you are her child but she also does it because she will always see the best in you. You are wonderful. Keep that in mind the next time you look into the mirror and feel insecure about whatever aspect of your body. It’s your body. Learn to love it and it will sure as hell love you back.

    It’s the only body you are going to get anyway. Be a little nice to it.

 Fae x

[ Thank you so much to Fae for providing us with our first entry! She's also participating in the Body Positivity Challenge - I urge you to go check out her profile and read! ]