Body image and self confidence is something I believe everyone struggles with at one point in their life. I am no different than anyone else in that regard. I began to notice I was different around the 4th or 5th grade. It started when my friends were mentioning wearing training bras. They bragged about it as if they were so cool for having them. It was like they were leagues above the other girls who hadn't developed to that point yet. I however was already wearing a regular bra. I didn't know there was a step before that and I felt weird. I began to look at myself and wonder what was wrong with me. I wasn't petite like them. The teacher didn't brag about me doing well like she did with them. For the first time I noticed differences between myself and my peers and I thought that something was wrong within me.
That seems to typically be the case. We all look at ourselves and think of how we're not like those around us. We do this as if there is something wrong with that. At that age I didn't see that I was more developed than my friends. I didn't realize that my teacher was trying to motivate them more because she knew I would always make straight A's and wanted others to strive for the same.
Somewhere along the way I quickly became settled into the idea that I was always the odd woman out and I was okay with that. In the 6th grade we took a class photo and it was like putting a basketball player amongst Santa's elves. I felt like I towered above everyone else.
In the 7th grade I was made fun of for not having name brand clothes. I didn't care. It felt normal not to care about what other people said, but I still felt all wrong inside because I wasn't happy with myself.
I felt great as I got older and I would be physically active. I was in better shape and felt a lot better. Over the years my weight would fluctuate. I began to look back at all of those other things and put it all into perspective. We are always use to hearing how special we are. We are accustomed to hearing that we should embrace our uniqueness. What no one talks much about is how to go about that.
For me I realized that it came with accepting myself at my worse. Everything is about getting ready for the summer, because you will be happy with a stereotypical beach body. Even when I had the best physical version of myself my brain still didn't see that. It didn't matter how toned I had gotten because I didn't accept myself. I learned I needed to love the body I was in regardless of what changes I wanted to make to it. The confidence is what made the difference. It affected how I saw myself and treated myself. And yet again outside influences meant even less because of how I felt about myself.
Confidence and self love where the only diet regimens I needed. I exercised more because I was doing it for me. Exercising made me eat healthier because I didn't want to ruin the hard work outs. I would sometimes notice that I was still physically very different from my friends, but I embraced me and not the differences and comparisons. I am tall, but rather than hide from it I wore heels. I have a bigger frame, but I can still dress it as cute as I like. I learned to embrace me and whether anyone else did or not I didn't care, because that has nothing to do with me.