“I was smart, athletic, and funny but the only thing that mattered to me was being pretty and thin.”
- Love What Matters
- Health
- Body Positivity
“I was smart, athletic, and funny but the only thing that mattered to me was being pretty and thin.”
“I was screaming I wanted to die because I was so miserable. I want people to know it’s okay to ask for help.”
“I was often cornered and assaulted during school. I would eat cold, bland school sandwiches soaked with my tears in the bathroom stall. Then the man I wrote about in my journals suddenly surfaced into my reality.”
“They’d ask if I burned myself or bleached my skin. The ‘popular’ boys barked at me and called me a pit bull. I’d wear long-sleeved shirts to cover my arms, even in extreme heat while on the verge of passing out. I really, really wanted to fit in. But then I realized this is the only body I get, and I deserve to enjoy all that this life has to offer.”
“I realized the power I’m carrying around: uniqueness and extraordinary beauty. There is no human, all over the world, that looks like me and that is what makes me proud of the way I look.”
“When the tan didn’t turn out right, anxiety-ridden meltdowns would result. Tanner had become my security blanket. Without it, I was so scared the world might see the girl I was trying so desperately to hide.”
“Summertime is a fun, lighthearted, and exciting time of the year. But there is nothing fun, lighthearted, or exciting about what summer body really means.”
“At 8 years old, our beautiful daughter Natalie already had this idea that the bigger the clothes number, the less value she had. The bigger the number, the less food she ate. The bigger the number, the more she won’t have friends. My mama heart broke into a million tiny pieces.”
“Recovering from birth isn’t something that should be covered up and concealed with an Instagram filter. If I’d seen more women share untouched photos like this one, I might not have felt so isolated and alone.”
“6 years into this journey, I don’t know what I weigh anymore because it doesn’t really matter to me now. I found the confidence I’d been lacking, and it was not in the smaller dress size where I thought it would be, but in the better quality of life that being healthier has afforded me.”