I Think Im Ugly

Please, dont misunderstand this post as a cry for compliments. I am just trying to be honest and convey feelings that I have right at this moment.

'I think I'm ugly and nobody wants to love. Just like her I want to be pretty."

While wandering around the internet aimlessly like I usually do when Im procrastinating my french homework, I came across a song that really hit a chord within me.

This summer something inside of me snapped- I was tired of feeling like my weight was out of my control. In the time of two months I managed to lose over 40 pounds, dropping 4 dress sizes, and do it in a completely healthy manner. Im now much smaller than my summer self, but my self confidence hasn't improved a whole lot.

I think I am awesome. I know I am awesome. I know Im awesome because Im smart, because Im empathetic and kind. I try my best to be optimistic. My beauty, I have always felt, has been on the inside. A secret beauty that you have to get to know, overcome my shy nature and slowly notice as I open up. These are all the qualities that I think make me a wonderful, beautiful, person. Physical beauty has never been where I think I am pretty.

Growing up, I desperately wanted to be pretty. My younger sister, a size super small for most of my high school life, flaunted her beauty. She could always wear cute clothes, always get the attention of the people she desired. She threw my ugliness in my face whenever we would fight, more than once commenting on my 'flat, fat nose' and weight. "I'm not fat like Mallory". I dont know how many times I heard that. In my high school theatre department I was ridiculed for my weight struggles behind my back, hearing names hurled at me from cowards who would never say things to my face. Even my mom, with the best of intentions, would say 'tummy' to me, all the time, when she thought my gut was too visible. She put me on diets from the time I entered middle school, only making my own weight problems more painful. I know she didnt mean to, she was trying to help. But I knew my struggles with food were evident in every picture, every yearbook, every casting call. I knew I was fat. But fat people are human too.

Over the weekend I participated in an epic scavenger hunt/tag game with a club Im involved in. Some of the challenges we had to do required that girls be picked up or people lifted in some way. I was mortified. I dont like to be touched (another side effect, I suspect, of being tormented over weight my whole life). I didnt know many of the boys on my team and I definitely did not want to be picked up, opening myself up to the never ending 'fat' comments my low body image is certain will follow.

When I walk in a room- I still feel like the ugliest person in the room. No exceptions. It's something Im trying to overcome, everyday. But it's not that easy to change the way you think about yourself in a few months- not when you have been reminded every day previously of how unappealing you are.

But Im trying.