You probably have never noticed your skin is there that much until you skin your knee, or burn your arm, but for me, it was the feeling of it not being mine.

Throughout the years I have known many girls to cry over the way they look, myself included. I hadn't realized this detachment within me until I got past hating myself. I like the way I look now, but it just doesn't feel like it's mine. I don't know if it's a bad thing or even the correct feeling, since I don't know what it would feel like to be someone else. Maybe it's the feeling of disconnection between my body and soul, or might it be the awareness of things not being in my control?

I'm unsure… I'm unsure of many things, similar to everyone else. I used to ask myself, 'why am I like this? why do I feel, and am so different than everyone else around me? Why can't I be like everyone else? Why do I look this way and not like the way I feel like I should look?'. On rare occasions, I still ask myself these questions, but when I do I turn them into, 'if I was made to be different and look like this then there has to be a reason because things don't just happen without a reason.

If I feel like I am not the way I should be or how I should look, maybe I am feeling the pressure of how society believes I should be and look. If I feel and am so different then maybe I am supposed to be a contributing factor to change the standards. If I have to feel like I have to radiate perfection and not be myself every single day just to be accepted, then I would rather just stay home and alone. Because you know what? When I am alone, away from social media, onlookers, and friends, I feel like I could achieve anything like I am meant to be the person I am, and that is the most refreshing feeling someone could feel. When I am out trying to enjoy life, this feeling of shame towards myself, who I am, and how I look, always appears, even when I am around my closest friends. Loads say this is just insecurity, but what if it wasn't? What if the way I am feeling isn't my fault, and it's actually how society raised me to think, to be able to sell things to me, to change how I am. The real question that I have been asking for many years, is how can anyone, any gender, and any person let society treat them like this? Raise us like this? Making us believe from the time that we are born, that we aren't enough just being ourselves. That we need a specific 'look' to be accepted, a distinct 'shape' to be accepted, to be anyone but ourselves to be accepted. Why has it taken and is still taking this so long for this to stop?

I will leave it at that for now, but hopefully one day we can change this. Because it is in many ways ruining too many lives.