I know it's hard... if you say anything about your struggle, people think you're begging for attention. But if you act like you don't struggle at all, then you're conceited or lying. It's a vicious circle fueled not only by media perception but also your perception.

You can't stand to look at yourself in the mirror. You despise the way you look. You see yourself as terribly average, nothing worth value compared to the beauty you see when you unlock your phone, or when you walk the street, or even when you go to a grocery store and see every retouched magazine cover while you're buying your junk food.

"They're retouched," you say to yourself, but that doesn't matter to your mind. You just don't look like that, even if they weren't touched.

I've struggled with body image issues since I was very young. Whether it be my height, my curly hair, or the fact that I have larger, albeit muscular thighs, I could always find something to hate about myself. Remember when the thigh gap trend was in? I remember being fourteen years old and doing exercises at midnight in my room desperately trying to shrink my thighs and when they wouldn't slim down, feeling so hideous.

Looks aren't everything, but to a girl growing up in this period, how you don't look is being shoved down our throats like bitter Robitussin, leaving a fowl taste in your mouth and a bit of anger. I've sat in front of a toilet, trying to gain the courage to make myself get rid of what I had eaten, and have skipped enough meals to tell you that I know what you feel is one of the worst feelings you have experienced because you feel you are trapped to that mindset. But I will also tell you that you are not trapped. You can get out of it.

What it took for me to get a grip on my issue was dating someone who struggled with body image. I fought so hard to get him to see what I saw in him, and he did. The nights where he thought he was average, I would send him long paragraphs while he was asleep detailing everything I loved about him, or I made sure he knew I was proud to be with him.

Don't let anyone fool you. You can love someone while you don't love yourself, but prepared to feel like a hypocrite 90% of the time. I became the hypocrite because while I was telling him to see what I saw in him, he couldn't get me even to accept what I looked like in the slightest. He did everything right, became the boyfriend most girls would drool over because of how sweet and understanding he was, but I was so lost in my struggle that it didn't affect me.

It all changed for me after a deep discussion with him that revealed an important truth to me. I might never see what others see in me, yet I also don't know how much I've impacted someone. Sure, I don't look like Taylor Swift or Zendaya, but that's okay because it wasn't Taylor Swift or Zendaya that was there for him when he called at 3 AM because he was lonely. Nor was it them who he fell in love with.

After all of my struggles, I learned that beauty is not in looks or how many likes you get on Instagram. Your brand of beauty is unique to you in the way you interact with people, the way you laugh or smile...not to be cliche but beauty is more than just skin deep.

You can't stand your reflection? Turn away from the mirrors, turn off the media for a while, and embrace your imperfections. The journey to self-acceptance is not easy. You'll have many more bad days than good days in the beginning, but it is a road that is vital to your life. I struggle on a daily basis, but I am getting better. Every once in a while, I'll catch my reflection and see not my flaws, but who I want to be. On those days, I feel free.