“You look great, but...” I dreaded the "but." It happened every time.

“But I’m going to need you to lose ten more pounds.” My heart sank. It was the standard critique. Never mind that I was 5’10” and 116 pounds, underweight by health standards. I had spent the previous two weeks on a restricted diet, dropping from 126 pounds to 116, hoping that I would finally be good enough. My agent circled me, eyes roving over my body as if I was a statue on display at a gallery, not a real, live breathing human being.

“And do something about your boobs, will you? They’re getting too big.” Yeah, like I could control that. I don’t normally talk about the three years I spent as a model. Sometimes people dig up old Facebook pictures and find out that way. Today, I’m laying my cards on the table and will give you a peek into a side of the industry most people don’t know exists.

I signed with a modeling agency in New York City when I was 13 years old. Within a month I was booking jobs and living the glamorous life: walking the runway for Guess and Macy’s, auditioning for the part of Sam on iCarly, hanging out with Victoria Justice, and appearing in Girl’s Life magazine. Having been the tall, socially awkward girl growing up, for the first time in my life I felt like I had something none of my friends had. I was good at something unique, something special. Guys gave me attention and girls were jealous. My ego skyrocketed. It wasn’t long before I started acting like God’s gift to the world and, slowly, no one wanted to be around me. But who cared? I was getting VIP access to the back stages of Broadway shows and discussing reality show plans with supermodel Carol Alt. Wasn’t that more important? 

Just as suddenly as it all started, my modeling career halted. Even though I was attending go-sees and countless auditions, I couldn’t book a job. My agent became frustrated with me, and began demanding I lose weight, so I could fit the “right image.” Various casting directors told me to fix my face, that my hair was ugly, to dress sexier and, in one startling critique, to get a nose job. It wasn’t just me receiving this treatment. I once saw my agent laugh the gorgeous Miss Teen South Carolina out the door because, "pageant girls can’t succeed in high fashion." 

As a young adolescent my self-esteem crumbled. I became entrapped in the insecurity, comparing myself to other girls and hating that my own body wasn’t good enough. I’d swing on a pendulum from narcissism, when I was working, to self-loathing when I wasn’t. Boys humiliated me by teasing that I “wasn’t pretty enough to be a model,” making me chronically self-conscious. I had put my entire worth into how I looked which, looking back, is a pretty terrible place to put your identity. I mean, everyone gets old and ugly eventually, right? I had already lost my real friends whom I had pushed away. After that, I followed the ‘friends’ who only stuck around to leech off my temporary coolness. I tried so hard to be what I thought other people wanted me to be that eventually I felt like I lost myself.

I cried when I got sample pictures back after a test shoot for Louis Vuitton. The conditioned perfectionist in me only saw my acne scars and the fat on my thighs. I moped for days, dreading the finished product. A few weeks later I received the edited photos and my jaw dropped. I looked flawless. No scars, legs shrunk to a third of their actual size, face slimmer, and waist tinier. My sister looked over my shoulder at the pictures and asked incredulous, “That’s you?!” 

For the first time in a long time I smiled a genuine smile. No, that’s not me. That’s some imaginary girl that sat through three hours of hair and make-up to look that way. She doesn’t exist. She was made up by a guy with photoshop on his computer. I could never be that girl, because she wasn’t real. 

I tore up my modeling contract that night. All too often advertising imagery is trying to sell you something unachievable. For the first time, I realized that I have more depth than a photograph, that there’s more to me than the surface of a picture can tell. I may be flawed, but so is everyone else. We are all beautiful. It’s cheesy, but so incredibly true. I want to be real. I want to help people, not just please them. After all, you don’t have to be very talented to smile at a camera. 

I still, occasionally, go to casting calls, but I don’t let the industry define me anymore and I’ve developed a tough skin for criticism. I’m a healthy weight and grateful for my healthy body. Of course, not everyone in the media, fashion, and entertainment industry is buying the beauty standard. Let’s appreciate the candidness and truth of the Dove Beauty Campaign, Aerie’s unphotoshopped underwear models, and Colbie Cailat’s song, "Try."  

I have model friends who are very secure in themselves and have met very kind and uplifting agents and casting directors. However, they are the exception, not the norm, and it is their attractive character qualities that have made them so successful. 

Let’s do this, ladies! Let’s reclaim our dignity and fight against the voices in our heads that tell us how we could improve when we look in the mirror. Take it from me, there’s no point in being jealous of a magazine model because, chances are, it’s not really her. Cameron Russell, one of the most successful Victoria’s Secret models, once said, “models have the thinnest thighs and the shiniest hair and the coolest clothes, and they’re the most physically insecure women on the planet.”

Maybe, if we stopped being so painfully conscious of our selves and actively participated in work that made us consciously helpful to others, we would rid ourselves of self consciousness altogether. When we see the beauty and intrinsic worth of other human beings, it makes it easier to see it in ourselves. Not simply on the outside, but in a much more fulfilling way that comes from the heart.