I thought I was over it, and I thought I was confident with myself once again, but it seems to keep creeping its way back into my life.

When I was a sophomore in high school all of a sudden I became very self-conscious about my body because of a simple comment that I was told by another girl in class. "You have a belly."

I've always been told that I had an ideal body type. I was really small, and I was a size 0 in jeans, and my shirts were all extra small. Hearing this comment at first kind of startled me. It really doesn't matter how big or small you are, no girl really wants to hear this. Going to dance class that day I went up to a close friend at the time and told her what this girl said hoping she could comfort me because I started to see myself differently in the mirror. No. She laughed, agreed, and poked my stomach, then walked away.

Days, weeks, and months went by, it seemed the person in the mirror that was once a proud smiling me, began to drastically change. No smiles, she was looking down not up, and that belly was the first thing I saw.

At the time, I was recently told I was diagnosed with scoliosis, and little 15-year old me thought it was the end of the world. "Did I have to have surgery? Can I still dance? I'm no longer normal, I'm crooked. What is happening to my ideal body?" It seemed each thing after another seemed to arise and now the person in the mirror was no longer proportional, and no longer thin.

One thing leads to another, and a few months later I had developed an eating disorder. Once started out as excuses like "I'll just eat at home after school" or "I don't have time to eat dinner" lead to a game I played. How long could I go without eating? It wasn't until my senior year of high school did I realize what I was doing to myself. This wasn't okay, this is dangerous. I kept thinking how lucky I was to not have injuries or other side effects from not eating all the time. I sought out help from my dance instructor and my mother, and I was once again strong and confident. So I thought.

Coming to college has been amazing and though there are some tough days, it seems that every once in a while that image in the mirror can change again. Sometimes comments towards my body by my peers that are meant to be taken mean in no way, I take harshly and apply it to myself.

I can't help but become angry at myself as well as frustrated with people as well as the society around me. Always think before you say something to someone regarding how they look. I'm tired of social media portraying women as an unrealistic image because it seems the comments girls make when looking at an advertisement in a magazine like, "I wish I looked like that" is becoming more common. Why is it difficult to portray all sizes of women because they are all beautiful? I guess we'll never know.

To this day, I don't know why I think this way and see myself as something I am not. It makes me feel so down, leading to brutal anxiety attacks. The fear of relapsing back into a vicious cycle becomes more intense, and the mirror, those damn mirrors. To this day, I hate mirrors and I pray that I will be able to always see myself as the beautiful confident person I know I can be. I pray these moments of disappointment, fear, and frustration towards my own body will go away completely. But until then, my body image is a struggle I have to always deal with.