I didn't start worrying about what my body looked like until I was around 9 - 10-years-old. I started puberty then, and my baby fat was at an all time high. Through that awkward stage of tradition, I was round, wore dorky clothes and was teased and bullied quite often. I've been teased and made fun of since the moment I joined the first grade, but instead of simply bullying me because I was smart or liked books, they could add, "she's chubby" to the list. I was the girl who wasn't skinny or fat but "almost too big". I wasn't attractive to the neighborhood boys. Old people would call me a young man. I was never the first choice.

That was 10 - 11 years ago, around the time I started having bad headaches which is an early sign of anxiety disorder. Self-Esteem issues and the idea of attaining that "perfect body" starts young for kids.

In my case, I had a two-sided problem. My healthy body, when it finally proportioned itself was "healthy" and "plump". It was a good thing that I was "blessed" in certain places and had arm fat that swang and round cheeks. When I started losing weight from stress, I was extremely upset. Of course I knew that I still had "the blessings" but to my eyes, they were gone, and with them went a piece of who I was. It sounds ridiculous but people identified me with what I looked like and I did too. With all the stress, panic and tragic moments from senior year, it felt like another thing I had lost because of my poor eating habits. The growing depression and lack of appetite from anti-depressants didn't help.

I was bigger by 2015, I finally had started to accept what I looked like. Losing weight was still on my mind but I wanted to save my blessings. I wanted to "fix myself". I drank detox teas and juices, probiotic teas, and exercised extensively. If I lost anything it was about a pound. My body didn't want to gain or lose; it was fine with maintaining.

So that summer I did things I wouldn't normally do. I bought bikinis and I walked on the beach with my friend without sucking it in. I tried very hard to stop sucking it in. I wore shorts and tank tops. I showed off what I had. It may have been a "fake confidence" theory I was working with, but it was working.

Then senior year began.

I will admit that I don't like the way I look right now. I take care of myself and I try to like what I see. I wish my eyes weren't so deceiving, so I could see what others do when they look at me--someone beautiful, but I don't see that. Sometimes I see someone who's sick, someone who isn't going to make it. Sometimes I think "I look nice". I struggle with health anxiety and I think that my body is going to shrivel into bones. It's quite a change from the girl who wanted so badly to be skinny. Someone who used to hit and punch their stomach to get rid of the fat.

The hardest thing when you try to overcome low self-esteem and those destructive, evil, demon-like thoughts, is believing the people who love you and the people who have doctoral degrees. It's hard to convince yourself that you're healthy when anxiety and depression have some pretty intense symptoms that mimic diseases. But even though some advice seems too easy such as "love yourself" and those tips for self care and the idea that no one can love you better than you - even if I'm struggling with it I know this advice is true.

What matters is what I think of me, and how I take care of me. It's the mind that matters.