You will not control me like you have for so many years. I have given up so many opportunities because I let you win. For many years, I felt that I didn’t deserve happiness -- you, my insecurities, prevented me from being in a good place. I gave up relationships, I gave up sports teams, and I gave up friendships, all because I listened to what you said. I got into fights and assumed too quickly, which usually just made me look and feel worse. As people lost trust in me, I lost trust in myself, too. You destroyed my self-image and destroyed my feeling of self-worth. I developed so much stress and anxiety because I could never see myself in a positive way. I built a wall to block the outside world from how I felt, all because I had to protect you. I constantly had a feeling of not being good enough, even though it was never true at all.

It was never true that I wasn’t pretty or skinny enough to find love. It was never true that I wasn’t smart enough. It was never true that I wasn’t going to be successful in what I wanted to do with my life. None of that was true, and yet I let those thoughts guide the past years of my life. I reminisce about all the choices I made, because you made me feel sub-par. You made me feel like an outcast, like I would never be a part of something. You were wrong.

Now, in college, I see you differently. I've gotten out of my home and realized that my view of myself used to be very distorted. You're no longer the thing that controls my life. I no longer see the negatives you used to always accentuate. I no longer think I don’t deserve to be happy, and don’t deserve to feel confident.

I deserve to feel that I am enough, that I am enough to make the people I love and myself happy. My life choices have changed. I don't skip opportunities because you tell me I can’t. I now know that I can be and do whatever I set my mind to. I've overcome some pretty tough times, and now know I am stronger than a poor self-image. The negatives and the self-doubts don't matter anymore. I don’t need to worry about my image, because it only matters how I view myself. Though I will never be rid of you, I'm through letting you guide my life. I think about my future and know that I want it to be different than my past.

I know that my choices define who I am and how successful I will be in life. I choose to be happy and I choose to be confident. I choose to find who I really am, without the negatives and without the doubts. The false self-image I've seen for so many years now has gone, and all I see is a young girl finding out who she is and what she's meant to do. I've learned that my biggest enemy in life is myself. The courage and confidence I now have is from defeating insecurities and choosing to believe in myself.

To my insecurities: You are nothing. You do not define who I am, or who I will be. I will never be perfect, but I will be better. I am better than I was yesterday, and I will be better tomorrow than I am today. To me, that’s all I can hope for.