For almost my entire life, I've never been thin. The skinniest I ever was when I was 6 years old because I was an active little girl. When I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder, that all changed. I was an overweight child, but I was also tall. I remember being 10 years old and idolizing Britney Spears because she had a flat stomach. I had to wear extra large shirts and size 18 pants; I had to shop in the adult section before even hitting puberty.

I got made fun of a lot in school because of my weight. Kids can be mean. I got called "Andrea Massive" in school. I never told my parents because I just wanted to deal with it by myself. I secretly idolized the skinny girls in seventh grade who already had boyfriends because I wanted that to be me so bad. I wanted to have a boy call me pretty and kiss me in the hallway. When I hit freshman year, I got taller, stayed at 5-foot-9 and I filled out. I was curvy but not to people's "standards." Suddenly, it was like boys came out of hiding. I was called pretty and beautiful and that was supposed to be one of the happiest moments in my life. It wasn't, though. I heard these boys say these nice things and I never showed emotion, because I didn't believe them. I looked at myself in the mirror every single day and would pick out everything I hated about myself. I constantly looked at magazines of all these actresses and would become obsessed because I desperately wanted to be like them.

A few years after my mom died, when I was about 19, I dropped 40 pounds in three weeks because I didn't eat. I would drink, maybe have a salad, and that's it. My friends were worried but I wasn't, I didn't think I was skinny enough. I would look at pictures of myself, look at my collarbone, my arms, my curves which were all normal and still think I needed to be skinnier. When I got into my first relationship I was terrified. All I kept thinking was why would anyone want to be with me? I mean look at me. I would cover my face at certain points during our relationship when we would get intimate because I didn't want to see his reaction when he looked at my body.

He never said a thing; all he said was that I was beautiful. I was so delusional about this view on myself that I wondered if he was just saying those things to be with me. Those negative thoughts followed me until I got to the relationship I'm in now.

I started to think real hard, why am I so worried about how I look? To be honest, one of the reasons is because on how I was made fun of as a child. Those horrible judgments can stick with you forever. I'm 26 years old, and sometimes I will look in the mirror and see someone who is 500 pounds when I'm not. I will have to ask someone multiple times, "Does this look OK? Do I look fat?"

Sure, every female does it but I don't want to feel like I should ask that all the time. I blame the media, I blame it on how they shove what a woman's body should look like. Curvy butt, skinny waist, big boobs, thin legs. It makes women, me being one of them, stress so much on how they look to impress someone. They'll hear wonderful comments and never believe them because I'm their head they're something ugly. I started to grow out of that delusion, because instead of looking at women in the media who makes us feel like we need to be a size two, I look at the others. I look at myself.

Instead of constantly looking at beautiful pictures of these women, look at yourself. Instead of looking for the negative, look at the positive. You are beautiful. Your skin is beautiful. Your face is beautiful. Your heart is beautiful. It takes a long time to accept who you are and the body you were born with. It took me years to finally love myself and that's okay. I walk out of the house not giving a damn in the world what I look like because I'm finally comfortable in my own skin.

When someone says you're beautiful, they're not lying—they mean it. They see what we don't, which can be sad but those are the people that are meant to be in your life because they see you for you. Believe it. Embrace it. You are beautiful.