Dear Girl in the Mirror,
When I was six I used to look at you with confidence. I didn’t have any doubts about the way I looked and I didn’t think there was any other way I should look. But somewhere along the way that changed, and when I was twelve I was sure I’d get plastic surgery whenever I could afford it. I have come to realise that I have never treated anyone as poorly as I have treated you, and I am incredibly sorry for everything I made you go through for so many years. I am sorry for the days I didn’t eat, for my insane starvation diet, for every time I made myself sick; for every time I was so obsessed with a skinnier reflection that I worked out for hours per day on an empty stomach. I didn’t just do it to look pretty, I wanted to destroy you.
I have spent hours on a daily basis watching you pinch your thighs, hate your nose, measure your waist and suck your stomach in. I have seen you cry and I have seen you hold it back. I watched you get bigger, and then I watched you shrink. I would look for the smallest part of your body that I liked, but I could never find any. I want to say that I know every inch of the face and body staring back at me after all these years of analysing, but I have realised what a lie that is. There are so many aspects of you that the mirror will never show me; I have never seen you laugh a genuine laugh, I have never seen your eyes light up when you talk about your passions, I have never seen you from your ‘bad side’ when you look at someone you love. I have never seen you play with your dog or cuddle with your cats. Instead I have been confined to look at you, staring back at me, hating what I see. I have trapped myself in this negative image of you that doesn’t really exist outside of the mirror. I am sorry that it took me this long to realise that the fraction of what I see is meaningless. It doesn’t reflect who you are, your love, your passions, your values or your intellect.
Dear Girl in the Mirror, your amazingness is independent of your weight, the length and colour of your hair, and it is independent of your thigh gap. You receive messages every single day telling you how to look and how to act and what makes you a good female, but I’m telling you to stop listening to all of those voices. They are blatant lies only spoken to make other people earn money on your insecurities. You need to focus on what is beyond your reflection, because that is who you are. How you make others feel, the causes you fight for, what makes you happy and everything you love: that is who you are.
(Picture: tumblr)