I am so sorry for all that I have put you through, you deserve so much better, and I am truly trying to be better. Quarantine taught me that I need to do better to take care of the one thing that keeps me alive, the thing I try to change constantly, my body. For years I struggled trying so hard to lose weight, dieting to the point where if I ate less than 1200 calories in a day, I would celebrate. Every time I gained a pound I would cry and ridicule my body all day, I would starve myself telling myself I deserve it for gaining weight. I have had panic attacks over my body ripping myself apart in the mirror, she does not deserve what I put her through. I have been on constant diets since I was probably around the age of 12, I think that is when I really began struggling with my body and my weight. What changed? The happy kid who did not think twice about eating became an anxious mess where her only thought everyday was “how little can I eat to lose more and more weight?” Now I am 21 years old and I still struggle every single day to eat enough. When quarantine hit, it was an extremely stressful time, so I made a Tik Tok, like most people did during quarantine because we were all bored. All of a sudden, my feed was filled with beautiful women of all sizes talking about body positivity, but it was not until I found one person who was so pure and amazing, that I decided to make a change.
Brittani Lancaster really changed my life, I saw her what I eat in a day videos, I saw her self-love and body education videos. She inspired me to be honest about what I was doing, because what I was doing is not healthy, and my body has taken me through so much. My body has been with me through every step of life. She has survived trauma, mental illness, breakups, new relationships, travels, happy times, sad times, new experiences, and so much more. She is still with me every day, and she has never deserved what I have put her through, and so I am trying to make a change. I truly think that without creators like Brittani Lancaster and Mik Zazon I never would have realized how destructive I was being. They have inspired me to come forward and talk to my therapist about what has been going on, and we are working through it. I have made many changes in my life on my own due to their education and self-love videos, that I never would have made without them. Their personalities are infectious and when they smile, I smile, and I have found so many wonderful body positive people that it fills up my feed. My social media feed used to be filled with these skinny models and that always affected me because I never did look like them and I never would. However, now I am able to see all of these beautiful women of all body sizes loving themselves, and now I want that. I do not want to be model thin anymore, I want to love my body, I want to enjoy life and food, I want to treat my body better than I have in a very long time. I still struggle, I stepped on the scale recently and saw my weight gain and I was very unhappy, I did not cry, but I thought about it all day. I am not perfect, but I am trying, and this is a partial apology to my body because I still have a long way to go in my self-love journey. I am finally being honest with myself and I am finally speaking up to my therapist, I am almost eating enough to sustain my body. I can only hope that one day I will be able to not have the calories in food memorized, to not cry and have panic attacks at weight gain, to stop weighing myself all the time. I am making small steps, but just a few years ago I would not have been able to do even these small steps. I have a long journey ahead of me, but I am finally starting my self-love journey. Thank you, Brittani, Mik, and so many other creators for inspiring me to come forward and talk to my therapist about my struggles. I am so sorry to my body and I promise you I will do better and give you the life you deserve.