"We all got a dream, all gotta be somebody, be someone.
So please, be somebody with me."
Boyce Avenue - Be Somebody
"She dreams to be an envy, so she's starving
You know, "Covergirls eat nothing."
She says, "Beauty is pain and there's beauty in everything."
"What's a little bit of hunger?"
"I could go a little while longer, " she fades away
She don't see her perfect, she don't understand she's worth it
Or that beauty goes deeper than the surface."
Alessia Cara - Scars to Your Beautiful
It is sometimes hard to see yourself the way others do. Sometimes you just look into the mirror and see all the horrible things: your eyes are not symmetric, your skin is too pale, you look fat and what about those teeth, let's not even talk about them. Simply you just feel horrible and ugly. You go out shopping and the clothes you try on don't fit and the light in the fitting room shows all the mistakes in your body. You leave and don't buy anything. On streets you see those perfect looking girls with their skinny jeans and glowing hair. How could you feel good and beautiful after that? You just want to disappear cause you don't feel like life is worth living for. But in reality, you just want to be found, you want to be seen, heard and told that you are beautiful and important.
The subject people don't talk about enough, not at schools or anywhere else. Eating disorders. There are so many girls and guys who suffer from anorexia (or something similar). Everyone of them has their own reason for it but I could say most common is the pressure of the outside world to fit into the "cookie cutter" mold. I was one of those people some# years ago. So here, my story:
I come from a fairly small city where "all" the young people my age knew each others and had their own circles. If you weren't part of those circles you didn't fit in. Everyone looked the same, the hair, the clothes and even the ways to act were the same. If you were different you most probably got bullied. The pressure of "fitting in" was horrible. Or that's how I always felt it. So high school, the years everyone loves so much (notice the sarcasm), it became my mission to know each calorie in the food I ate and if it was over the amount I was "allowed" to eat in a day I didn't eat it. I was slim, I have always been, but especially then, still I felt bigger than ever. The image of myself had twisted in my head and I couldn't see myself as I really was. Not until a few years later I moved away, with a purpose of getting out of that town for good. I went to study Bible (as I am a Christian and I wanted to know more) and later music and got a bunch of new friends who literally had to teach me how beautiful I am. Even without counting those calories. Today, I can say that I am beautiful too and so loved. I can't say those times wouldn't have any impact on me anymore, if I did say that I would be lying. I know too much, haha, but this time I'm gonna use all that knowledge in a good way.
But I, from first hand experience, know how hard it is to suffer from an eating disorder and how indescribably hard it is to get over it. Basically, there's no way anyone could do it on their own. One reason is that there needs to be someone who has strength to continuously tell you how much you mean to him/her. Even if you don't buy it for the first few weeks, months or years, you will at some point. Maybe just to make that person stop saying it cause it's irritating you like crazy, lol -(ë.ë)/.
But why is being slim and looking like a "covergirl" made to be the standard of beautiful? That I can't understand and people should really think a bit more about it. There's no reason why it should be like that and still media keeps showing us that image. At the moment I feel so sorry for those young people in their sixteens (+/- around). My sister is at that age and through her I can see everything I saw at that age. It's sad how it's still the same, or even worse after so many years.
(pics from pinterest)
