Being Body Confident? Go for it!!

 **TRIGGER WARNING - INCLUDES THEMES OF SELF HARM,MENTAL ILLNESS AND SUICIDE WHICH SOME READERS MIGHT FIND UPSETTING. PLEASE DO NOT READ IF THESE KIND OF SUBJECTS AFFECT YOU**

No scars to your beautiful. We're stars and we're beautiful 💕💕 (does anyone else love that song as much as I do?) Those lyrics are my mood for today. Because we are ALL beautiful. 

Those are the opening lines of my instagram post. Because today, that is how I feel. But I will also feel the same tomorrow and the day after and I always will. Because it is true! We ARE beautiful! Let me tell you a story...

Those who know me know that I post on Instagram a lot. I always post about how I am feeling and how my day has gone. Whether I have lost weight, whether something good has happened or whether I have had a bit of a wobble with my mental health. That is me and who I am. I also post a lot of selfies. But when I post them I think to myself most of the time 'I look so horrible and ugly' I have also commented a few times that I feel such and such or something. There is rarely a time where I take a selfie (either make up free or with a face full of it) and I think 'You know what Emma love. You really look fantastic!' That isn't me! I rarely give myself compliments. I can give to others,yes. But me? Oh no,no way. I know I will one day be able to just do it without thinking and just say something kind about myself. Even with my cbt therapist, she asks if I can think of something kind to say about myself. Think? I have to THINK to say something!

From a very young age I was teased,picked on,taunted and bullied for my looks and my weight. I was known at school for being a singer but was also given quite a few names by school bullies. Fat,Fat cow,Blubber,The Nutty Professor,Mrs Shrek,Elephant and Whale was a few that I remember. It was one day at school when I had been called Elephant yet again where I lost it and physically grabbed my bully and told him that if he ever came near me again then I would kill him. 'Now PISS OFF!!' I added. Shaking inside but I stayed bloody calm and to this day I have no idea how I did it. But he left me alone - and so did everyone else. Word must have got round. Shame I was actually in year 11 and a few months off leaving at the time. I was angry with myself. Not for seeing off my bullies but because I knew I should have done it sooner. Not that I condone violence of course. 

At the end of my school days I was left with little confidence. I started college and was rarely bullied and had some great friends there but then I got social media.....I had left my third college after getting my BTECH in acting/performing arts when I started getting really nasty comments left about me and nasty messages sent to me by certain people online. I know people used to say 'Delete your social media or just block them' - I was never going to delete all my social media but this website was known for their 'Gossip' section - which me an a few other users were the target off most of the time and the website ended up removing their gossip page. Unfortunately a couple of years after I left my third college I was diagnosed with a very serious mental illness called Borderline Personality Disorder which cannot be cured but can be controlled/managed. I had also been prone to self harm since the age of 12 and suicidal thoughts and tendencies around that same time. I was also a member of another page on which members became nasty and abusive. They told me to kill myself,asked me why my mum hadn't drowned me at birth or aborted me and said 'Why are you not dead yet?' Someone even doctored a photo of me and stuck it onto an image of Princess Fiona from Shrek which hurt me so much. I attempted to kill myself around 2011 and that is when I realised I needed help and in 2012 I self harmed and ended up having to see someonewho then diagnosed me with having BPD. It was 2009 when I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. I knew that for a long,long while, I was not enjoying anything in life. Not even stuff I loved such as acting,shopping,singing and creative writing. To me, life was not worth it and I didn't want to be the fat,ugly one that didn't enjoy living and had no point or purpose or cause in life. I would only get in the way (quite literally) and I was convinced people would be glad if I wasn't there. Being fat knocked my confidence from a young age which got worse over time. And, as well as being convinced I was as ugly as sin. I found it easy to gain weight but hard to lose it. Even now, everything I have lost over the years I have put back on.

I felt like a failure. I felt like I couldn't do anything right or get anywhere in life and I was totally convinced that it was down to my looks and weight. I was in deep and I just couldn't see any way out, even self mutilating in college. I felt I had no real reason for living,felt so lonely and felt like I had no one and nothing (I know I did have something and someone but in my mind, at that time, I could not see this) and for a couple of years I did stuff I knew I shouldn't have done. I will not explain what I did as there might be people such as family, reading this and don't want them knowing. 

I still struggle with severe depression and anxiety to this day and can struggle to do even the smallest things. Basically I was left with severe body image problems as a result of being told stuff on social media and when anyone DID compliment me and would say to me. 'You really are beautiful/gorgeous/sexy I would reply with a great big astounding 'No I am not' I literally had such a distorted view of myself I couldn't see that I wasn't ugly and that I was beautiful. I was convinced that I was just so damn ugly. Even to this day,depite me getting better at learning how to be kinder and nicer to myself and learning to love myself for all that I am, I STILL cannot completely 100% accept myself as pretty/gorgeous or whatever. I even told my ex that I thought I look hideous and his response was rather comforting 'You are not hideous to me' It will take a long time for me to be 100% at ease with my looks and size and to be able to say 'Emma you are 100% damn fine!!

I might never be 10st or look like Kate Moss and be absolutely beautiful like a supermodel but I know that I am beautiful in my own way. I am slowly being able to accept my size,my looks and myself without constantly thinking 'Don't look in a mirror because you are a disgusting and a horrible looking mess' I still have to make sure my selfie looks right or I won't post it. If that makes me vain then I don't care. If people cannot accept me at my worst then they do not deserve me at my best! 

These are things I would love to do....

1) Resume acting - get an agent

2) Get some stories/poems published

3) Go back to the recording studio to record some more covers (I haven't been since 2011)

4) Complete/pass my theory test and learn to drive

5) Get a passport sorted as one day I would love to visit Dublin,America and France with a friend

6) Inspire and influence people, help those who might be struggling like me

7) Eventually start posting on YouTub again - whether it's lyric videos or just a normal vlog. I haven't done anything sicne 2015. 

8) Be KINDER to myself. Be able to say I LOVE MYSELF, I AM HAPPY WITH MYSELF confidently and genuinely, and mean it 100% - I am ,of course entitled to have a wobble here and there and I am always going to struggle with my anxiety,depression and BPD but I would just love to finally be really and properly happy and not have to worry about how I look and how much I weigh. Just being at peace with it all. 

9) Although I have had depression for many years, I am hoping to finally get it under proper control and take charge of my life again! 

There is nothing wrong with who or what you are. If you haven't heard the song 'Who You Are' By Jessie J I think it is worth a listen to - it is basically about body and looks, and being true to yourself.  

Thank you for reading this I hope I have managed to help some of you. 

xxx