I have never felt beautiful growing up. It’s just not something that I ever saw myself as. People would tell me that I was...like my grandmother, or my great aunt that I would see once every five years, or even my mom and dad. But I never saw it. My parents split up when I was going into third grade, and it was my fault. Actually it wasn’t my fault, but at the time being the oldest sister and daughter all the responsibility to make sure my family was okay happened to fall on my shoulders. I remember talking to the guidance counselor, because I had terrible anxiety that year, and it wasn’t like I was talking to her. I was screaming at her. Deep, guttural, and full of hurtful words . She didn’t understand what I was going through, and she wouldn’t understand that for the next five years I would completely self distrusctruct then slowly build myself up over the course of one summer. 

The couches were red and squishy. I sat on my mom’s lap, while my dad sat across the room with my sister Sophia. My other sister Ila was upstairs in her crib oblivious to what was happening, and she will never remember a time where my parents were together. Heck, I can barely remember a time where they were together, and I’m eight years older than her. I knew right away what they were about to say. Even now I can’t remember word for word the conversation. Everything went black, and it felt as if the world was caving in. My dad moved in with my grandfather, so therefore we moved in with him too. We spent half the time with him and half the time with my mom. The only normal thing about my life in that moment was Harry Potter. Eventually school started and my mom was very invested in PTA, so of course word got out that a perfect marriage had crumbled, and I was the only thing left standing in the disaster that was court, and custody battles, and therapy. 

My last couple years of elementary school were very difficult. I spent a lot of time in the guidance counselor’s office, at the library, and at the dance studio. I did ballet growing up, but when my parents got divorced they thought it would be a brilliant distraction from the world going on around me. Yes, it did distract me from them, but something else caught my attention. Something that still sticks with me to this day, and will be with me forever. My body. Two long brown french braids, perfect pink tights, a poised and elegant black lace leotard, a small sheer black skirt, cute little ballet flats, and an enormous, ugly, awful, fat body. My thighs protruded and touched each other, my stomach was flabby and obnoxious, my arms had no defined shape, my butt stuck out, and my breasts were starting to develop into little nubs. I hated it. All the older girls looked so thin and graceful. They stood on their toes strong and proud. They had a flat stomach and chest. Their legs were long and defined. They had dainty little arms unlike mine that had a squish to them. I wanted to dance with their confidence. I wanted to contort my body into the same shape they did, or so I thought. But, in actuality I wanted to be as thin and pretty as them. I didn’t want the moves and ability of a dancer… I wanted the perfect body. In fourth grade I was standing at the ballet barre pointing my toes and swinging my leg back and forth from first position to tendu, when something caught my eye. I turned my head to the large mirror at the front of the class that put my peers and I on display. And all I could see was my stomach. I sharply looked away from the mirror as if something terrifying was taking place right in front of me. Then I slowly looked down to see this tub of fat sitting on me. I grabbed this thing with my finger, and poked at it like it was an animal in the petting zoo. I knew I had to get rid of it to be happy. To feel complete. From then on wherever I saw an ounce of fat I felt as if I was being crushed like a bug. The weight of my chest would weigh me down, and I would sink to the bottom of the Earth. I tried not to eat for the longest time, but at the end of the day I would eat more, because my body was keeping up with the fact that I tried not to eat. Dancing became losing weight. I remember I walked into the locker room and bathroom, when I was in fifth grade, and I saw a girl on her hands and knees with her fingers down her throat. She was who I wanted to be, and she didn’t even want to be herself. How could this be? The moment I told my Mom about her she took me out of dance after the season was up. She didn’t want me to be influenced in that direction.  Little did she know I wanted to do that so bad, I was just too scared to throw up. My parents divorce seemed normal at this point, it had been two years. My mom remarried, and my Dad moved out of my Grandfather’s house and moved into a big white house with beautiful big windows, and french doors. I stood in my room at my Dad’s house naked in front of the mirror, and started sobbing. It felt as if my life was coming together again, but inside I was a mess. I hated who I was. I hated how I looked. I wanted to be another person. I wanted to transport my soul into a more beautiful, fit version of myself. Nothing I ate seemed to fill me the way that loathing myself did. I wanted my body to disappear into a mist, so no one had to see me. Nothing anyone said to me was enough. My mom would say “Ellie you are a beautiful girl, I don’t understand why you feel this way about yourself sometimes.” The size four jeans weren’t enough for me. I wanted to be smaller. Thinner. I felt dirty, ugly, and heavy. I had to get rid of this feeling. I took supplements, herbal teas, crazy workout regiments, not eating and then binge eating. This went on for two years.  My sixth through eighth grade years were very tough. 

My eighth grade year I started dating a boy. I think it was the closest thing to love I had ever felt, or so I thought it was. During this time I had so much built up self hatred. My parents were divorced, my grandfather (whom I was very close with) passed away, I was failing a class, and I was still disgustingly large. I put all my self hatred and insecurities on this boy, who I thought cared about me. Of course it was middle school, and everything seems a lot bigger than it actually is. The whole relationship was filled with me self destructing, and being self conscious, and calling myself names. I didn’t have any sense of self-worth or confidence, and I used boys to give me validation, and I didn’t really even care about the relationship at hand. Just the words that came out of their mouth that made me feel more worthy. If someone else calls me beautiful I must be, right? Knowing this now, I wish I wouldn’t have done that to him. It wasn’t fair.  Of course we broke up. I was a negative force driving the relationship off a cliff. I didn’t only lose a “boyfriend”, I lost a friend, and I lost myself. I think something clicked with me. I learned that the way you treat yourself reflects the way you treat others, and this is cliche, but you really do have to put effort into how you feel before you can put yourself into someone else. I’m stuck with me forever. I can’t let myself be my worst enemy.  Being “beautiful” is a mindset, if I think I’m beautiful then I am, if I think I’m the most horrid monster on the planet,… then I am. It didn’t matter if I’m a size two or a size twenty two, I wasn’t happy with my body and who I was as a person. I didn’t even know who I was, and to be honest, I still don’t really know, but I’m getting there. The summer going into ninth grade was a big growing experience. I didn’t know you can grow so much in one summer to where your whole point of view changes. Working on yourself is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to experience personally. Realizing you are enough, and that you are worthy is harder than one would expect.  Some days are harder than others. Sometimes little monsters creep in, and I feel like such a burden to myself and others, but I learned that you have to keep moving on, and that sometimes the most unlikeable person is yourself.