Insecurities.

Ever since I turned 11(seems like many years ago now) I started becoming very insecure about how I looked especially when I started secondary school. Before then I didn't have to worry about how my appearance looked 24/7 or if I fit within society's expectations of what was considered 'good-looking' or 'beautiful'. I miss being that innocent, naive child who hadn't been destroyed by society's expectations. Secondary school changed everything for me and I'm not too sure whether I'm grateful for that or not. 

When I first started secondary school, I never expected the girls to be so bitchy about everyone else's appearances and I'm not just picking girls out for doing this because I know that boys do it too but in my case I witnessed mostly girls. Many of the 'popular' girls within my year often tore everyone else apart if they didn't live up to their expectations of how everyone should look and this happened to me. This is quite personal but for many years at secondary school I was a victim to bullying because of how I looked and this honestly destroyed me apart. I spent every day wondering how I could change myself so that I could fit in more. Their thoughts and opinions caused me to change how I looked and dressed throughout my time there and they made me recognize how important your appearance actually is to the outside world. 

During my younger teenage years up to the age of about 18, I'd honestly say that I was a bit of an 'ugly-duckling' as I didn't meet society's expectations of what was classed as pretty or beautiful. However as I begun to alter my appearance through losing a little bit of weight, and changing my taste in clothes I felt a lot more happy with my appearance. This was when I begun to take a lot more selfies and put them all over social media as it was a way for me to gain more confidence with how I looked. It's actually quite sad that many of us feel the need that we want the approval of everyone that we have on social media on how we look but that's how we've grown up. 

Even now that I'm at university I still care about my appearance quite a lot however I'm never going to be that girl that uses make up to alter her appearance because that just isn't me. I make sure that I attempt to attend university looking nice even if I'm a tiny bit hungover, and on nights out I go all out to make sure that I look decent. On the outside I attempt to make it look like I have no insecurities and that I'm happy with how I look but on the inside I'm still that insecure girl at the age of 11 who had only just begun hating herself. Even to this day there's many things I'm very insecure about appearance wise but I do my best not to let them affect me because honestly it isn't worth it. You should never let someone else's expectations and thoughts on appearance affect you as beauty is objective and what you don't find as beautiful someone else might. So make use of what you've got and be happy being you because you're the only version of yourself out there! Self love is greatly important. 

-Natalie.