People used to tell me that I could really be something if I just lost a little weight. I could have the boys lined up around the corner, could be the prettiest girl in school, and could be the very best if I would just lose a few pounds. I used to believe them, thinking I could never live up to my potential if I was fat.

From an early age, I started becoming ashamed of my body and myself and became overly self-conscious. I felt worthless because of my weight.

I noticed I was gaining weight around age seven. I was lonely growing up, being an only child with both parents working nights and Television as my babysitter. Food was my comfort, my companion, the very thing that filled my void.

Naturally, the rest of my elementary school noticed I was getting heavier. Even at a young age, kids knew the social stigma being overweight carried and used it to their advantage every chance they got.

“Earthquake!” They would all scream as I walked by, pretending that their legs suddenly turned into gelatin.

They called me names, put tacks on my seat and laughed every time I started to run or play during recess. I could never escape their teasing.

I often dreamt of suicide as the best way to seek revenge on classmates who insisted on hurting me with their words. Luckily, I never followed that dream.

I couldn’t escape the pain even at home. My father used to chant the amount of calories, fat and carbohydrates of every piece I food I ate, glaring at me with his judging eyes from across the dinner table. I was something wrong to him, something unacceptable.

Because of his stare, I would never be able to eat comfortably in public again.

However, it wasn’t until eighth grade, when I started to mature, that I truly felt the pressure to be thin and attractive. That’s when I started starving myself. I ate well under 700 calories a day for six months, losing about 50 pounds in the process, gaining it all back in two years. I malnourished myself so much I stopped having my period for a year and had to go on hormones to start it again. I just hated my body so much and would do anything to make it better.

High school was even worse. I started taking laxatives regularly and began carving my desired weight in my skin with a razor blade as motivation. I would skip meals, sometimes not eating all day.

It wasn’t until my senior year that I realized how bad my obsession with my weight had become. After all the pain I caused myself, making myself feel worthless, I forced myself to look in the mirror and to like the person staring back at me.

After fighting my weight for over ten years, I figured out that it was not preventing me from being successful and happy. It was my mind that held me back.

People still say to me that I could really be attractive if I lost weight. Now, instead of agreeing with them, I say, “Yeah, I could. But why should I?”

The way I see it, I am already the best I can be, no matter what size I am. My weight does not define who I am, but instead helps me to be a better, more sensitive person.

I am now happy being me, no matter how much I weigh.