I used to wake up every single morning and look in the mirror, only to see a reflection I  despised; one so cold and unfriendly that if it had the chance to run away from me, it would. I used to spend every single morning dragging my lifeless body to the scale to weigh a body that seemed so foreign to me. I used to spend every single morning recreating who I was with makeup, just to make up my self esteem. Every single morning I convinced myself there were people out there more important than I was, and that if I was gone no one would really care after a while. Every single morning I became my own worst enemy.

I entered high school with a poisoned mind and a body that had been ambushed far too many times by self hate. My mental health became a war zone and my physical being was there to prove it; my wrists were heavy with battle scars. I surrounded myself with people that I thought were my friends, but in reality they were my enemies. I was a ticking time bomb ready to self destruct.

My sophomore year was when I lifted my white flag in the air. I felt defeated and diminished by a deadly disease called depression. I knew I needed to seek help; I knew I could not go on like this any longer.

With the death of my former self, came the rebirth of a soul that I learned to love with all of my being. I received help from people that were able to bandage both my physical and mental wounds.

My change was drastic to say the least. I would have never guessed that the smallest action would create the biggest reaction. No longer did I feel like a small, frail, fragment to the big picture; I became the big picture. I began putting myself first and learning that both physically and mentally, I am my own best friend.

Solitude is a blessing. To me, nothing is more educational than being alone with your own thoughts. I became a teacher to a new student; one that was learning to love herself.

As I began to figure out myself, it became easier to evaluate what people wanted to encourage me to grow and who wanted to tear me down to my former self. I wish I could say I made this change all on my own, but I owe some of the credit to a previous girlfriend of mine named Rocky. She was an influential role model for me and always pushed me to improve.

The journey to loving myself was not easy. Do not attack your problem head on. Don’t think of loving yourself as physical beauty, think of it as beauty in your mind. When you’re becoming yourself, it’s going to be a lot of trial and error, and it’s going to be painful. You need to feel pain in order to understand how much self worth you have as a person. Your path to loving yourself isn’t perfect, it takes time before you actually do realize that it is a lot more than you think it is. It’s very mental.

I now wake up every single morning and I listen to uplifting music. I wake up every single morning and I look in the mirror to see a reflection that I indulge in with an abundance of love. Every single morning I walk straight past the scale, because I love every ounce of my being. Every single morning I walk out of my front door knowing that the journey I’ve been on was not an easy one, and even though the destination has not been met yet, I have still come a long way. I wake up every single morning now knowing that I love myself.