Learning to love myself has been one of my longest life challenges. My self esteem has been at battle with a twenty-year old eating disorder. Turning eleven brought a birthday gift of weight gain and put me on a path of restricting, binge eating and over-exercising. It seems like it has taken forever to understand how manipulating my weight and appearance in both healthy and unhealthy ways was a reflection of how I felt on the inside of myself. Bombarded with images in the media of impossible beauty standards and socialized norms of feminine behavior, my eyes looked into the mirror for a sense of self esteem. Instead of empowering female friendships, mine were competitive. Who had a thigh gap? How many boys were drooling after us? Whose closet was larger than life? All that criteria was external and I couldn't win. So I skipped parties, weddings and graduations because I felt unattractive. The "when, then" game ruled my life: I thought 'when I lose twenty pounds, I will have a boyfriend" and "when I lose twenty pounds, I will be happy." I didn't realize that projecting my happiness to the future meant I was missing out on the present moment. I lost a lot of time to this unhealthy obsession. Instead of building personal coping tools like meditation, work-related skills, or even participating in sports, I spent years hiding in therapy and eating disorder programs. I was desperate to find out what was so wrong in my core that I put so much emphasis on looks and weight. One mind-blowing incident started my journey towards self-love. I remember spotting her six years ago while I rode the subway. She was my ideal self: petite, with manicured nails and blond hair. Why couldn't I look like her? For sure she had a boyfriend! I ruminated over this for most of the ride. Finally my ears decided to interrupt my brain and I heard her speaking to her friend. Her voice was sharp and she spent the whole subway ride complaining about her life. She seemed miserable and shallow. I came home and told my mom I would never want to be that pretty if it came with being so negative. My family physician also held the key to a lesson I still think about daily. She sat me down once and asked me to look outside her door. There was a woman in head to toe Michael Kors, dripping diamonds, with highlighted hair. She asked me what I thought of her and I went with "beautiful." Within two breaths my doctor told me that her patient's life was falling apart because of divorce and bankruptcy. "Never assume someone's happy based on what they look like or what they wear," she warned me. That day my doctor really called me out for the way I was looking at the world. It was as disordered and self-destructive as my eating. Working in fashion was also one giant leap towards recovery for me. I am a sales associate, fitting women of all shapes and sizes and working hard to establish our collective self-esteem. When I accompany my clients to their fitting rooms, young women and their mothers regularly share with me their fears regarding the shape of their thighs, booties, and breasts. It was out in the open now and I confronted how ingrained body shaming is across my gender. Answering “does this outfit looks good on me?” or “does this make me look fat?” is my opportunity to reassure women. I let them know that confidence, posture, and inner beauty radiates beyond body shape or size. As they try on the latest in Spring styles. I like to vocalize my appreciation for what sets them apart, be it their freckles, or their life accomplishments, friendships and career achievements. There are too many stresses in young women's lives. The pressures of social media, peers and fierce academic/job competition face girls every day. Dinners are hardly made at home anymore. Routine discussion between family and friends is often interrupted by constant texting. The pressures of exams, lack of sleep and Red Bull, penetrates young lives. I hear about my client's struggles with their bodies, Mara Teigen and Ashley Greene on Instragram, as well as what boys think about them. This the context in which our feelings and thoughts about our bodies are developed. So when will this self-deprecation end? As long as there are to be beauty products and fashion brands to be sold, marketing may continue to rule female self-esteem. I am writing to let others know that there really is a path to becoming self assured in ourselves. When I chose to put the most value on achieving personal goals, and deciding to really interact with the world, there was socializing and activities which built up my self-esteem. I could really list what I liked about myself based on my capabilities and social media has been banned from my life. I am finally doing the activities I always dreamed of despite of how I worried I am or anyone else is about my looks. I cross my fingers and wish that for every girl and women I ever get the opportunity to dress!

Children yelling and racing through the yard. The smell of fresh cut grass. Teenagers singing happy birthday and cutting the cake. A girl approaches my perch on one of the picnic tables. “Hey Joslin, do you want me to pop that big fat zit on your nose? After all, you wouldn't want to be seen in public with that now would you?” The party that seemed fun and playful dissolves from my eyes, and all I can see is the people watching me be humiliated and staying silent. The brand of the sun turns into a brilliant red dye of embarrassment covering my face. I stand up and walk inside. The stunned silence fades and the party returns to full volume. I was nine years old when it first appeared. I greeted the day and shuffled into the bathroom to brush my teeth. Bright red splotches littered my face, like the trash beside the road before community clean up. I run to my mother, my predicament obvious. She tells me acne is normal, everyone gets it. The next several months though, it becomes more than a common cold, but rather a fever, and then a cancerous tumor spreading across my body. My face begins to swell up and turn red and puffy on a daily basis. I look in the mirror and all I see is blow fish cheeks, and they never deflate. I'm twelve years old. My parents finally have to accept that this isn't just acne, but puberty on steroids. We go to the doctor. Twelve bottles of topical creams, pill bottles, and a dairy free diet later, they tell me I'll get better. But the pockets of pus won't leave when the radiation of medication hits them. The first day of high school comes, and I'm embarrassed to leave the car. My face is just as puffy as before, only now, scars litter the battlefield where my clear face cells once fought and sacrificed their lives over the years. I slathered cover up all over my face hoping no one could tell the truth. Inevitably though, someone would see through the camouflage and blurt out, “What's wrong with your face?” As the stresses of trying to make new friends, selling my horse, my siblings leaving for college, and my parents' separation built up, my face released it through acne, not yoga. In a culture where value is calculated based on appearance, my stocks were at the level of the Great Depression. On the plus side, figuring out who my true friends were was easy. Compared to other kids who struggled with frenemies; I had only to find people who were willing to sit by me. My Sophomore year, however, the grin-and-bear-it method began to dissolve. I walked by a flyer advertising for Cheerleading tryouts. As a Freshman I had seen the same exact flyer Mrs. Dvorak recycled year after year. I'd let my mind take a brief flight of fancy of what it would be like to be a Cheerleader. Yet the poster said applicants were partially judged on appearance, and with a face that had only marginally improved since I was 12 years old, that placed me firmly out of the running in my mind. As a fifteen year old girl though, I was ready to challenge what society dictated was appropriate for someone who looked like me. I tried out. And that Friday, teeth chattering and knees knocking, I scurried out into the parking lot. I expected the opening words to be “I'm sorry, however…”, but instead they were “Congratulations!” I worked as hard as I could to be the best cheerleader because I felt I had to prove I was worthy of the honor. I continued to hide my face when I washed my hands in front of the mirror, but I also chose to put a hold on the cover up. After all, it was my face. If I didn't care, who had the right to? Slowly I became friends with the other cheerleaders. Girls whose faces were as smooth as models. For them an acne problem was one zit in a whole month. I felt sure that they secretly found me ugly. Finally I asked one of the girls why they were friends with me. They told me that after years of people seeking their friendship solely for their physical attraction, friendship felt tainted. No one appreciated them as a friend, but rather only as a status symbol to be seen with in school. My friendship though, was more about personality than appearance. Acne forced me to find intrinsic value within myself. I wasn't traditionally beautiful, so I cultivated my humor and intelligence. Without experiencing this dermatological condition I might never have gone beyond my surface stock market value to polish my personality. Acne helped me build a self esteem that would last longer than a smooth complexion because it was based on my intrinsic worth and uniqueness, not what I looked like as a person. Some days I still struggle to look eye to eye with my reflection, and whenever someone mentions my acne, even as a compliment, I feel hurt. I never want people to see me as an object to admire or be disgusted with. I am a person with character who may suffer from acne, but I do not let it define me. I am a person with dreams and goals who twice a day washes my face with special medications.