In order to succeed, it’s vital that you learn to love and respect yourself. Otherwise, the only thing dragging you down from the top is yourself. I believe in loving yourself. 

 Like most teenagers, I started falling down an icy hole of questioning my self-image. A popular phrase people like to say is “they were hit by puberty like a bus”, but for me, “I was hit by a cloud of insecurity like a bus”.

 I would go on Instagram, constantly comparing myself to other girls, “I wish I looked like her” I thought.  After spending so much time browsing through social media,  I stomped on my self-esteem as if it were a bug. Being young, impressionable, and naive, I created unhealthy habits of seeking compliments from others to feel validated. It was like I was on a rollercoaster; but I wasn’t the one riding it, my self-esteem was.  I’d rely on the amounts of double taps and mindless words from people I barely knew to feel important… But did I gain anything from this? No, I gained absolutely nothing except for an earthquake-like view of myself. 

I remember silently crying to myself  under the covers, my insecurities had danced me into an abyss. Even though the covers kept me warm, I felt cold and empty on the inside. I craved contentness like a starving dog. Sometimes I felt like my sadness was overflowing out of my body, rapidly filling my room. Soon I was drowning in my deadly thoughts. 

Every time I looked in the mirror, the devil on my left shoulder whispered into my ear, “You’re not skinny enough. Your nose is flat. Your eyes are too small. Your acne is repulsive.” At the time, I mistakenly followed that prickly road of thoughts. But looking back, I’ve realized that I was at my skinniest, my skin was perfectly fine, and there is nothing wrong with my “small” eyes and “flat” nose; I just didn’t see that yet. But what was blinding me from seeing the truth? It’s simple, I was my own antagonist. I committed arson, but instead of a physical object; I lit my own mentality on fire and watched it burn. Not a single person had ever said that I was ugly or fat like I thought I was, it’s just that I thought that other people thought that… But was that true? We’ll never know, but does it matter? No.

 After a year of running around in my dark circles, I got sick and tired of living in constant agony and wearing puffy, irritated eyes. Finally, I put on my big girl pants, which previously seemed too intimidating to wear, and I opened Instagram and Snapchat for the last time. My fingers quivered over the button that read “delete account” for a couple seconds, but I knew this is what I needed to. I overcame myself and went through with it. This was just a step out of the darkness-- the unescapable tunnel of blankness gradually became brighter and brighter. 

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that deleting my social media accounts made me one-hundred precent dilly-dandy, because it didn’t.  What it did was help me realize that you can only really depend on yourself for support, because that’s the most important love you can give and receive; self-love. Even when I was complimented about my features, I could never get myself to believe them. I subconsciously put up a barrier around myself as a method of protection, but all that barrier did was destroy me. Your mental health is connected to your social health, since I was doing so badly mentally, my social health started to crumble; I broke away from my friends and was unaware of the importance of taking care of myself. However after a self-reevaluation, I came to the conclusion that you are the most important person in your life; even if you don’t see it yet.  I know this for a fact: Self-love is the key to achieving your goals, whether those goals are becoming a doctor or being the best version of yourself. The only way you can successfully cross the finish line and be able to continue running, is if you believe in yourself. You can only believe in yourself if you truly appreciate and accept everything about you. I believe in “... self-care, I’m treatin’ me right” (Mac Miller).