In these days of such vast internet access and millions of social forums and networks at every click of a link and for every possible demographic it's pretty much an impossible task getting away from the image of 'perfect' men and women. Personally I feel like it's a much more vicious world for teens and children to be growing up in, they have so much access to things I never even thought about at their age. When I was a child I was made play outside with my friends, the most technologically advanced item I had was my gameboy and a second hand playstation which I was allowed play for an hour and a half at a time. When I got a little older, growing into my tween stages, I was allowed an hour on the dial up internet every evening, and I was allowed watch four shows maximum on the telly before (or after) my homework and then I was told to use my imagination or read. To be honest I didn't really mind too much about not being allowed on all these gadgets, I mean I wanted to play for hours when I was on them but once I was kicked off I had so much fun and enjoyment playing by myself I pretty much forgot about it. Kind of like getting baths when you're little. Now it's very hard for kids to get away from this stuff, if they have a phone they have instagram and tumblr, they have TV with the image of "perfection" printed all over it, Youtube stars who present themselves in ways that make kids envious of things like "relationship goals" that they really can't even fully understand (because let's be honest we all thought we knew everything about love and sex and how to be happy when we were kids and teens only to be proved so wrong in the future).
It wasn't until I was maybe 16 that I really started getting sucked in online and on social platforms like Myspace, Bebo and Soulkool. Now as a twenty-three year old adult (if I can call myself such) I find it quite hard to get away from "Tumblr perfect" bodies or people constantly competing on Facebook. It's quite difficult some days to scroll through my Tumblr feed and see constant images of beautiful, sexy women that I know I don't look anything like, especially as someone who struggles with her weight and how confident she feels in clothes, not to mention how I only see myself as someone with a pretty bland looking face. Comparing yourself to someone online is the worst habit anyone can have and I found it much easier when I was a teen and a child to be, maybe not confident, but comfortable with myself especially as a child I didn't know there was any such thing as a "perfect aesthetic". Some days when I feel low about myself I don't even go on some websites because it just drives my self esteem down so low.
This is all coming from a grown woman who hasn't been exposed to a whole lot of the social media body bashing type things for a majority of her life. I cannot even begin to imagine how young girls and boys and teenagers are dealing with things like this. It's difficult enough to go through puberty and school and coming to terms with your body and the fact you can't change things about yourself, the fact you shouldn't feel like you have to because you're bombarded with images of "perfect" bodies and faces. Now don't get me wrong if you're naturally slim or you want to look fit that's entirely fine, what I'm trying to say is that you don't have to look like that. People are born completely differently for good reason.
I'm not going to lie, I wish I had a different face, a different body. If you asked me even a year ago, what would I change about myself I would easily pick something I could change with just about every part of me. Nowadays I'm more comfortable, not happy, but comfortable with bits of me, there's things I could still change but I've come to terms with them. The more you compare yourself to others, and the more you concentrate on others and not on you, the worse it is for your health. Your soul needs to be happy and it needs to be nourished, it needs all of your attention. When you put all your attention on how you wish you looked like someone else you put negative attention on yourself and in turn your heart will get heavy, your head will get heavy and you may never know what it's like to be truly happy. Over a year ago I was single, I wasn't in the market for any kind of relationship so I was only focused on me, I didn't care who found me attractive because I wasn't trying to impress anyone. I took on the mindset of someone who felt good about herself and that's all that mattered. If someone didn't like me who cared? Now since being in a relationship things got a little harder, not through any fault of my boyfriend by any means, this was all past experiences with relationships that came back to haunt me. Am I good enough for him to stay? What if there's someone prettier/skinnier than me? What if he finds someone else more attractive? Despite the fact I've never felt so loved by any one human on earth, or the fact he's never given me any reason to think this, and all his talks with me about how he feels about me and how attracted he is to me and no one else would take his eye there's still a little nagging monster deep deep in my head that niggles at me and whispers all these nasty things.
For a long time the only reason I was on Facebook was because my friend puts up photos of her son that I love seeing, and my best friend was living in Australia for a while and it was the only real contact I had with her. She's back now though so I decided to stop going on Facebook for my health, now I rarely go on it, I check maybe once in the evening to make sure I don't forget birthdays but that's pretty much it. I try not go on Tumblr too often either now, until I can learn to love myself the way I did when I didn't have anyone I was afraid of losing. It's important to concentrate on myself and be confident in who I am because what's happened is my anxiety has come back slightly, and stress is all too prevalent with my weight. I need to focus, relax and realise that there are things I can't change and there are things other people that I'm envious of want to change about themselves too and everyone has something they don't like about themselves so please, if you feel the same, don't panic too much.
XO
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