I spent most of my life struggling with self-esteem and disliking everything about me and my identity. I was never quite enough. This is a story with a happy ending, though. This is a story of me making a lot of mistakes but also figuring out a lot of important things, and I wouldn’t want to change anything about it.

I was homeschooled until middle school, and then went straight to ballet academy, so my life has never been something you would consider normal. I had very strong ideas of who I was, what was right and what was wrong, but all of those ideas were terribly unhealthy and bad.

In ballet school, I was doing okay, but never good enough. At first I was too skinny, then not skinny enough. I got too flexible, which meant I was not strong enough. After I worked on my strength, I started losing flexibility and got in trouble again.

Once, during senior year of high school, I went a week without eating. Yeah, quite literally. I would eat an apple for breakfast at home so my family wouldn’t worry about me, then go to school and drink water and tea all day. Then I’d go home and eat another apple because ballerinas aren’t really supposed to eat after 6pm. I was so proud of myself for doing that, but looking back all I can see is how terrifying and unhealthy it actually was.

I worked harder and harder until I decided I will never reach the goals everyone was setting for me. I was depressed, I was getting sick. I knew I had to change my life if I wanted to actually live it.

After I graduated from the Academy, I applied to college just because it was a thing people around me seemed to be doing, and I didn’t know what I wanted, so I just went along with it. I didn’t know what I wanted to study, I didn’t know what to do with my life. But I got in, started going to class, and even though I didn’t enjoy it, it was something that helped me pass the time.

I wasn't dancing anymore, but I didn't change my eating habits, which means I would skip a couple of meals just so I could consume something incredibly unhealthy later. Of course, I started gaining weight. As the number on the scales went up, my self-esteem plunged lower and lower. I stopped wearing my favorite clothes and would only wear something baggy and dark. I was so stereotypically depressed, honestly, that I don’t know how I didn’t see that at the time.

Thankfully, my family did notice something was wrong. I agreed to get help, and after a couple months of therapy I started getting better. I wasn’t doing great, but at least I could see problems I needed to work on.

One of these problems was the fact that I didn’t really know who I was. I was always pretty good at lying, so I could completely change my personality in order to fit in better. I would ask people what their favorite tv show was just so I could tell them it was my favorite too, what a coincidence.

It took moving away from home for my exchange semester for me to finally see things more clearly. For the first time, I realized that I could fit in somewhere and still be myself. I can be open about things I like and dislike, I can discuss my opinions and thoughts, I can choose where to have dinner with my friends or what movie to watch. I tried just being myself for a while and I saw that people liked that person. And what is even more important, I realized I like that person.

No, I’m not going to be a famous ballet dancer. No, I’m not perfect. I don’t really know where I’m going. But there’s a lot of good things I can say about myself, and that’s enough for now. So yes, I like myself. Yes, I’m trying to get better. And whatever happens next, I’ll be okay.