I am nineteen years old and I’m still learning how to do everything. I know very little about this world, and ultimately very little about even myself. If I have learned anything at all, it’s that hating the things I do know to be true will get me nowhere. Acceptance is key. At this phase of life, young people, especially young women, are taught to hate themselves into submission. That hating yourself into conformity is possible and a desirable outcome. I have tried this many times, and have learned that it’s a false teaching.

I have hated different parts of my appearance since I was very little. As soon as you’re old enough to read you see advertisements for makeup and speed dieting. Society’s ideal beauty standard is pushed into your mind whether you want it there or not and it will affect you. For me, I didn’t see myself in the magazines. I hated that. I grew my hair and then I cut it, I tried different kinds of makeup. Spent money on fancy manicures and skin products. Didn’t eat. It didn’t work.

I hated parts of my personality. I wasn’t girly enough, I wasn’t sporty enough. I was too smart and too creative. I hated that I wasn’t the perfect concoction of emotion to be the ideal girl. So I started dressing in cute clothes and playing on the golf team. I slacked on my grades (too much) and stopped doing musicals and choir. I hated that people thought I was a pushover so I developed a fake strength. It didn’t work.

As I got older I had distorted myself so much I couldn’t even tell what was real and what wasn’t. So I just hated all of it. All of myself. This led to a period of horrible decisions, addiction, depression, multiple hospitalizations, isolation, loss, and so much confusion and pain. Things I wouldn’t wish on anyone. That was when I realized that hating myself in any fashion, whether it’s to motivate unneeded change or purely out of anger is toxic. And I needed to find myself, the real me, minus the toxicity.

The process of delayering who I had become was very difficult. Sort of like a great decluttering. I had a mask for every feasible situation that I now had to get rid of so that I could use my own face. I had to stop pretending I liked things I didn’t like, which meant losing people I did like. I had to take responsibility for the things I did. And also let people know I really wasn’t ok with things they did. After the dust settled… I had me. But nothing else.

So now I’m taking the real raw ground down me (i happen to like her) and we’re building. Building friendships, relationships, talents, education, passions… everything I never got to do as ME. Working because I want to, not because someone told me to. Going to College next year because I got in and hell yeah I deserve that opportunity. Writing about what gives me passion because I can and I LOVE IT. Being unapologetically myself. And dear friends, it is the most exciting thing. I can’t wait to keep learning. Never hate on who you are, let yourself grow.