Love Yourself.

Let me tell you something about confidence: it's not something you learn to have and then get to keep forever. It's slippery and unreliable. It's not always there when you need it but once you know what it feels like, it has the power to come back. Confidence is a tricky thing; its the fine line between boosting yourself to amazing heights or dragging you down to horrible depths. It either helps or it doesn't. Sometimes its a raging war in your own head, wanting to feel a lot more positive but there's a tiny voice saying you're not worth it.

Confidence and self-love have always been things in short supply for me. I could never get past the fact that I was always second-best or not worth a voice. Being spoken over for years tends to provide that opinion. It wasn't until I was sixteen when I first learnt to smile honestly at my reflection and thinking who looked back at me was worth feeling confident of. I rose and rose, out from the depths of feeling less than average, finally ridding myself of that lovely phrase, "I'm ugly." For me, college did wonders for my confidence. I explored thoroughly with style, looks, and my own talents. I found that in the class I attended, I had a voice that was often worth listening to. I found that I could be funny and laugh with people. I was valued there and had a place that I could look forward to being in.

But I got some comments in my last year of college. They took place outside, from someone I trusted wholly, and that was what had me sliding right back down that hill I'd worked to climb up. My face was criticized beyond what I could help and I was pointedly compared to someone who appreciated their features in the same way they put mine down. I was negatively commented on my style (which I thought I'd found) and eventually lost myself in that whirl of self-hate those comments ignited. I became obsessed with changing things I shouldn't have been able to change. I'd check my face everyday, hoping to find something more beautiful there. At the same time, I wondered why I let those comments affect me so much--but we're human; we're sensitive at times so things do hurt. I laughed whenever someone told me I was beautiful because all I could hear was that echo of comments telling me all my flaws. I became incredible self-deprecating in such a critical way.

But bit by bit, I saw a change in how I viewed myself. A change I liked but also hated because I'd clung onto that negativity enough to acknowledge and do something about it when I should have shrugged those words off and loved myself regardless of what I didn't have. I became more serious about how I appeared to people, more self-conscious of what people said about me. Again, my style changed because I feared I looked silly. Still, through that, something broke through barriers and told me that I shouldn't care what others think to that extent.

Through that, I climbed up a higher hill to finally smile once more at myself and say, "Yes, I can be attractive." I got myself away from the person who gave me such negativity and learnt to enclose myself in confidence. Again, it's slippery some days but I'm at a point now where I can say to people: "I learnt how to love myself the hard way. I learnt that by acknowledging someone else's opinion of me that wasn't love. Adhering to other people's perception of beauty isn't worth it; you only need to feel what you do and change according to yourself and nobody else."

I still have confidence issues but they're nowhere near the drastic low they used to be. I got support in my lack of it and slowly learnt to know that even if my reflection was flawed then it's okay. I searched for perfection long before I realised it doesn't exist. I searched to get rid of who I used to be, that person shrouded in negativity, and let another me rise up to take their place. I get laughed at now for taking so many selfies but that's because I'm finally at a level where I can stand to see myself on a picture so I use that as much as I can. If I feel good about myself, I capture it. If I don't, I still capture it and then write down why in order to work on banishing those thoughts.

Loving yourself isn't a walk in the park or something that comes easy to most people. It's not just for appearance; it works for talents too. I've been writing for years and I stepped out of a shadow and found my own world to work in and finally have the ability and confidence to say "I'm talented and could actually make something of this." There are still times when I think that I'm only a good writer on the surface but I constantly develop that when those thoughts creep in. If my lack of confidence affects something I can change, I'll work on it healthily. If I can't, I have to leave it and learn to look past it to the amazing person I know can be underneath my own thoughts.

There are still times when I can't help but compare but I told my sister that comparisons are the most destructive thing ever, because you'll keep making more and never be happy. Your only comparison is you, and who you want to be. Imagine yourself and not anyone else. Imagine only changeable things and don't chase them to a point of hating yourself. You're beautiful and worthy of feeling confident and loving yourself. You deserve self-love and to smile encouragingly at everything you do.