self esteem, confidence about my body and my personality.

by Vanessa
(Melbourne)

Hi my names Vanessa, I'm 19 years old.

Since I was 16 I've had low self-esteem and I feel that I hate my body. I'm very petite and 152 cms and weigh about 42kg. I find that I always think about how much I dislike my body, I always look at reflections of myself and cringe.

I'm always, always comparing my body to other girls, and in all honesty, 99% of the time, I think the other person has a way better body than mine and I think why couldn't I have been born with the potential to have a better and curvier body. I don't even feel like a 19 year old, I feel like I have a 12 year old's body and occasionally I cry about how I look, I just don't like it.

I'm very paranoid that when people look at me, they look at me and think that they're lucky that don't have a body like mine, or that I look really skinny and small. Sometimes I don't even like going to uni, because of how I look, I don't want to deal with people looking at my body. I still go, but everywhere I go, I always walk fast paced, so no one would have to see me properly or I wouldn't have to be noticed. I avoid places like clubs sometimes where theres a lot of pretty girls with nice bodies and have dresses that they probably picked out effortlessly. I also avoid clubs because I don't want to make the effort to wear a dress, because that would mean shopping for one, and I'm not confident when it comes to shopping, I genuinely feel that every dress looks ugly on me and if I were taller and had better curves that they would look better.

I have a boyfriend, we've been together for 2 months, and I even feel uncomfortable when he watches me walk, I just feel like I'm ugly in all angles, and I keep thinking that he probably would have wanted a girl with a better figure, or that if he doesn't care about that now, that one day he'll look at me and wish I had a better figure. I've told him about my body issues, and he says I'm fine, but I don't think he actually understands what I feel, mostly because I don't go into detail like I am right now.


This is unrelated to my body issue, this is more about how I feel others view me. I feel that other people find me annoying, because I'm out going and a little bit loud when I'm around people I'm comfortable with, but just recently I found out that there are people that have been talking about me saying I'm annoying. I feel that I don't really have many genuine friends, the only genuine friend I have at the moment that I know is my boyfriend.
I'm really confused as to what kind of girl I am, I thought this phase was going to stop three years ago but its still going and I don't know if this is going to stop anytime soon. I'm not feeling better about myself and I don't know who to turn to? I cant tell my mum or dad because they just brush it off saying I'm being silly, no ones taking me seriously so i just hardly talk about it to anyone and its pretty much building up inside me.