Port Lavaca, TX, US

It has come a long, long way. I can't express to you the deep, passionate level of hatred I used to feel about every little piece of myself physically and mentally. You're talking about a girl who felt so shitty about herself that she'd obsessively weigh in, starve for days, purposely throw up food, and run 1.8 miles every day to rid herself of imperfection. WELL that girl learned a lesson after hospitalization following hospitalization. No matter how much weight she lost, she still managed to hate herself even more. BUT wanna know what fixed it? Respecting her body. Even though I was forcefed in treatment facilities and locked out of bathrooms for an hour after mealtimes, I finally began forcing self respect in forms of actions and eventually words. You can't constantly call yourself names and dwell at yourself in the mirror and expect yourself to be happy with yourself. It doesn't work that way. You have to FORCE the affirmations so hard and so consistently until they feel real. I started eating healthier, vegan. Volunteering. Working my treatment. No cutting. No purging or restricting. None. And gradually I felt more like Hayley.

Now? I can eat in public without wanting to crawl into a hole. I can binge sometimes without wanting to shoot myself. I don't have taunting dreams about being emaciated. I hate my scars but I don't hide them everywhere I go and certainly I don't make new ones. I don't have eyelashes but the world can suck a fuck if they don't like it.
I like myself. I'm making a difference in the world and saving animals as well as myself. People can't pick at insecurities that don't exist!