No matter how hard I try, I can’t learn to love myself in this body. I will advocate for body positivity/neutrality until my final breath but I just can’t feel it about myself.

Maybe I’m just hoping that nobody else ever has to suffer the kind of pain I feel, the constant inadequacy and self hatred fuelled by media and societal expectations. There’s no f****** escape from it. I don’t want my niece to grow up in a world where she’s defined by nothing else but the shape and size of her body. She’s only 10 months old and thankfully doesn’t understand yet, but this world needs to be so much f****** better for her and I will mortally f*** up anybody who tries to reduce her to the sum of her parts like they did with me, like they did with my mother and have done since the beginning of time.

The worst thing is that today I realised that I’m never going to feel better unless I break up with my boyfriend. I don’t know anymore whether it’s his words or the ones in my head, but I’ve felt inadequate from the moment we met. Never good enough for him, too fat, too disgusting, too embarrassing to be seen with in public. I barely like going out anymore because I don’t want people to look at me and I definitely don’t want people to wonder what he’s doing with an ugly swamp creature like me. I can’t get better until I learn to believe that I’m enough as I am. I don’t know if I’ll ever believe that or whether I’m ready to try and convince myself but at least now I understand why I keep pushing him away and not feeling sad about it. He’d be better suited with someone thinner, better looking. I’m doing him a favour, really..