Let’s say for this post’s sake my name is Aurora, merely because I love the movie Maleficent and the enchanted, beautiful and kind princess’s name is Aurora. Wow the irony actually makes me laugh because of the paradox in this situation. Not me naming myself after a so called Disney character, but rather comparing myself to someone liked.

I’ll admit this sounds like I feel so sorry for myself, but it’s the truth. I am in fact not a nice person, I always only think of myself, I’m not helpful and definitely not nice. I think this might be due to the fact that I’m constantly in a inner battle with myself. I’m not happy with how I look, weight wise. And that is the understatement of the year. I am EXTREMELY unhappy with how I look. The thing is, overall I do have very nice features that a lot of girls would love, for instance very dark hair, eyes and brows. I have an excellent skin that remains tanned throughout the whole year. However, I think the fact that I’m naturally good looking made me lazy and thus I gained twenty pounds in 5 years.

In the beginning of high school several boys told me I am the most good looking girl in my grade and girls with literally jealous of me. One girl actually told me that she wished that she looked like me. However, this all changed. I gained a lot of weight without realizing it and with the weight gain I lost all of my self confidence. I told myself I am the ugly and approachable one in our friend group, so I never did any effort with my appearance, I never wore make up or nice clothes. However I did have this secret thought that the right guy would think I’m pretty despite of what I wore and how I acted. But I quickly realized that was not the case. Guys don’t approach you based on how cool you might seem, guys are superficial and shallow and they go for people like all of my best friends, the girlie, small, blond girls.

So then I started measuring my worth against how many guys gave attention to me and seeing as that was almost never the guys I wanted to pay attention, my self worth decreased with every time we went out and my friends made out with someone and I didn’t. This went on my whole of high school and I kept on thinking tomorrow I’ll start losing weight and everyone will be sorry, but that never happened. So I tortured myself for five years, thinking I wasn’t good enough. Trying all of the most extreme weight loss techniques, only to bounce back and binge for twice as long as I dieted.

In university it became a bit better, due to new friends. But my room mate made everything worse. She was THE IT GIRL, great body, big boobs and obviously blond hair. However she had the shittiest personality EVER, but once again I learned that boys don’t care. Still they all went for her, and I mean everyone, to the point where she got to choose between the greatest guys in university, whereas I couldn’t hold the attention of any boy longer that a week.

So day by day I became all the more cynical and obsessed with how I looked. The thing is I never wanted anyone to think I cared, but secretly every night I would plan my next extreme weight loss plan (which never worked – I think it only gave me some sense of hope and justify how much I’ve eaten that day) in my second year during our June exams I managed to stop eating for 3 continues days straight and run a fuck load at the gym, it actually became a nice routine, because I was fit and I felt good in my gym clothes and the attention of everyone in the gym. However after 3 weeks I decided to go study at my friend’s house for the last exam and that it when everything went downhill, I couldn’t stop eating. I literally could not stop thinking about what I was going to eat next, I would stay up at night and eat all of their food.

Then we went overseas which would’ve been the perfect time to start balancing my eating habits, but I already had the mindset, that I already cheated, I might as well enjoy myself and once again I took it to far. Overeating at buffets and eating at least two ice creams every day. Sneaking out to go buy sweet stuff any everything. It was disgusting, however the thing is I never really did gain that much weight, it just felt that way because I ate so bad. But this was enough for me to think I’ve already cheated so I might as well go on. So when we got back from the holidays I felt so gross that I promised myself that for the next two weeks before university starts I will exercise everyday and starve myself. However this didn’t happen either, instead I laid on my back for two week and ate my whole house. Still, I didn’t gain that much weight, but to me I could’ve gained the world’s weight. And when we got back to university it was silly season, so there was no way of dieting then and the binge eating just went on and on. Then in my birthday week, I crashed my jeep. My favorite thing in this whole world.

I got semi depressed and I just kept on eating and eating. Then my friend invited me to their farm in the Karroo, where we just ate and ate as well, however all of my friends there had the NICEST bodies ever and when the photos came back that we took, I literally cried. My boyfriend jean that used to sit like a bag on me and which was the only thing I wore right after the holidays, didn’t fit me. So I tried my 3 day dieting again, but it never worked as good as before, because I didn’t exercise enough because I didn’t feel good or fit in my gym clothes, and I didn’t have a car to go gym. And thus the progress was just to slow for me to keep motivated. However, I always had hope that maybe as closer we got to December everything will change, but I was wrong…