self esteem, you SUCK

so, i have had GAWD awful self esteem for as long as i can remember. i guess if i had to pick an age or grade it started, i would say 5th grade. MAN intermediate and middle school SUCKED!! the bus i rode picked up grades 5th-12th and would drop us off at our appropriate schools. the older kids were so mean to us younger ones. nothing outrageous, but mean none the less. always telling the girls we had flat chests (HELLO...5th grade)!! other obnoxious things like that would happen almost daily. and of course once we were actually dropped off at school, there were other assholes there! and the majority of the assholes were girls my age. that was when i knew i NEEDED keds,guess jeans, and a Liz Claiborn purse....STAT!! luckily (when i say luckily...i joke....i was hardly lucky) i had divorced parents. which means they would try to buy my love....or better yet, try to rid themselves of guilt. so even though i had all the same designer things all the other girls had, some were still such bitches! when i was in 8th grade things got a little better, but i thought i was a big fat pig....but i was normal. beautiful and normal. i so wish i could i could talk to 8th grade Mandy and tell her how beautiful and perfect she was. during my 8th grade yr i started dabbling in binging and purging (AKA bulimia). i hardly knew what i was doing at the time,other than the fact that i could not let myself get any fatter. that same year my mom put me in Weight Watchers.....yes in 8th grade! i was humiliated to be in a room full of over weight, middle aged housewives. i watched as my mom would weigh all my food and make me drink vinegar before meals (to "shrink" my stomach). that lasted for about 2 months. and i can not re collect many memories from that time period. at the end of 8th grade we had a dance....ugh.....the drama that came while trying to find a dress will forever be burned into my memory bank.

cut to high school...10th grade doing my first ever hit of acid (during school hours) my teachers would not have believed i was doing drugs.....even when i ran to my math teacher asking her "why am i on fire"!! i was still binging and purging, but i moved onto self mutilation as well. i would carve all over my arms and legs. i don't ever remember it hurting, but i don't remember it feeling a "release" either. i was sad...all the time. i felt fat and ugly. i had a few boyfriends in high school, but they were not beating down my door.

i met the love of my life in 12th grade. he told me i was beautiful and i tried to believe him....i still do (he is my husband now...we have been married for 12 yrs). but i have this voice constantly in my head that says awful things, all the time. sometimes i can ignore it,but as much as i beg it...and medicate, it will not shut up. i would love to love myself...but i can't, not yet anyway.