By Becky Stone
I have spent every day of my life, as far back as I can remember, wanting just one thing. To be thin. It would be the greatest thing that could ever happen to me. I would give up ten years of my life to just be thin and to never have to think about my body and why it wasn’t right, ever again. That was all I wanted.
No longer ashamed to be full of myself
By Gözde
I always just stuck out somehow. I was the tallest girl in my class, probably the weirdest too. I'm an only child and I didn't have a normal family life either. My dad left when I was 4 and my mother's mental health problems inevitably meant I grew up in foster care, which was definitely soul-destroying.
Loving yourself despite your past and your scars
By Paula
Like many people, I have felt the burden of perfection for most of my life. I was raised in a cult and we were taught to be on a constant quest for spiritual and emotional perfection. Oddly, physical perfection was discounted and we were strictly prohibited from wearing makeup, or dressing anything but modestly.
By Emilie Lavinia
Over the years I’ve had a complex relationship with my own body. Imagine feeling uncomfortable about something, then being in awe of it, then disliking it or hating the sight of it on some days but still, having to carry it with you or rather, having it carry you everywhere you’d go each and every day.
I am not my (body) hair. Or am I?
By Maïna Cissé
When Lily messaged me to feature in the anti-casting shoot she said: “I can write you a story about perfectionism and body hair if you fancy shooting a model with unshaved legs??”. To which I responded: “of course, looking forward to reading you”.
By Eugénie
Very early on, I was branded as a "gifted" child and I always felt I had to live up to the expectations attached to this label.