This Is Why She Doesn’t Believe That She’s Beautiful

She is uncomfortable with compliments, because she never believes them. She avoids having her picture taken, because she knows she’s going to hate the way she looks. And when someone actually sneaks a shot in, she untags the photos of herself, because she doesn’t think she looks as pretty as the people around her.

This girl is beautiful. But she doesn’t realize it. When she looks in the mirror, her eyes skim past her strengths to focus on her flaws. They zone in on her insecurities.

It’s not like she’s never been told that she’s beautiful before. She has been — by friends, by family members, by strangers that pass her on the street and offer their smiles.

Some of these people have asked her out. They’ve tried to get her into bed. They’ve looked her in the eyes and told her how gorgeous she is.

Boys like her. But not the boy. And his opinion is the only one that matters.

As long as she’s living life without him, she won’t feel good about herself. She’s looking for love in the wrong place. She’ll keep chasing the one boy that doesn’t want her instead of looking around and seeing that there are dozens of others that realize her worth.

For some unknown reason, her heart wants the boy that makes her feel ugly. The boy that refuses to give her the one thing she needs. Confidence.

But boys aren’t the only reason she feels unattractive. She won’t let her self-worth rest entirely in the hands of men.

She’s too hard on herself. She lets one little thing destroy her self-esteem. If she likes how she did her makeup, she’ll only be proud for a second, because as soon as she tries to take a selfie and it doesn’t come out well, she’ll be convinced that she’s ugly. That she doesn’t look as good as she thought. That the mirror was lying to her and she’s secretly a monster.

She doesn’t want to care about social media, to be sucked into an online charade, but she can’t help how she feels. If she uploads a selfie and no one likes it, she’ll scramble to take it down. To erase it from existence and hope that nobody realizes what she’s done.

She’ll actually be embarrassed of a photo that she originally loved, because it didn’t get enough approval. Because the likes were too low.

She knows that it’s crazy to care so deeply about social media or mirrors or dating, but she does. She wants to be pretty. She wants to turn heads. And most importantly, she wants to be comfortable with herself. She wants to stop waking up and wishing she was someone else.

And she tries. She tries so hard to see herself in a positive way. She can see the beauty in every other woman that walks by, but she’s blind to her own beauty. She doesn’t realize how stunning she is. She never has.

She can’t magically change her self-hatred to self-love and her self-criticism to self-acceptance. But every single day, she’s trying to silence that voice that tells her she isn’t good enough. That she isn’t pretty enough.

And slowly but surely, she’ll see what everyone else sees. A beautiful girl that deserves everything the universe has to offer her.