I have been thinking about the way I feel about myself and my body recently. When I was younger I did not think that much about how I looked dispite my having been sexually abused, I believed that I looked good as I knew I was pretty (other people had told me so and not just men), and I was slim(almost to the point of being skinny). As a matter of fact I was called “skinny mah link” by my older sister but of course she also told me she hated me because I had the “better” nose (no bump on the bridge) and I was not too tall (she was taller in grade eight then all the boys) can you say body image problems.

    I do not know how often she was sexually abused but I once said to some friends that if she really knew what I had been through as a child and young adult then I really doubted that she would have wanted to be me, even if she got the “better’ nose and figure. Anyway, back to what I was thinking, now I am spotty(I pick at my face when I get nerous because I and another person are talking about something I am uncomfortable talking about or I feel like I am being lectured or having a figurative finger wagged in my face because I was “bad”) needless to say as this happens often my face is not very pretty anymore. Also, I have put on quite a bit of weight over the last five or so years and instead of being 105 lbs., I am now about 168 lbs. On someone who is my older sister’s height (5’10”) this would look not bad but on me(5’ 3”) I am overweight, so I just can’t think that any man would look twice at me, or at least that is the way I feel and think at the present time, hopefully as I work on me, this will change as I do (both physically and mentally).