Khrissy's Story

I learned to love myself at a very young age when I was a young girl, I felt pressured to live up to society’s expectations. It seemed to me that to fit in, I needed to be different than who I was - more energetic, skinnier, and lower clothing size. I felt I didn’t meet the standards everyone wanted me to. To make things worse, my own father began to verbally abuse me. He called me fat and told me I needed to lose weight. This abuse took a toll on me. I stopped going outside to play, I started wearing loose clothing to hide my body, and I denied my feelings of hunger. However, despite my insecurity and shame, I had the support of a very loving family. They taught me to love myself and to take care of myself. My family has given me courage to love myself no matter what happens in life. I have learned to have integrity and to use my morals for the positive things in life and to continue my life as myself and not anyone’s follower.

While I was in elementary school and middle school, I was not the most liked classmate. My classmates would not interact with me and I didn't know why. I would never understand why they would treat me like that, even though I would try to be nice to everyone I talked to because my family always taught me the phrase, “Treat people the way you want to be treated.” In middle school, I had to go to a new school and I thought it was a fresh, new start. I made new “friends,” the teacher started to “like” me as a student, and nobody mistreated me. However, all of the things that I thought that “friends” were supposed to treat friends was a lie. They would call me fat, ugly, and disgusting. They would make false rumors about me so that nobody would talk to me, so that the only people I would hang out with would be them. I soon felt like I was “an ugly person, in a world of beautiful people.” I soon realized that this was not the way friends are  supposed to treat friends.This made me become sad and I didn’t want to look at myself in the mirror anymore.

When I moved back to my old school in 8th grade, my life changed for the better. I met new people and they showed me how actual friends are supposed to treat you, for example, they checked on me when I was feeling down, they made me feel wanted in conversations, and they were honest and caring towards me. Each individual friend taught me to love the way my body looks, the way I speak, and the way I look at the world. I respect my friends and they respect me because we all love each other no matter the nationality, body size, and sex. My friends need me and I need them so we can get through high school together, and college. We support each other in everything we want to do when we graduate high school. I am happy to be myself and have learned to be appreciative with the family and friends I have now and that they will always be there for me, and I will always be there for them.

Now in high school, I have learned to be independent, to accept myself for who I am as a person, and to be careful whom I surround myself with. 

I am proud to be an African American and I have learned to love my roots, including my hair and my skin color, I learned to love my friends and family, my curly hair, my lady lumps, and my pride to be who I am.I am proud to say that I am a plus size woman, even though I hear hurtful words like, “you need to lose weight,” or “you’ll be obese if you don’t stop eating,” I learned to stay focused on my work and not to worry about the destructive criticism. I am happy with myself now and don’t depend on everyone to make me happy. I found peace in myself and deal with my problems in a calm matter. If you want to change something about yourself, you have to love yourself first because God made everyone the way he wanted so why not love yourself. I have learned to be independent from all the situations I had to overcome in my life. I have learned to take control of my situations and not to let everyone deal with them for me. I have learned to be honest with the people around and to myself when I am not feeling okay. These situations taught me to have humility and be humble. I have learned to be generous and to give as much help as I can to other people, but to make sure I am okay first. I am a self-disciplined human being and I am proud of that.

My hands have touched so many things that made me happy, my feet have walked to their favorite places in the world, my legs have helped me stand and walk for the very first time, my eyes have seen so many beautiful things, my mouth has said things that have made someone’s day, therefore my body has been there for me ever since I was born, so I am proud to say that I do love myself.

Education

Wenonah High School

Expected Graduation: May 2020

GPA: 3.62

Class Rank: 8/164