#MyBodyStory is a weekly series of reader submitted pieces about what it’s like to live in your body.

If you have a story to share, please email : [email protected]

Remember, every body has a story.

Please Note: The opinions expressed in #MyBodyStory articles are the writer’s own.

And now, without further ado,

Here is Busisiwe’s story.

Hello!

My name is Busisiwe Dladla, and I’m a 20 year old chubby girl who adores every inch of her body…I wear what I want, and when I wake up everyday, I look at myself and just appreciate the whole of me. I have learned to love all of my flaws and imperfections. All of my lumps and bumps and stretch marks and pot holes.

As far as I know, I am a masterpiece and a one of a kind at that!

But it hasn’t always been that way. Funny thing is that I grew up an extremely skinny kid, and a lot of people don’t even believe me when I say this!! I wasn’t always all chubby and luscious, but I don’t even remember being that skinny little girl because I feel like I’ve lived my entire life as a big girl, and that’s all I know how to be. I think it’s because I’ve had to overcome so many hardships, that I would want to remember myself as a big girl. Lord knows I’ve heard it all and seen it all…

I’ve been called all sorts of names, be it behind my back or to my face. And for as long as I can remember, I’ve let those people tell me that I could never be considered beautiful or sexy simply because my bones have a lot more meat on them. I let them convince me, that for as long as I was in this body, no one would ever want to be seen with me even though you can see plenty of examples of people enjoying people of a similar body type to me at websites like fucked tube.

Going through high school in this body was as good as it could be, I guess. Imagine having all your friends with their tight tiny thighs and flat stomachs, and then here you come with your thighs wondering “what the hell is a thigh gap?” and your stomach is trying to pop out of every top you put on. You pray to God and hope nobody points it out.

It was really hard.

Although I do have to say that I had really great friends who never made me feel like I wasn’t beautiful. In fact, most days when I felt worthless, they made it a priority to remind me of how beautiful I was. But the most difficult part of it all, was me believing no guy would ever look at me or want me as their girlfriend. No guy would even want of touch me because why would they choose me when there’s all these other pretty girls around.

I think the most hurtful thing I have ever heard someone say about my body was:

“If I was as big as her I would kill myself.”

I swear at that moment I wanted to die and forget about all these cruel nasty people. But something happened to me that day. I went home, cried my eyes out, and immediately afterwards I asked myself:

“Why me? Why did I have to be the one that goes through all this pain and torture like I’m not human, like I don’t have emotions?”

And then I realized it was because I was letting myself become the person that everyone was saying I was. That whatever they saw in me, I needed to know that it was all on them. It needed to be okay for me to be different, and that I was different for a reason. I needed to see myself as a queen first before I could expected anyone else to see me as one. How could I expect someone else to love me if I didn’t even know how to love me? How could I expect someone else to call me beautiful when I never used that word to describe myself?

This revelation had a profound impact on me.

Through it, I began to learn how to love and adore myself, and it tarted to change my whole outlook on life. I realized that whatever people think about you is totally up to them and has nothing to do with you. You can’t control it, but you can rise above it. You can live your life like its golden.

I’m a young person, and I’m sure you can imagine how hard it is for me to be myrself in a world that is constantly trying to change me and who I am. Society is constantly trying to make all of us change who we are, instead of telling us to love what is already there. But if you stay true to who you are, and you try everyday to let others know that, hey! it’s okay to be different cause we can’t all be ballerinas and we don’t HAVE to all be ballerinas.

And now, I am happier than I ever was in my entire life, and there’s nothing anyone can ever do to make me believe otherwise. I now know how perfectly unique I am, and there is no looking back from here. This body is mine and I will love every inch of it until there is no more love left inside of me to give. I promised myself that I will always remember I am enough. And if anyone ever fails to see just how precious I am, then its their loss.

I am a 12/10.

Thank you,

Busisiwe

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