What story would my body tell? Just typing that first sentence made my hands tremble above the keyboard for about a minute. To share all of this information publicly is daunting, but also a way for anyone who has been through similar situations to know they are not alone. I have come to a place of progress with or without generics; of working on myself and that I am so much more than what people see and think…

“Oh no! Something horrible has happened!” the midwife said to my parents the moment I was born. My parents thought I was going to die, until she said “She only has one hand!” I know this because as a kid I used to ask my dad what it was like having a disabled baby. He always told me this story, followed by his thoughts: ‘oohh, is that all?!’ I was very lucky to be raised by parents who loved me no matter what, but I still struggled to face this world. A world that’s so cruel to anyone who’s different from the norm…

I always dreamed of being perfect. The perfect daughter, the perfect woman, the perfect person for whoever was in front of me. I didn’t realize for a long time, that the only person who mattered in the equation was me- and I was destroying her…

If my body could tell a story, what would it say? Well for the next few minutes, I’m allowing my body to have the floor. 10 minutes ago Bethany was standing in front of a mirror staring at me. She was tilting her heads in all kinds of uncomfortable ways, trying to find an angle of me that she liked best. She has done this for most of our life…

I don’t really know what age I started becoming obsessed with my body. I remember being in 3^rd or 4^th grade and my peers started making comments that I was fat and ugly. I started dieting shortly after that. I began to lose weight and then quickly regain it back. It started with dieting, and then binging, and then someone in my life told me it’s ok to make yourself throw up sometimes…