I’ve always felt self conscious about how I look.
It started from a young age, around when I was in elementary school, when I began to feel the people around judging me for my appearance. I was only 9 or 10 when classmates would tell me I needed to shave my moustache, or I was teased for having hairy arms. When I went to middle school, it was even worse. I had a unibrow so of course I was an easy target for bullies. There were so many times where my classmates would deliberately point out my unibrow in front of everyone. It used to upset me so much. I would go home and beg my mother to get rid of it. At such a young age, I was already so insecure about myself and I cared so much about what other people thought of me. I let western ideas of beauty define myself and my worth. It makes me so sad to think about how much I cared about my appearance at such a young age. I genuinely thought that I was ugly. I remember I used to look in the mirror and cover up my upper lip and unibrow to imagine what I looked like without them.
I eventually got my upper lip waxed, I got my eyebrows threaded, and I shaved my arms. But none of that really helped me get over my insecurities, I still didn’t feel “pretty.” My self esteem was already ruined.
Once I was in high school I thought it would get better, but then I started to gain weight and I would get really bad acne breakouts. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I finally started to fall in love with myself. I began to feel more confident in my own skin despite what I assumed others thought of me. It’s a journey I’m still working on.
Some days I look in the mirror and I still feel awful about my appearance. Other days I look in the mirror and I feel beautiful. But I can feel myself finally getting to a point where I am confident and happy with myself.
Unruly Bodies 
It’s crazy how the things we hear as children stick with us all our lives. I remember my mom would pluck my eyebrows into these skinny lines before kindergarten and straighten my hair throughout elementary school or have me wear it up instead. She’d move the food off the table at dinner so everyone only had one serving. She never said I wasn’t good enough the way I was but I felt it. I knew it’s how she felt about herself too. I let my eyebrows grow out a good bit in high school but even now I’m always worried about my appearance, my hair and my weight. It’s heavy stuff. I’m sorry you went through all that and for the way it’s stuck with you. But also so proud you’re fighting it! There’s beauty to accepting that the way we look and the way we feel about how we look changes, but our self worth never has to. Truly proud of you + wishing you well!