I Was Okay With My Body Until They Weren’t

I'm a person who, in private, is okay with my body. I don’t brag about loving it—because I don’t—but I also don’t hate it. I look at myself sometimes and think, “Okay, I’m not perfect, but I’m not awful either.” Even when I feel insecure, I usually find a way to move past it. Sometimes I even start liking the very thing I was unsure about.

But the second someone else comments on my appearance, especially a guy, I completely lose that confidence. It’s like whatever peace I had with myself just disappears.

One boy pointed out my dark circles. He said it casually, maybe even as a joke, but it hit me hard. I’ve always known I had them. I’ve seen them in the mirror a million times. But hearing someone else mention them—out loud—turned something I accepted into something I now obsess over. I can't fight it. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

Today, that same boy said something even worse. He yelled, in front of a group of people, that my belly button looks like a vagina. Disgusting. That’s the word he used. Everyone laughed. I froze.

Guess what I did tonight?

I went home and spent hours looking at my belly button. Staring at it from every angle, comparing it to pictures online, poking at it, pulling at it, crying. Trying to fix something that I didn’t even know was “wrong” until he said it was.

This isn’t the first time. It’s happened more than I can count. Someone points out a feature—my nose, my eyebrows, my legs, my skin—and suddenly, that part of me becomes the thing I hate most about myself. I can feel okay for days, even weeks. But one comment, one look, one whisper can ruin everything.

And I don’t get it.

How can I feel okay with myself when I’m alone, but completely break the second someone else points something out?

Why does their opinion matter more than mine?

Why can’t I hold on to the confidence I build in private?

Am I the only one who feels like this—like my body is fine until someone tells me it’s not?

Sometimes I try to convince myself that it doesn’t matter what others think, but it does. At least it feels like it does. Their words echo in my head longer than my own voice ever does. I wish knew how to turn that part of my brain off. I wish I knew how to be strong enough not to care.

I know I’m not the only person who deals with this. I know so many people—especially girls—are just trying to love themselves in a world that constantly tells them not to

But knowing that doesn’t make it easier.

I want to be someone who walks through life without shrinking every time someone comments on my appearance. I want to be someone who owns every part of their body, even the parts that get judged.

But I’m not there yet.

And that’s okay.

I’m still learning how to protect myself, how to trust my own reflection, how to let my voice be louder than theirs.

So I’m asking this:

How do I stop giving people that kind of power over me?

How do I unlearn the idea that someone else’s opinion of my body is more important than my own?

I don’t know the answer yet. But I’m trying to find it.

I’m trying to rebuild myself after every comment tears me down.

I’m trying to trust that my body doesn’t need fixing—just understanding.

I’m trying to believe that being okay with myself in private means something, even if the world tries to take it away.