Confidence (￣▽￣)ノ

Hi gang! I'm posting second time today hurayyy (*＾▽＾)／ so proud of myself ! ( because I'm a lazy potato in general) .

I wanted to talk about confidence and how I achieved it through modelling. When I was growing up , I was a very large girl and was constantly bullied by girls in school because I was :

1. Overweight
2. Extremely Shy
3. Foreign (meaning my understanding of certain aspects of the culture was different)
4. Extremely Insecure
5. Anxious

All of these things made me stressed out which resulted in more eating and more things to be unhappy about. I would eat two pizzas for breakfast and constantly eat chocolate bars and sweets. It was scary how much I could put in my body and my size only kept growing and growing until the age of 14 when I was coming to a UK size 16-18.

(photo by Sean Conroy)

I realized that its time to change my habits and went on an extreme diet where I would eat very little a day and completely give up sweets and salty foods that I used to love before (them damn crisps yummm ). It was at around when I was 16 that I was asked by a photographer to model for the first time. My makeup was done, my hair and my clothes were styled, I felt like a princess.

(photo by Andy Parnell)

I wanted to be pampered more and wanted more nice pictures of myself where I looked slim and pretty.

(photo by Darren Moriarty)

(photo by Colm Edwards)

A lot of my photoshoots I would start to style my own clothes and do my own make up and hair meaning that I wouldn't be dependent on other creatives and free to do my photoshoots.

(photo by Brian Hutchinson)

Eventually when I was 18 it got to a point that I could see my ribs and my parents were worried about my health. I felt amazing but I didn't have a feminine body and my bones hurt me because my clothes would rub off them. When other girls were curvy , I felt like a boy because I had barely any meat on me.

(photo by Andrea Guetti )

When I met my boyfriend I was starting to slightly gain weight and we started getting more take out and eat more junk food. I started gaining weight, and after I got a job in an office with free snacks my whole diet went downhill.

(photo by @condra )

(photo by @condra)

It really cut down on my confidence and I stopped doing photoshoots because I didn't feel like I was the right person to do it anymore. I felt "fat" again even though I had a normal body weight. I would dress up in really baggy clothes and I even cut my hair to try and change something about myself but none of that helped and made me feel worse.

(photo by @condra)

I got extensions and I started thinking a bit more positively and finally my confidence is coming back. I want to completely update my portfolio with my new body and be comfortable with my size and myself in general. Its absolutely important to always remember that all the photos we see online and in magazines are generally photo-shopped and people look much more normal in real life ( like myself （‐＾▽＾‐） ) . We all get old and lose our youthfulness but the beauty within will always shine ~ ~ ~ remember that girls the next time you feel bad for not looking a certain way °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

If you wonder what I look like now, this is my most recent photoshoot which was about two months ago （⌒▽⌒ゞ I have a photoshoot scheduled for sometime this month so I will be posting it later on here.

Have a good day ya'll! ೭੧(❛▿❛✿)੭೨

(photo by Kevin Collins )

(photo by Kevin Collins)