"I was a teenage guy. Teenage guys weren’t supposed to struggle with this stuff."

It wasn’t until adolescence that the childhood puppy fat began settling into something a little more serious. Of course, I was never overweight in a severe way – at my biggest I was knocking on the door of 100kg – not exactly a walking heart-attack. Of course, it was enough to find myself at the center of schoolyard jokes, enough to feel really uncomfortable whenever the time came to buy a new pair of jeans. “Fat” became a label that I wore every day with shame. I’d let the shower run for 10 minutes before stepping in so the bathroom mirror would become fogged and I wouldn’t have to face my own reflection.

It so rapidly became a hideous cycle of self-hate that seemed impossible to break free from. I was a teenage guy. Teenage guys weren’t supposed to struggle with this stuff. They were supposed to be worrying about other things. At least that’s what I came to believe. That’s what I told myself for so long. Not long before turning 17, I decided to change things. I lost a heap of weight in a relatively short amount of time and I let healthy living become a thing I would always strive for – to work towards. I existed under the naive belief that weight-loss was the key to my happiness. That I’d hit my goal weight and emerge from the scales as this chiseled picture of perfection.

Of course, that’s not the case. Struggles with body image aren’t something that come with an easy fix. They settle inside you and they get comfortable. Just like taxes, bills, your career or your studies, they become something that you have to manage – to tend to constantly, to make sure they don’t start running away with your thoughts again.

What’s become most important in the battle isn’t in obsessing over what the scales are telling you or the way your body might look from certain angles. It’s in finding happiness with who you are. Pardon me for wheeling out a massive cliche here, but nobody’s perfect. It’s the imperfections that are part of what makes life interesting. Don’t hate the skin that you’re in. Each inch of it is an essential part of your story, a layering of life and experience that’s been a part of you since the day your story began. Stretch marks? F*ck them. Who cares. They’re scars from a battle you’ve won simply by being here.

There can be no denying that we live in a society that is obsessed with body image. It’s very easy to stand up and tell people loudly to be proud of who they are, no matter how they look, but the mental part of that is much more than just throwing around a few inspirational phrases. It’s the hardest part.

Never marginalize how it feels to be at war with your own reflection. It’s an exhausting battle and it doesn’t really ever stop. It’s not really a road that has a finish line. The main thing is to make sure you keep moving forward.

Harrison Cartwright is a writer, student and perpetual over-thinker. You can follow him on Twitter, and find more of his musings over at BULLSH!T blog.

This article was originally posted on bullshit-blog.com and has been republished here with full permission.