I get told by my family and friends that I’m beautiful and am an amazing artist, and I appreciate it. But they just don’t get that it doesn’t mean anything when I’m complimented by a family member or by my friends. They don’t get it that I know they’d never tell me I’m ugly or worthless or that I’ll never be a successful artist. They don’t realize that I make myself believe they’re just saying it to make me happy. Except it doesn’t make me happy, it does the opposite.
   

I compare myself to other girls. I can’t go anywhere without seeing a skinny girl and wishing to be skinny too. Or when I see a naturally beautiful girl, I can’t help but be unhappy with what I look like. I want to have clear skin like other girls, but I don’t. I want to have nice, soft, straight hair like other girls, but instead, I’m stuck with curly frizzy hair that can't be brushed because it makes it worse. I want to be able to eat whatever I want without worrying about gaining weight like other girls, but that thought can just throw itself out the window because it’s never going to happen. My point is, I want to be like the other girls. Worry-free and beautiful.
   

I compare myself to other artists. I want to be a successful artist when I grow up. In art, you look at other artists who are more experienced and take in inspiration. I do that. It’s nice to see what I could do when I get older, but sometimes I wish I was as experienced as the other artists I see and convince myself that I should be. I tell myself that I’m not actually as good an artist as people tell me I am and that I need to be better. I don’t think about the fact that I’m still young and because I don’t compare myself to other artists my age, don’t realize that I could be good for my age.
   

I compare myself to others too often. It really hurts my self-esteem and is unhealthy. It made me stop eating as much as I should have been eating because I was only seeing skinny girls and wanted to be a skinny girl. I didn’t understand that I was still growing and that eventually my weight would be evenly distributed. I started to get really upset because of the thought that I wasn’t a good enough artist and I didn’t believe I ever would be. I started to ask myself things like “why am I not as skinny as my friends?” and “why doesn’t she have acne like I do?” And I didn’t want to draw as much because I thought “I’m not good enough so what’s the point?”  That is why I say: Don’t ever compare yourself to others. It just leads you down a spiral of sadness.