The Story of a Girl, her Selfie, and her Fear

I am a fearful person by nature. I am afraid of a myriad of different things, some logical, some illogical: spiders, the movie ET,  loud sudden noises, being fired from my job, worms, abandonment, not being able to travel in my future, intestinal parasites, parasites in general, the stomach flu, change, large, loud social gatherings, aliens, and...myself. I am both scared of, and ashamed of myself. I have always known I was ashamed of myself, but afraid? That's a new revelation, like and hours old, that all started with a selfie. I know some selfies are startling, but this one...this one sent my thoughts racing.

This. This is the Offender. 

 Looks innocent and not loaded with baggage right? Wrong. You see that purple headband? You will never know the sheer amount of willpower it took for me to leave the house with that stupid thing on my head. Why a headband? Ugh, I don't know, I wish I did, it must have ignited thoughts already lurking in the back of my mind, and here we are.  You see, I have been shamed into believing (not by anyone close to me), that if I wear something that is considered  "in", i'm ruining fashion, because only people who are thin are allowed to wear clothing/accessories that make our society proud, while the rest of us have to hide behind clothing that is horrendously unflattering, and be ashamed of ourselves because society is ashamed of us, and want's to hide us, and shame us into thinking that we are unattractive, and therefore unworthy of being loved or feeling good about ourselves until we can "fix" what is apparently broken. I have for my entire life, fallen for it hook, line and sinker, creating a deep sense of shame, and I continue to feel  unworthy and unlovable and afraid. IT'S SO SILLY. But I cannot and will not deny the tremendous impact body image has had on me.  So why the fear? Because I am TRYING, desperately TRYING to break free from that shame and see myself as beautiful, and see myself not through the eyes of man, but see myself as Jesus sees me, and it has made me so afraid. I am afraid to leave the house wearing certain articles of clothing/accessories because I am afraid of what other people might think. Yes, it all boils down to being afraid of what people might think. I am a people pleaser by nature, so this is not something that I can just stop thinking about, or stop caring about, this is going to require a complete re-routing of my mind, and that takes time and it really, really difficult. But fear is exhausting, and I want to learn to live outside of it, and learn to see myself as someone who was worth dying a horrific death for , and who is worthy of being loved, and accepting that truth the way I am now, or else no matter what I look like, I will always be dissatisfied. It is going to be hard, but hard does not mean impossible.