Young Adult mental and physical well being is very close to my heart.  The teen me struggled with identity issues, self hate, feeling responsible for my parents. My family was evicted, my parents’ marriage broke up, other stuff happened that I can’t share but in summary I felt worthless.  I comfort ate then I hated myself for it. I was absent from school more days than I was there, I left school with 1 O’level; thankyfully jobs were plentiful then and I walked into a job as an office junior.  Having a life out of school made me start to question everything around me and I started to think maybe I’m not totally useless.

I’ve no idea how I’d have coped if social media had been around.  And this vision that we have to be a very specific clone with 6 packs, ripped muscles, lip fillers, boob/bum jobs must be stressful.  It’s not just the girls, the boys too are under immense pressure to be gym bodied.

Shannon’s blog, her tips to stay mentally healthy, are spot on.  It took me a lot longer to work them out but I think by the time my first child was born I knew I had a responsibility to help her love herself.  Even armed with confidence and selfworth, at school she was called ‘fat’ ‘lesbian’ probably worse but self love was her armoury, so although it might have knocked her back each day, she was never crushed.

Then there’s family conflict, dating, break ups, job applications, getting promoted – these are all situations that can make you doubt yourself, where you might unknowingly open the door to haters.

Life is amazing but it’s full of potholes.  Follow Shannon’s tips and it will be a lot less turbulent.

via How to love yourself with the help from these 7 handy tips?