When Did You Stop Feeling Beautiful?

It is a well known fact in my friends and family that I take the Dove "Real Beauty" campaign with a grain of salt. I respect the message but I feel like there is another under lying message of Buy Dove products and you will be prettier. But this latest commercial actually struck a cord with me. Go ahead watch it, I'll wait:

So the teens, and older people spin, hide, and in some cases actually run from the camera, and then you see the kids, smiling enjoying themselves, posing and loving being in the camera’s light.

I started to think about when it was that I shyed away from the camera, there are home movies of me, that I set up recording dance practices, playing with relatives, pictures from when I was younger with real smiles on my face, not the I have to smile I am being taken a picture of smile I do now.

So when was it? While I was thinking about it I realized it was around the same time I started having my other body issues.

I was a very active child, I did dance from when I was 2 at 6 I went from just ballet to ballet, tap and jazz. I played Tennis from age 8 and volleyball from 10 I was on swim team from when I was 10 until 13. When I was 13 I had to stop everything. I had to walk my brother home from school because he was getting bullied and beat up every day, and so I quit volleyball, tennis and swim team because I couldn’t go to the practices. I had to stop dance because my mother got into an argument with the director of the school and pulled me out of Company (which I had just made and I LOVED being in Company)

I just stopped being active, and then I started gaining weight, I hit puberty, I was diagnosed with PCOS and I just wanted to hide and not be seen. That is when I stopped loving being in pictures and being photographed. When I stopped believing I was beautiful.

I still have so many issues and still find it hard to think I am pretty.  It is something I need to work on, because I don’t want my future kids to see me hide from the camera and think that is what they need to do too.

When did you stop? Do you still believe you are beautiful? I would love to read your stories.