Dear Holly, 

I know that right now, you feel clueless. You are not the prettiest or most popular, and the people around you don't seem to like you no matter how hard you try. You are chubby and squishy, and you think food will always be your only friend. You don't know who you are in the world or what your purpose is, and the only thing you can compare life to is Disney movies and the occasional cheesy Rom Com.



There is a bench outside on the play ground. You've been told to wait here by your 'friends' (who, in fact, are not your friends) and they've said that they'll meet you outside in a minute. They've sneaked past you, leaving you there, waiting for them the entire lunch time. You only realise once lunch is over and the dinner ladies call you in to class again. You go to the toilet and cry, and wonder what you ever did to be the person that no one liked. 

"Are you okay?" your Mum asks as you sit on your bed staring into space. "I'm fine" you tell her. If she ever finds out about them bullying you, it will ruin your life and they'll all hate you forever.

She does, of course, being the detective she is, find out about it all. 

You dream of High School, thinking it will be better. You picture yourself in the 'cool' crowd, with a nice boyfriend and all the coolest clothes. But, although better, it still isn't great. 

You're forever defined by your older brother (who is equally, if not more so, picked on than you). You'll always be ' ------ White's sister' and you will not get over that for a very long time. People will tease you and bitch about you, and although you will make it into the 'cool' crowd momentarily, it will only because you're a 'pushover' and 'desperate'... well, that's what your so called 'friends' will tell you anyway. 




EARRINGS - H&M

These are the days that will shape you, will taint you, will make you develop a thicker skin.   

Your parents, being the most amazing parents that they are, will do everything to make you happy, to help you fit in, but the people who you hang out with and your desperation will make you ungrateful. The first year of High School will turn you into, to be brutally honest, a bit of a bitch.


The next few years get better. 

You'll make new friends - friends that you'll keep with you for years. You'll laugh, and I mean truly laugh, and giggle and smile and you'll feel loved for the first time in your life. 

You'll develop a love, an obsession, of red lipstick. It is something that you feel like has always been missing from your face - it will become a part of you. But, I advise, don't bother trying to wear it to school, they won't have it and you'll be scrubbing it off with a wet paper towel before lessons.

You and your parents get along again. You basically stop being a bitch and go back to being yourself. It's good.

But, then the years after that get worse. 

The deep routed sadness and lack of self-worth kicks in, and you realise that you're incredibly unhappy being 'you'.


You're complexion will get messy, you'll continue gaining weight and gaining weight and you'll never be the person you want to be. You'll draw on ridiculous eyebrows, apply too many bottles of fake tan and even try pulling off that god damn, dark black eye liner, which you have always known looks like shit on you. 

You'll lose one of the most important people in your life, your Grandad. It's the first time you're experiencing grief and, it will hurt, it will really hurt. To be honest, you'll never properly deal with it. You'll just feel like he's on this constant holiday or something. You'll feel like he's still just a phone call away or that you can just pop round to his house to see him. Trust me, it's like 4/5 years later and the idea still completely baffles you. This will affect the way you feel about future relationships/friendship - you will become very numb.



Within the next years or so, a few good things do happen. It's not all terrible times. You'll realise your passion for 'Media Studies' and how much you adore the use of things like IMovie or filming on a Canon camera. You'll make friends, lovely friends, who make you laugh incredibly hard, and the Media lesson that you have last thing on a Friday, will be a life saver, pushing you to get through every single week.

But then, the last year of high school hits.

At school you'll start skipping lunch, taking PE too seriously and hiding away in the art rooms so no one can see you during breaks. You'll start to hate everything. You hate every lesson, every minute of everyday at school, and all the people around you - you'll hate it all. You'll slowly become numb to everything. And, although I wish you don't, I'm also weirdly glad that you do. 

I could say, 'don't do it, don't become obsessed with becoming someone different or looking a certain way', but in a strange way, I feel like it needs to happen. 


Over the next few years, you'll lose weight, your hair will fall out, becoming thin and flat, and you'll be very sad, but your eyebrows will be much less ridiculous and you'll accept your pale skin for what is.

You'll be both addicted to and despise food. You'll binge and purge and binge and purge, and although you know you're bulimic, you don't admit it until that very drunken night at some 'cool' teenage house party, where you and your friends lock yourselves in the toilet and have the biggest cry of your lives. 

You'll power through the last year of high school, achieving the grades you want, and you will get into the college you wanted to. You'll have a nice summer spent with friends, with a few nice days out, but food and your deteriorating mental health will start to take over. 

Try not to let it take over your summer please, I know it's hard, but fight it. And, take my advice, don't binge on the first day of your family holiday, it ruins the whole trip for you.



You'll have to drop out of college. Just do it. You can't cope and that's fine. Just do it, drop out. 

Allow yourself to feel scared and frightened. 

You will cry and you will only feel defined by 'Anorexia' or 'Depression' or 'OCD', but it will be okay, believe me.

You'll go from therapist to therapist, telling them how you feel, whilst thinking 'Why the fuck am I telling you this?' and wondering how truly qualified they are to be telling you that you've messed up or that you're 'not okay'. 

The day before you're meant to become day-patient you will break down. You will be absolutely terrified. You'll beg your Mum to let you try and do this yourself, from home and home only. You know in yourself that only you, and you alone can fix this. And, because your Mum is your Mum and just wants to make you happy no matter what she has to do, she'll agree to it, she'll trust you. Thank you for trusting me, Mum.

You will cry into a bowls of soup, force yourself to get out of your pyjamas, and you will have a needle jabbed into your arm every week for blood tests, but it'll be worth it. You just have to trust me. 

Time will control you. It still does now, i'm sorry about that, but it's a tricky one. But try and remember that eating 5 minutes later, or doing something 5 minutes later literally makes no difference, despite what your brain will be telling you.





You'll not leave the house for a good few months (besides for visits to the doctors or one really sad trip to the garden center in your pyjamas ... yep, you really do that). You will be scared of public places and public transport but don't worry, one day you won't give a shit about all of that. 

You'll feel distant from your friends, but eventually it will develop into a similar feeling that you have with your Grandad. The distance won't feel like distance, and you'll get used to having long catch ups. You'll get used to not constantly being in the 'know' or being able to see everyone all the time. 

In the future you realise that it's okay to be alone. You'll like being alone. 




The next year or so will suddenly fly by and before you know it you're enjoying life a little more each day again.

Each day will bring a tiny little victory - it's those victories which will build up into something bigger and which you will look back on and write about in years to come. Because, hey, remember that blog you made back in 2014? Yeah, well you start writing on it again. 

You begin with simple beauty reviews and tell people about your favourite perfumes. 

Keep at it, Hol - this is going to change your life.

By the time you're 18 you'll be blogging for a living, oh and you'll be a model, who'd have thought it?

Instagram (your favourite app... there's no time to explain what an app is, but you will learn.. you're very good with technology) will have brought you a lot of exposure. You'll be scouted by top agencies and contacted by huge brands wanting to work with you, and you'll meet people you've idolized and loved for years.

You'll go from being terrified to get on the bus or walk to your local Sainsburys, to getting the train to London twice a week, jumping on and off the tube and using google maps to navigate you round the streets of areas that you don't know. 

You'll be filled with self-confidence. You won't love yourself, but you'll love parts of yourself. Your blonde eye brows and lashes will be a signature look - along with a red lipstick too, of course - and you'll grow your hair and finally feel at home in your long locks. 

You'll experiment with fashion, going through monochromatic phases and bright colour obsessions. You'll love expressing yourself like that.

You and your brother will both have grown into very different people, and you finally feel defined without him. He will be himself and you will be you. You will be your own person - you'll feel free.

You'll make amazing new friends, whilst still cherishing those friendships that saved you in high school. And, you'll be some business savvy gal, going for meetings, castings and to events. You'll often wonder how incredible it is that you even got to that point. 




Oh, and a note on the boyfriend thing that I briefly mentioned earlier: You will not get a boyfriend in high school. In fact, boys will not notice you for a very very long time. You'll be 18 by the time it really starts to happen and even then, the whole concept will kind of freak you out. You'll be scared of affection even though it's all you crave and you'll find that most boys that talk to you will lead with 'How did you get so many Instagram followers?' or 'Who've you modelled for then?' and your eyes will roll 360 degrees into your little freckly head. 'Ask me about something else for gods sake!!' 

Boys and love and all that - it's just complicated stuff, you know? So, don't stress too much over it. A boyfriend won't give you more self-worth, learn to be yourself and like yourself first before you worry about any of that.


There will be up and down days; life isn't smooth running, and I'm not promising that everything is going to be perfect or you'll be cured from every problem, but you will find happiness at some point, in all aspects of life. I truly believe that. 

Be yourself, don't give a shit about what everyone else thinks. Be loud, weird and wonderful. Don't follow the norms, they're not made for you my love, and trust your head when it says that everything will work out okay.

*This post was inspired by Victoria Beckham's Vogue article, which you can read HERE*

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