One Woman's (Very True) Story

Body dysmorphic disorder definition
Function: n
:  pathological preoccupation with an imagined or slight physical defect of one's body to the point of causing significant stress or behavioral impairment in several areas (as work and personal relationships)
(source dictionary.com)

She is not physically perfect,  As a matter of fact, she feels so far from perfect that every time she looks in a mirror, she can only see her flaws.  She can't help but pick herself apart.  She sees the stomach that sticks out farther than her boobs.  She sees the acne that has plagued her for her entire life.  Somewhere in her gut, a feeling of disgust has started to germinate.  This disgust that makes it hard to be intimate with the man she loves.  The man that tells her everyday how beautiful she is, and she doesn't know how to explain to him.  She doesn't know how to tell him that she doesn't think he's lying, but deep in her heart she knows it's not the truth.
She is kept awake with thoughts of the fact that the man will one day be on the road, away from her, with girls throwing themselves at him.  That they will be skinnier, have bigger tits, a firmer ass.  That they will be younger.  Anxiety about what could happen to them eat at her heart and make her question whether everything they have could possibly work out in the long run.  He tells her she the most beautiful girl in the world, but the images he looks at to get off make her question if he's just placating her.
When she was younger, she had a drug problem and an eating disorder.  These things don't seem to go hand in hand, but they do.  They both kept her from eating and gaining weight.  They kept her at a size 7, still feeling fat, because she wasn't a size 5, a size 3 or smaller.  She looks back and knows that she was incredibly unhealthy and on a slow suicide track, but a small part of her misses how easy it made it to stay so small.
She is twice the size she used to be.  It makes her want to cry somedays, because she feels disgusting.  She tries to diet and tries to exercise to lose the weight, but always ends up sabotaging herself.  She is afraid it will never be enough and if she starts losing, she will put herself back in the mindset that skinny is better than healthy.  This makes her want to cry, because she can't seem to win and she is constantly frustrated with battling herself.
She hears people say things like "why can't people just get over it and accept who they are?"  She hears stories of people just like her who never feel like they can quite lose enough weight even as they're being told if they look like they're going to blow away in the wind.  She wishes she knew how to fix this and how to have a healthy attitude about herself and her body.  If she could figure that out, maybe she could help all those others she hears.
Maybe, she thinks, being vocal and honest in this way is a good first step.