“What is defeat? – Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better.” – Wendell Phillips
Megan felt defeated and wanted to give up. However, whenever she felt that way, she dug deeper and tried again—to take another step towards something better.
Since she was 13, Megan had been unhappy with what she saw in the mirror. She knew all the sayings, “beauty is only skin deep,” “don’t judge a book by its cover,” and the many other platitudes saying not to worry about your appearance. It’s not the end-all to beat-all. These sayings are to teach you that other virtues are more important than beauty, and some qualities are worth far more than a pretty face.
“Okay, great,” she thought. The people who spout these wholesome sayings must not have battled to have healthy skin. They didn’t know what it was like to be ashamed of how you looked or the kind of pain that caused.
Megan would lay awake at night, wondering how much worse her skin would look in the morning. She would toss and turn, haunted by visions of people staring at her face. She even realized that some of that staring was in her head.

