Insecure

You can feel pretty insecure about yourself during puberty. About your appearance, about your love life, about your friends. Or because you start to feel different. You wonder: am I normal? Do I fit in and do they like me?

You will feel insecure about yourself if you have an image in your mind of what ‘normal’ is. Perhaps you look at lots of pictures of super slim people in magazines. Then you look in the mirror and think that your body is too fat, that your body is not normal. But that's not right at all! In reality, everyone's body is different.

There's no such thing as normal. Everyone is different. Everyone is beautiful in his or her own way. Whether you are slim or well built, are attracted to someone of the same sex or the opposite sex, start having sex ‘early’ or ‘late’.

The solution? Don't compare yourself to people in magazines, films or TV programmes. Tell yourself that normal doesn't exist. You’re fine as you are, precisely because you are you. And that goes for the people around you as well. It would be so boring if everybody was the same.