Lesley Miller is a 21-year-old psychology student at Rice University in Houston.
On June 2, Lesley shared a picture of herself in a two-piece bikini to a Facebook page called Love What Matters. The post has since received over 38,000 likes and over 2,000 shares because of the inspirational story it tells.
In the post Lesley reveals the life long battle she has had with her body weight and self-confidence.
Lesley wrote “I’ve spent the past 18 years of my life waiting.”
“I told myself that one day I would finally let myself be seen; I would finally do all the things I dreamed of when I was enough. Thin enough, happy enough, confident enough. When my body looked the way that it was ‘supposed’ to.”
At the age of just 11 years old Miller had lap-band surgery, revealing she was “the youngest person to have weight loss surgery”. Lesley also revealed that she self harmed at age 15, before turning her life around at age 20, losing half of her body weight.
“When I was twenty, I lost half my body weight in nine months, my worth for the day solely determined by the number on the scale being lower than the day before,”
“And then I got tired tired of waiting,” she explained. “So now I’m twenty one and I bought my first bikini EVER.”
Lesley revealed to US Weekly that whilst she has had messages from people critiquing her body, most of the comments she received were extremely supportive.
“I’ve gotten so many messages from other people who have dealt with similar struggles with their body image, eating disorders and self-harm,” Miller continues.
“The most touching thing to me is the massive number of people who are late in adulthood sending me messages saying, ‘It’s taken me 60 years, but I’m finally learning to be OK with myself and my body. I’m so glad you’ve realized this now.’”
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