The #KeepitReal challenge part two is something very dear to my heart, as it asks you to blog or write about your own experiences with photoshop and how it has affected you.

As all of my friends know by now, I am recovering from an eating disorder and from being a self harm addict. What you may or may not be aware of, is why.

In my teens, I was relatively normal - relatively. I was a happy nerd, which is something that for some reason popular people can’t abide. The only thing people hate more than a geek is a geek who doesn’t know her place - and I was dating someone I had been seeing for a couple of years.

When we decided to have sex, as many people do, instead of the fun, exciting experience I had been promised by such honest, truthful magazines such as “Girlfriend”, I was greeted by a disappointed stare from the person I was very in love with.

The reason was that neither of us were media aware. At all. He, having access to a computer behind a closed door, had been watching porn from an early age, and the hyper “realistic” touched up images had warped his view of what I was supposed to look like. Instead of the busty, long legged babe he had been expecting underneath my clothes, what he got was.. Me. The disappointment and shock hit me like a brick to the brain. He was disappointed by my body. He was unhappy that I did not live up to his expectations.

From that moment, I craved knowledge about the female form. I wanted to know what I had done wrong, what was wrong with my body. I needed to know how I was different, but instead of looking at the people around me - being a geek I had very few female friends - I looked at the media. The media which had given my partner the false image to begin with.

I didn’t know about lighting, body make up. I didn’t know about camera angles that can make a woman look totally different. I didn’t know about Photoshop. I certainly didn’t know to the extent that photos could be altered. I believed them.

There used to be a saying “Photos never lie” but now it seems they always do. They lie so well that we believe, not because we are gullible, but because your brain doesn’t allow you to disbelieve something that looks real.

I won’t tell you about my slow descent into self hatred, you can figure it out. It’s obvious to everyone that someone real has flaws, and that images are flawless. I couldn’t match up, I was no good, I was wrong, and these women were real and I was the fake. I wasn’t a graceful, beautiful, sexual woman. I was a monster.

It wasn’t until I reached my twenties that I started to see things the way they were. With the help of my psychologist and my husband, I somehow manage to feel confident about 25% of the time. I still have a long way to go.

I refuse to buy magazines, I refuse to watch live action films. I have google safe search on strict at all times. I won’t go out without makeup. My life has been hugely affected by photoshop. My wish is to have it made illegal for use in commercials.

To Revlon, Shiseido, Maybelline.. If your products are so wonderful, if they make women beautiful like you claim, why do you need to photoshop your ads? You are LYING about how well your products work.

To health Magazines, if your magazines are about promoting healthy body types, why are you photoshopping bodies into UNATTAINABLE weights? Why are you promoting something that cannot be done? Don’t you know how cruel that is?

To Porn: You say that the sex industry celebrates women of all shapes and colours. In some places, this is true. However, if women are so beautiful and their bodies are to be celebrated, how is it that all mainstream porn images are photoshopped? Why is it you feel the need to take a beautiful, western idealized, naked woman and photoshop her into something she isn’t?

WHY CAN’T WOMEN BE BEAUTIFUL THE WAY THEY ARE? WHY CAN’T WOMEN BE PROUD? WHY DO YOU HAVE TO SHOW WOMEN IMAGES OF SOMETHING THAT THEY CAN NEVER BE, NO MATTER HOW MUCH MAKE-UP THEY USE, NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY STARVE THEMSELVES, NO MATTER WHAT CREAMS AND DIETS THEY GO THROUGH.

HOW DARE YOU PRESENT A LIE TO ME AS THE TRUTH. HOW DARE YOU LIE TO COUNTLESS YOUNG WOMEN WHO CAN’T SEE THROUGH YOU, AND HATE THEMSELVES AND HURT THEMSELVES. JUST SO YOU CAN SELL YOUR VILE PRODUCTS. I WILL NEVER, EVER BUY FROM LIARS.