I concealed myself from exposing my deepest fears and anxieties, trying so hard to please others and meet the expectations of those around me. I wanted to break out of this cycle so badly. And in order to do so, I had to do the single most painful and demanding thing I had ever done, that is to learn to accept and love myself for all that I am. "Maria, you need to love yourself." I replied with, "okay and so how?" Some will just say, "I don't know. It's your own life. You figure it out." Since then, I had been struggling with that. I do not know how to love myself. I do not know what self-love is, I do not know why it is important and I do not know how to achieve it. I did not talk from the age of two to four. I started to talk only from the age of five. I began my pre-school education only at the age of six when kids my age would have completed their two years of pre-school education.In primary two, I got hit by a basketball during a Physical Education lesson. From then on my front tooth broke and grew back in the same colour as the ball! I did pay a visit to the school dentist but he had no idea why it turned out that way. A couple of years later, I started to develop myopia and had to wear spectacles. Kids in school asked me questions like why was my spectacles so round and big and I looked funny. Then, the most humiliating incident in upper primary, I urinated and soiled myself. I still got ridiculed and teased because of my yellowish tooth and big round spectacles as I progressed to secondary school life. 'The Nerd', 'The Blur', The 'Gigi Kuning' (Yellow Tooth) were some of the name calling I got back then.I became an attention seeker as no one cared what I did. Nobody wanted to know if I was a top reader or joined the Singing Competition. Because in their eyes, I am not pretty. I am just a random ugly girl. Few years after leaving secondary school, I started to really fall in love with a guy when I was only 20 years old. Turned out he was toying with my feelin