Grace & Style

introduction

My eating disorder started during my senior year of high school.

WHOA. I KNOW. WAY TO KICK THINGS OFF ON A FUN, LIGHTHEARTED NOTE, HELBIG.

But let’s just go with it for a second. Because this book, this smattering of my thoughts on style and fashion and beauty, has been a really difficult thing for me to wrap my head around. I assumed it’d be easy to brain-barf some HILARIOUS feelings about tank tops and tube socks onto paper, but every time I tried to sit down to do it, I hit a wall. And then another wall. And another. Any countries out there looking to send a message to their neighbors and need help? Turns out I’m really great at putting up walls. HAHAHAHA, depressing sigh.

Once I started investigating why I was having so much trouble writing, I realized that no matter how funny you try to make the concept of beauty, it can still be a personal and sensitive topic for a lot of people, myself included. And I didn’t want to pretend otherwise. And I definitely didn’t want anything in this book to come across as arrogant or preachy because I’ve been negatively affected by the people and the images and the concepts touted by the fashion industries, so the last thing I want to do is trigger any insecurities you might have.

I wanted to take a second at the beginning of this book to give you a quick overview of my history of insecurity before getting into my present-day reflections on style. This is one part selfish and one part hopefully helpful. Selfish, because one of the ways I got out of the darkest period of my eating disorder was by talking about it; and hopefully helpful, because another way I got out of feeling so alone was by reading a butt-ton of books written by women who had also struggled with their body image. You see, YouTube didn’t exist during that time; instead, I bought books hoping to hear someone else’s story of suffering so I might feel less alone . . . BOOKS, YOU GUYS. So, who knows, my hope is that sharing this pretty sad personal time in my life might allow one singular person to feel less alone. And that’s completely worth it.

Or maybe you’re just here to find out five great tips for avoiding camel toe. That’s great, too! And trust me, we’ll get to that!