S1:E3 | How Destiny Overcame Her High School Eating Disorder – Part II

by Destiny Malibu | Aug 30, 2022 | Podcast

On to today’s episode…

A lot of young people struggle with self-image issues that rob them of joy and happiness. So what causes a lot of these problems? Comparing ourselves to others. We think because we don’t look like the “in crowd” or the “beautiful people”, that we aren’t beautiful, and that we don’t matter.

Destiny went to high school in Malibu, a town loaded with beautiful, wealthy, famous people and their equally beautiful children. In trying to look like them and fit in, she developed a serious eating disorder. So what did she do to overcome it? The answer is super simple. She tells you about it in this episode of The Destiny Malibu Podcast.

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Listen to the podcast here

How Destiny Overcame Her High School Eating Disorder – Part II

I want you to check in with yourself and start to pay attention to the thoughts that you are thinking.

Think about the things that make you happy. What makes you happy? Do you like it when your hair looks a certain way? Do you like it when you wear a certain color? It’s all those little things and details in your life. Maybe you are into shoes. You make your outfit match your shoes.

We are going to dive into that more. Self-care is an act of self-love. Journaling, taking a bath, listening to music that makes you happy, experimenting with fashion, which was a big one for me that helped me with my confidence, finding my sense of style, and learning to express myself in all of these creative ways helps you learn about yourself, learn what makes you feel confident and feel good. That translates into a greater relationship of self-love with yourself. All of those things matter.

Another act of self-care is working through trauma. Going to therapy is huge for anybody who is looking to improve their relationship with themselves. It’s seeking therapy, working through your traumas, and figuring out what experiences in your life caused you to have the emotions that you are feeling because there usually are experiences. Maybe someone said something to you one time, or you had an embarrassing moment. Those things can stick with you.

It’s so important to figure out how to unstick from those things that are not serving you and to search within yourself with a professional if that’s available to you or even a friend. The first choice would be a professional if that’s something that you are able to do at this point in your life but if you can’t afford that yet, it’s talking to a friend, talking to a school counselor, or speaking with somebody that is going to listen or someone at church.

There usually are people within the community or someone that you can turn to and look to for advice. We will be talking about that in another episode as well. Self-care is an act of self-love. I want to share a story with you also because self-image or how you perceive yourself is a huge part of self-love. All four years of high school were the most challenging in learning to love me.

It’s a common time when a lot of people are discovering themselves.

It’s a common theme during that time in your life to figure out who you are. There are also additional challenges at that time of your life. Your hormones are changing. Puberty. You are trying to figure out where you fit in, what you like, and what your dislikes are. That is a time of learning about yourself. Desiree and I grew up in Malibu. In Malibu, you have a lot of gorgeous people. You have a lot of people from the industry. We went to school with Gigi Hadid and Bella Hadid. Gigi was in my class. They are wonderful people and sweet girls. We went to school with Milly and Becky Rosso from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. They also did a continuation of Legally Blonde. They are super sweet too. There are a lot of gorgeous people.

Being in high school during this time, you are going through a lot of changes. You are trying to figure out who you are. I did notice that there were a lot of other people in our school that were also going through a similar thing. When you are surrounded by incredibly beautiful people at that age when you are not so sure of yourself, it can and it did for me take a little bit of a hit on my self-esteem. I’m wondering where I fit in on that scale of beauty standards.

Unfortunately, at that time in my life, I ended up having an eating disorder throughout a large majority of my high school years. Even though all body types are beautiful, in Malibu, for whatever reason, being very thin was the favored physique type. Unfortunately, that led me down a path of an eating disorder. That was traumatic for me. I had body dysmorphia. I thought that I was way bigger than I was. My weight fluctuated all over the place throughout my high school years in trying different diets. That was hard.

I realized looking back that comparison is the thief of joy. A sunset and a flower look nothing alike but they are equally beautiful. It can be easy whether you are looking at someone like Gigi whom we went to school with or a beautiful model online to wonder where your worth fits in beauty–wise in the typical standards of beauty when you see people who are undeniably gorgeous. When you see that, it can be difficult not to compare.

A lot of people nowadays struggle with comparisons, whether it’s social media. Social media is a big one because you have people who are filtered and photoshopped. Some people are naturally gorgeous. In general, it can be difficult not to compare but what I learned at this stage in my life and has helped me with my self-image journey is understanding that comparison is the thief of joy. You don’t need to look like someone else to be beautiful. You don’t even need to look like the typical suggested standard of beauty to be beautiful. Being beautiful is being uniquely yourself.

The right person will come along, see you, and think that you are beautiful the way you are.

Even if a person didn’t come along and even if it was you for the rest of your life, and you didn’t even meet a special someone, you are beautiful because there is no one in the world exactly like you. You are a 100% unique, beautiful, and gorgeous creation. Something that helped me get out of this place of doubt and self-critical behaviors was to take a step back and realize that I don’t need to look like somebody else. I need to look like the best version of myself.

That’s what I want you to remember when you are going out in the world, when you are looking at social media, and when you have beautiful friends. You don’t need to look like someone else. You don’t need to compare yourself to someone else. The only person you should ever be competing with is yourself. Take in realistic thoughts, which is not something I understood at that age looking at someone who’s a model that’s 5′10”. I‘m 5’2”. Dezz is 5’3”. We are at the same height.

It is not physically possible. No matter how petite I got, it would never be possible for my body type to look like somebody who is 5′10”. That’s okay because someone who’s 5′10” and 5’2” is equally beautiful. No matter where you fall on that scale of height, it’s not about looking like someone else. It’s about, “What does the healthiest version of me look like?“ I shifted my mentality from, “I want to be the skinniest. I want to be this or that,” to, “How can I be the healthiest? What does the healthiest me look like?” That changed everything.