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Following last week's reports that girls in the UK are among the most unhappy in the world because of low self-esteem and body image issues (some of which I've battled with personally), Girlguiding UK released its report that almost half of British girls are seeking mental health help and are failing to find it. The research also shows that self harm is the number one health concern amongst girls and women aged 11-21. Mental illness, cyber bullying and depression followed closely behind.

Self-harm is something very unique to the female experience. When I was growing up, I read books and watched films like Girl, Interrupted, The Virgin Suicides, Speak and Thirteen and I would wonder how bad things would have to get before you could cut yourself.

I was 18 when I first cut. I'd just started college and I was heartbroken and confused. And I also thought that I knew better, but I would do it anyway. Because I'm smart, I thought, I would cut my inner thighs and stomach because I knew that no one would see.

Miley Cyrus made me recognize my body dysmorphia

Miley Cyrus is one of those popstars I never paid that much attention to. Primarily because she hit stardom when I was losing interest in the Disney Channel and traded in boy bands for pop-punk bands. I always felt so much older than her as well, but a quick Google has shown me we're only five years apart.

Miley's sat down with Marie Claire for its September issue and has made headlines for saying that playing Hannah Montana had given her body dysmorphia--along with a countless number of sad stories about growing up in the public eye. Well, sad how unsurprising it all sounded.

But it was the dysmorphia that really stuck out to me. I realise now, at age 27, that I was exactly the same growing up. I had absolutely no idea what I actually looked like when I was looking in the mirror. For...as long as I can remember. At least from puberty.

She says:

"I was told for so long what a girl is supposed to be from being on that show. I was made to look like someone that I wasn't, which probably caused some body dysmorphia because I had been made pretty every day for so long, and then when I wasn't on the show, it was like, Who the fuck am I?"

Naturally starring on one of the most popular TV shows at the time at age 11 is completely surreal, but that feeling is so relatable, even now.

I grew up thinking about how fat I was, pretty much every day. I wish I could remember a day that I wasn't pinching at my stomach or pulling at my thighs. I don't remember even learning what "fat" was, but it's just been a constant my whole life. Thinking about it. Feeling it.