When I was seven years old I noticed that my inner labia started to stick out a little, and unfortunately my step-mother noticed too, and pointed it out in front of my step-sisters who laughed at me for it. The next time we had a bath together I tried to tuck myself in before they saw me but it didn't work and I was once again teased for the way my labia poked out.
After that I decided to no longer have baths with my step-sisters. I vowed to never let anyone see me naked again - and I didn't. I made sure that I always dressed myself and bathed alone.
As I grew older my labia grew longer and began to protrude even more. I was horrified and constantly thought there was something terribly wrong with me. From the age of 12 I considered surgery but I got to the point where I was so frustrated that I wasn't normal that I almost went to cut them off myself with a pair of scissors.
I was too scared to talk to anyone about it, not even a doctor. When it came to sex education in school and all the books just showed this smooth clean vagina with nothing hanging out, I believed even more that I was abnormal. I was too scared to get changed in the high school locker rooms for fear that someone would see the bulge in my underwear, I never went swimming without wearing board shorts and there was no way I could get away with wearing yoga pants.
At 16 I got my first real boyfriend and it took me 6 months to even let him touch my vagina and when he finally did, he made an offhand comment that I was 'weird and different'. This scarred me so deeply. He was the only person to have seen me naked since I was 7 years old (other than my regular female doctor). I ended up staying with him for 6 and a half years as I was so terrified that I wasn't good enough for anyone else.
I later discovered that he was a very emotionally abusive partner; he manipulated me and isolated me from all of my friends and family. When it got to the point that I realised it wasn't a healthy relationship, I tried to leave him but I was so insecure that when he said 'no one would want you the way you are', I believed him.
I had spoken to him about the surgery and he had told me that he loved me exactly the way I was, but if it was something I wanted to do for myself, then go for it. I researched all about it for years but it wasn't until I realised that the only way I was going to feel confident enough to break away from him was to go ahead with the surgery. That's when I decided it was time to get serious and get a consultation.
I did more research and that's the first time I came across a website called the Labia Library where I discovered that women come in all different shapes and sizes too. I had no idea my whole life because everything I saw while growing up only showed this perfect smooth look. My mum has a bad back so I used to help her get in and out of the bath sometimes and so I had seen her naked plenty of times and she was the same as everything else I saw, just this normal looking vagina with nothing hanging out. Even though discovering this gave me a little relief, it was too late to heal me completely, the damage had been done over a number of years and I knew that deep down, I would never truly love myself the way I was.