My name is Lizzie, and I wear big knickers.

A few months ago, I found a picture I had drawn years ago. I'm guessing I was about 9 or 10 years old, at which time I think I saw myself as rather a fashion feature writer and enjoyed drawing pictures of models wearing sparkly halterneck minidresses, stillettos, glossy hairstyles and flawless makeup, then writing descriptions about the model and their get up, just like a lady in a proper ladies magazine would. Or at least, how I thought they might.

This particular picture was of a woman with a (weirdly) skinny neck, big pink (extra shiny) lips and a mane of long wavy (yellow) hair. In the description, I had written "Veronica is perfect because she is thin and has long golden hair, sapphire blue eyes and always looks perfect".

How incredibly depressing! That at the age of no more than ten years old, that was what I perceived as perfect. Especially taking into consideration that while "perfect" Veronica had her long skinny legs, beautiful long blonde hair and blue eyes, I was short and stubby with straggly brown hair and eyes that couldn't ever decide whether to be the colour of pondwater or sludge. I must have been far from perfect, by my own standards.

Me at 10. Hardly Veronica...

Fortunately, I do hold myself in higher esteem nowadays. I grew up and learnt beauty is just a concept/in the eye of the beholder/comes from within blah blah blah and, apparently, I stopped believing that to find perfection I must first look to the categoric opposite of myself. I know that my ideas of beauty would have derived from my socialisation by media, classmates and no doubt Disney movies, thus learning by the age of 10 the concept of attractiveness and sexuality.

Now, I don't want to go on about the "evil" media and how it's brainwashing us all, but we really do grow up learning, and thenceforth doing, some ridiculous things.

 For example, false eyelashes - whose genius idea was it to use a strong adhesive on the most sensitive part of the face in order to give the illusion of having moths attacking your eyeballs? WHY?! Oh, sorry, that's right. All in the name of sexy.

 Uncomfortable clothing. Tight leather trousers. Corsets. Strapless dresses (constant hitching up at parties and ceaseless fear it's going to fall down and you're going to reveal all). Leg suffocating skinny jeans, pencil skirts, strappy high heels (oh the pain), leather trousers, thongs...

Well. I'm going to make a stand. I refuse to put myself through discomfort in the name of sexy.

My name is Lizzie and I wear big knickers.

I don't buy them from La Senza. Or Ann Summers, or Triumph or any other sexy underwear shop. I bought them from good old M&S, who supply most of my underwear because it's comfortable.

My point in writing this post is not to say we should all wear sackcloth and be done with it. I love wearing nice clothes, I love feeling pretty, I love getting dressed up, I love clothes that flatter my figure, I love bright colours and pretty patterns. What can I say? At the end of the day the stereotype fits: I'm a girl.

No, I totally believe in wearing nice things, in going out and having an amazing time in your beautiful new shoes and your sparkly dress if you'd like to. What I don't believe in is wearing that all-revealing bodycon dress which you don't feel comfortable in at all, but you do it anyway because the magazines say that's high fashion and society dictates that's how you'll look hot.

At the moment I've been trying to care less about what people think. Non-school uniform days at school used to send me into hysterics, I was so stressed about what people would think or how I would look compared to my classmates. Moving to sixth form college and ditching school uniform meant I no longer had time for tears each time I had to dress myself in my own clothing. For a while I was meticulous about what I should or shouldn't wear. I'd always plan outfits in advance (because it took up to an hour and several changes of mind and there wasn't time in the morning). I realised something had to change when I was shopping one weekend. My criteria for new clothing was not "do I like this top/pair of jeans/dress (etc.)?", but "can I imagine [insert someone popular's name here] wearing this?".

And it wasn't just with clothing I was doing this - also a lot of my actions, words and decisions were being chosen on a similar basis, and that wasn't right. That wasn't OK. So I've made a decision to try harder for it not to bother me what people think of me. If someone's worth knowing, they're not going to care what I'm wearing, and they're going to respect me whatever I say.

I'm still guilty of caring about what other people think, of course I am - it's not much more than human instinct, but I've resolved not to buy clothes I don't like just because I think they're fashionable and I can imagine someone I perceive as "cool" wearing them and I'm so much happier for it. Living in a bubble separated from things you love because of what people think isn't what life is about. It's not long enough to pretend to be people we're not.

I want to broadcast to you all that I'm not ashamed of my big knickers. I'm not ashamed of my bright colours and my t-shirts and the fact that, yes, I wore this jumper yesterday. If you're reading this, I'm challenging you. Dare to stop caring. It's worth it.