Actress Gabrielle Union recently wrote about self-esteem on her celebrity blog at GlobalGrind.com. She also talked about the importance of youth such as her teenage niece having a mentor since January is National Mentoring Month. Gabrielle’s blog post is called “You Don’t Generally Share These Stories,” and it was published online on Friday, January 8. Read below to see what she shared on her blog.

“If you ask my parents they would say I was a perfect child, a model child, because I did everything that was asked of me. I got great grades, I was a great athlete, I was a student leader, the police were never called, there were never any major scandals on our cul-de-sac…but what was going on inside, and what I was dealing with individually and as a group of girls, was absolute turmoil. Emotionally, physically, spiritually, we were forced to deal with a lot of adult issues and situations as a collective, and often times we wouldn’t turn to each other, we would internalize everything, we didn’t have an outlet. So, I was going through MAJOR low self esteem.

“I was a black girl in an all white school in an all white community, never feeling good enough, but always being encouraged by my parents to be bigger, badder and better.

“And perfect is the standard. That’s an immense amount of pressure to put on a child. Then I’m starting to like guys. And in my own town, with me being THE black girl, the white guys weren’t really checking for me in that way. When I got to go to basketball camp and I got be around black boys, I was like cool…until I got dumped…for a light skinned girl. And then that whole thing started. My hair isn’t straight enough. My nose isn’t pointy enough. My lips are too big. My boobs aren’t big enough. And you start going through all of that. And I realize as I’ve gotten older a lot of issues that I was dealing with at 15, I am still dealing with today. My niece is a teenager and is dealing with her skin, she’s dealing with her hair, she’s dealing with what clothes to wear, the music she listens to…I would love to say a lot has changed, but I certainly believe that there is a lot more work to do be done.”