She Was Called The Ugliest Girl In The World Until She Stood Up And Became A Youth Icon

Lizzie Velasquez was bullied as the ugliest girl in the world. She fought through her battles against all odds and became a youth icon.

If I were to be just browsing internet for fun and come upon a video labelled as ‘The Ugliest Girl In The World’ which actually showed me,….. I don’t know what I’d have done. And, trust me going on a killing spree would have been part of the list of things I would do. Crying for weeks and falling to death from a 20 floor building would also have been on the list. But, Lizzie Velasquez who actually was shown in the video, did none of this.

She definitely did cry for weeks, none of it was her fault. Diagnosed with multiple health conditions that left her blind in an eye, poor metabolism and a weak immune system, it wasn’t just diseases she had to fight. But, instead of letting the hatred smother her very existence, she stood against it. Now, she has become an example for millions of students around the globe bullied for their looks, race, caste, or simply because it was cool.

As someone who was constantly picked at school for God-knows-what reason, I can well understand the anguish she must have faced, the constant jibbers from the faceless crowd that keep on humming even when they are not around, looking in the mirror and wishing if you were fair, or rich, or somehow knew how to be a part of the hip crowd.

Bullying someone is the worst sort of crime one can do, and because much of our lives are shaped depending upon our childhood and adolescence, one can’t deny the instability of an individual who was raise among such turmoil. Bullying is more powerful than Frankenstein who could create the monster but not control it.

A bit of this is fun, but most of it is simple social anxiety, even in bullies. Throw in a bunch of children, each one more scared of another, they develop defensive mechanisms even when there is no attack. What creates this social anxiety? Family environment.

As we are most close with our families, they are the ones we live with each day, they shape our all thoughts. Children from families with some sort of tumult, or where they witness coldness or fights between members, where people don’t talk enough, it’s usually from these families, that children begin to look at alternative ways to deal with their frustration. And, much of this frustration is targeted at other children, at most times those, who have nothing at fault except that maybe because of their looks they can be easily targeted.

Online bullying is same story. Social media has become like a multi-headed, multi-armed demon, which you may think you have tamed but it’s not so. Armed with wider and instant reachability, bullies can now target people on an exponentially larger scale. What’s worse is the fact that it’s often a person who claims to be your friend who posted that picture tagging it as the ‘ugliest girl’, ‘the thing should be killed’, ‘its her penance for crimes in the past birth’.

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A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story documents her story as person who was constantly bullied and instead of falling apart from that kind of anguish, decided to take a stand against bullying, From starting her own YouTube Channel to becoming a motivational speaker, she has become a beacon of hope for many.

Cover image via Facebook

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