“Who does this belong to?” she asked.
“It’s mine,” I replied, rather naively.
She laughed.
“Congratulations. You’re a woman now.
I have to go tell your father the good news!”
womanhood, period, body image
Brushing my hair as a child was a real burden to me.
My mother would pull it really hard when she brushed it.
It was as if she was punishing me for having “bad” hair.
Combing it was a difficult process.
“Your hair is disgusting. I’m sick of it,” she used to tell me.
She used to push me away if I cried because it hurt, saying,
“Get up. I won’t brush it for you.”
body image, hair, beauty standards, bullying
I acted like I wasn’t disgusted, but I was disgusted!
I pretended I wasn't because I felt it would be shameful for me to be hurt when people judge my body and then turn around and judge your body!
In a perfect world, we’d love every body type.
I don’t care, though.
I love myself the way I am,
But a lot of other girls unfortunately do care.
They end up resorting to extreme measures to make their breasts socially acceptable,
Even though it’s nobody’s business how large one’s chest is.
Some cultures consider small breasts to be beautiful.
But of course, people here refuse to accept anyone different.
They insist on bullying them!
Ever since I was born,
I’ve been really hairy.
My feet are also big and don’t look nice.
All my life I’ve gotten comments from my family,
About how, poor me, was so hairy.
You’d think I had a disease.
It was like, “What will we do with that poor thing?”
body image, bullying, hair
My cousin came to visit us one day.
“Why does your hair look like a toilet brush?”
he asked me when I opened the door.
body image, hair, beauty standards, bullying
What’s wrong with being an overweight child?
Why was I, as a 6 or 7 year old, subjected to talk like,
“Stop eating. You’re fat.”
I went to a nutritionist before I even turned 10 to help me lose weight.
I tried a hundred different diets.
Maybe one out of every ten would work a little.