I was born with extra long toes.
It was why I was bullied often as a kid.
I became self-conscious about wearing anything that exposed my toes.
I always wore socks to avoid any annoying comments or questions like,
“What’s up with your toes? Why aren’t they all the same length?”
I get a lot of exclamations and comments like,
“Poor thing, what are you going to do about them when you get older?”

I just finished reading one of your stories,
About a mother who body shamed her daughter.
My relationship with my mother has been traumatic.
My mother always did the same thing:
She’d make fun of how I looked generally,
Not just my weight,
Even though I wasn’t fat before I got married,
But she always said I looked poor.

I’ve always loved curly hair,
But I never knew how to maintain it.
I didn’t even know my hair was considered curly.
I just thought it was always frizzy because I never took care of it.
I got a protein treatment once,
And on that day, the hairdresser washed it and dried it with a blow dryer.
body image, hair, bullying, beauty standards

I don’t think anyone has ever made fun of my body or how I looked,
Except for my family.
Baba and mama didn’t make fun of me,
But they let my uncles to do so.
I was the laughing stock of family gatherings,
Simply because I was a little overweight and had curly hair.
body image, bullying

When I was little,
I didn’t like my face,
Because I had a big nose.
You laughed, didn’t you?
That’s understandable.
But it really hurts.
Your comments about the way I look kill me,
And believe me,
I’ll never show that I’m upset.
On the contrary,
I might even joke about my appearance along with you.

I hugged my friend out in public because he needed it, and because I needed it too.
When I heard the comments, I pulled away from him by saying, “What’s this? You’re crying?”
But I had wanted to keep on hugging him until he had let it all out.
I wanted to hug him without fearing or worrying what passersby would say.

The first time he hit me was the day I found out I was pregnant.
He picked a fight with me when his friend and his wife were having dinner with us,
And I fried the mombar (a kind of sausage dish),
Before the chicken breasts.
He pulled me by my hair,
And dragged me to the stove,
And threatened to set me on fire to get rid of me.

I was an active child when I was young.
I did gymnastics and never skipped a lesson.
However, I wasn't blessed when puberty hit me,
As I gained an enormous amount of weight.
body image, social stigma, social pressure, bullying

Some people at university would compliment my skin tone and ask me,
“How do you get so tan?”
I would tell them that it wasn’t a tan.
It was my skin color.
I thought they were making fun of me,
And that something was wrong with me.

I hate my skin.
It’s full of flaws.
My face and back are full of painful pimples.
Dark areas, red areas, holes, and splotches.
I hate how people look at me,
Especially when I’m already feeling low.
Even mama, baba, and my younger siblings,
All look at me with a mixture of disgust and pity on their faces.