Maybe you should loose a few pounds? , Maybe you should bleach your skin? you will look so much better!
How about I bleach your insides?
I am a southeast Asian. A pakistani. Now your mind must already be formulating a picture of me being a petit girl , shy and polite , hiding my face under a veil with a life goal of creating a perfect family? Well if you did so I think its time you put your ordinary , overused inentiveness to rest you stereotypical human. I am a 5"11 psychopath with a resting bitch face , whose one pissed stare will give you blood crudling nightmares for days and make you wet your bed. But I am a very nice person. most of the time.
With both my parents being over 5'10 I was blessed with the statuesque genes ( I practically looked like a 2 month old baby instead of a few hours old). To top it off over time I developed a prodigious amount of love for sports which resulted in me being tall and broad. By fifth grade my height had surpassed the girls as well as 98 percent of the boys in my entire year . Not only did this become humiliating ,as the passers-by gave me sympathetic stares because to them I looked like an over sized moron bullying or playing with little girls , when in reality they were exactly my age ( some even older) but just a bit minuscule, also , people started treating me diffrent. Suddenly I was not a kid anymore ( RIP tea cup rides). However for the next 4 years it didnt have such a huge impact on my life , I often got complimented on my height and always had an advantage of it , when trying out for school teams. fastforward 4 years later I shifted back to Pakistan with my family, and that is when my confidence and self esteem plunged down to rock bottom. First and formost after coming back after 7 years ,boy did I get slapped by reality so hard. I had gotten admission in the school that I was in before I left and was very alleviated upon finding out that most of my old class mates where still there ( from grade 3). Now me being the delusional person that I was ( still am most of the times) got very eager for the first day to surprise my friends that I was back ( one of the most neurotic thougths ever). Come first day of school and I received my first reality slap. Not only my group or "squad" had broken up completley , developed a new persona , but werent even on speaking terms let alone still friends ( and here I am thinking we were all gonna hangout and play coco together , very mature hafsa. very mature). The second slap came when rather than taking my time I forced myself to accept it and make new friends so that I wouldnt have to sit alone and look like some desperate psycho. This descion got me in the wrong crowed which lead to betrayals,friendships being lost, trust issues and what not. Being in that crowd I started judging myself more and more. Here The 4 main things you were judged upon to be accepted were: Money, beauty , grades and If you were in the "cool" crowd. My whole identitiy ,I had created around sports , being the tomboy that I was, didnt have any place here , with comments ranging from ( stupidity) ew you will get tanned to ( down right ridiculous) you? play sports? arent you like a girl? Oh I am soo sorry you are right I am a girl I should just go take sewing clases , shrivel up and die. These kinds or conversations resulted in many sleepless nights ,me contemplating, where do I fit in? whats my place? I was never one of those people to fret about my face or looks till then. In shanghai my left neighbours were from Sweden and the right ones from Philippines , So I never felt diffrent or stood out in that way. As the year preceded, it bought new problems so within One year of comming back I became depressed and gained a whooping 25 kg. Now I was not only tall and broad I was the tall fat depressed girl. So as the saying goes if you cant beat em , join em. So thats what I did. THE MOST IDIOTIC DESCION EVER. I started concentrating on my appearance , ignoring my studies , and followling behind "popular girls" like some love sick puppy ( Anything to be in the cool crowd okay?) . This went on for a few more years , which resulted in me going from an A* student to Cs and Ds plus the usual bullshit a fat girl has to hear. I was a dead person from inside with zero motivation to do anything. After enduring this and other personal problems along with it for more than 3 years I had enough. The random realization hit me so hard that I decided to do something about it. Instead of fixing the mess I just learned from it and moved on. I changed my school , Changed my friends ( also making my social circle smaller) controlled my eating habbits and started concentratng on my goals again. Ofcourse it didnt happen over night, but with baby steps and gradual improvement.
So the reason for sharing a small part of my life and this boring and pathetic artical is to tell all those people suffering that yes we make mistakes and very stupid desicions without really thinking of the consequences just to fit in and feel like we have a place were belong and are accepted. Some times we dont. And some times those mistakes can not be fixed. You learn a lesson and move on. You dont need to adjust and remake yourself in order to be accepted into someone elses idea of perfection or what they deem "cool". There are 7 billion people and counting in this world and with eac passing you will always a find a better role model. Those other "more popular people" that you look up to , at the end of the day are just like you and me , battling their own insecurites and looking upto someone else ( unless you are egotistical douchebag). You never know , some one might have you as a role model without your knowledge and only sees what you let the society see , and protray yourself as. Sometimes you have to make your place where you fit and are contented with yourself. And that is what I did. I am an over weight , abnormally tall psychotic tomboy freak surrounded by loving friends and family ( idiots more like) , I am very happy with my self and will continue to improve my life style and achieve my goals through out. Yes, there are days where I dont like my body but I have accepted it. You dont need to hate on your body or self , there are already plenty of people to do that for you. I think even just accepting it and comming to terms with it is a huge achievement in itself. Peoples approval and the amount of likes you get on a picture doesnt define your worth .Even to this day I get "advice" from people ( including close friends and relatives) about how I would look even better if I lost more weight , or get good grades if I studied better and etc ( listen from one ear and out of the other). If you are girl it doesnt mean you have to pretty or girly, to fit in. Beauty is strategic imperfection. You are you and thats what makes you special. The people you choose to surround yourself with or hangout with determine your faith. Yes there will be days where you will not feel good or confident and Not everyone is lucky enough to be accepted , so go make a place for yourself , that not fits you but many others like you in this world.
