Hyderabad: I guess I have been called nerd if I were Tall and gangly with bright ginger hair, thick glasses and gappy teeth in my childhood. Funny enough, I don’t remember being teased for the appearance I looked back in my eighties though.
My friends who may poke fun now watching at my old pictures and I wonder if it was the people around me who shielded me from spiteful comments that may have come my way back then.
It’s something I’ve been thinking about recently after seeing a challenge on Facebook where people are asked to post two pictures of themselves – a childhood photo next to an adult snap.
The transformations, described as ‘glow ups’ have been given the tagline “be careful who you call ugly’ – obviously highlighting that the picture of themselves as bespectacled, frizzy-haired youngsters are “ugly.”
I don’t know I am being over the top here but it really jars with me.
She says: “If taking pictures offers these girls closure and they are loving their bodies for themselves and not to prove anything to anyone, that’s OK. But to have to put things like that on social media kind of signals to me that they are still holding on to the hurt of being bullied and they need to realize that nobody deserves to be bullied whether or not they have changed their appearance.”
Rather than posting pictures on social media, Susan says there are far healthier ways to deal with demons from the past.
She says: “If taking pictures offers these girls closure and they love their bodies for themselves and not to prove anything to anyone, that’s OK. But to have to put things like that on social media kind of signals to me that they are still holding on to the hurt of being bullied and they need to She says: “Write a letter to the person who bullied you and say that you release them and no longer hold on to the pain they caused. Tell them you can see that they were in fact in more pain and you are grateful to them as you’re now stronger because of the negative experience. Don’t post the letter – just use the experience of writing it to release old demons.
“Also, whenever you think of anything negative that was said to you as a child, counteract it by imagining yourself standing strong and saying positive things about yourself.” I was beautiful. Red hair aside (she couldn’t help but gush about how amazing that was), she never really mentioned physical attributes. But I remember getting older and her telling me how many years earlier her friend’s mother remarked that maybe I’d “grow up to be a swan,” obviously meaning I was a pretty frightful looking baby