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Beauty Through a Flawed Eye
I was born with features such as light eyes, brown hair and fair skin. I was considered very attractive by the modelling industry and used to do photo shoots as well. However I encountered a life threatening illness when I was a toddler and it caused my skin to develop scars and go darker and my eyes to squint. I developed astigmatism and required glasses to see. For years I was bullied and called names by different people. “Devil child“, “scary“, “ are you even looking at me?”, “I don’t want to talk to you because you are making me uncomfortable”, “You can’t give eye contact” we’re a few phrases I heard repetitively growing up. Back then, 11 years ago, it was uncommon to see a child with a squint and since I used to wear an eyepatch to help with my astigmatism I was called a pirate too. Years passed and I learned to live with it, intense therapy sessions and long hours at the ophthalmologist slowly helped fix my eyesight and squint. Initially it was hard to ignore the bullies but now I feel like it helped make me a stronger person. The funny thing is that the same people who bullied me, some of them have come running back to me and begged for my forgiveness in hopes of me becoming their friend. Due to my now changed appearance. This has also made me realise that society cares way too much about appearance and not personality, except a few people. But I refuse to let that bring me down and hope to help as many people as possible dealing with insecurities and hope to spread a message that bullies won’t matter a few years from now.