Body Shaming and Losing Confidence

Before 

After

Hello to beautiful people who got stumbled to my blog site accidentally😅😂. You are welcome. It's been a long since I am back here! I promised with myself that I would continue to pen down whatever comes in my mind time and often but whenever I tried to write something, it didn't happen. But today I have come with strong whim to write about my own experiences and things about the above topic. I might not be grammatically correct. If I do wrong, please suggest me and help me improve :)

So today, everything was going well. I wake up in the morning, unlocked my phone, opened my snapchat to see snaps and stories of my friends there. There was this 'Snapchat Story' of a girl whom I don't know personally I mean, I have not met her in real life but we are friends on snapchat somehow and she lives in Georgia. She posted one story where she made a few second long video wearing a bikini showing her beautiful curves😍 I am not faking things up to make her good or to make myself sound kind but she was indeed looking beautiful in her curves. She quoted that video "Y'all be honest! Am I looking fat in a bikini?". She is a 15 year old teenager, I am 21, we are just happened to be added over snapchat. We merely chat and it was her 'secret story' for talking girly stuffs with girls. After seeing that I replied to her story, "No not at all! You look perfectly fit❤️ and hot🔥", I replied honestly. I was really happy and glad of her confidence to really wear those clothes flaunting beautifully. After some hours I got her reply saying "Thanks girrllll❤️❤️❤️" 

I replied her back "Welcome! You look really confident! Never really lose your confidence! When I was your age, I wish I had those confidence myself but its never too late for nothing🤗". She then replied "I had lost my confidence too but I am regaining it now and thank you so much for kindness🙏"

This incident took me back to my own days of struggling with my weight and confidence. I was always a happy soul. I was always a confident, bright girl in school. But the society where we live in, is beautiful as well as flawed. We are raised in a society where we are taught many hypocritical stuffs while growing up. There was this image being circulated few times back over Internet as there's two picture of women, one fair, well dressed as 'beautiful' and another dark complexened not so well maintained, simple dressed as 'ugly'. Probably it was from Kindergarten's book. The children from young age are made to distinguish between all the stuffs like tall, short, fat, thin, near, far and so on. It's ok to teach them how to differentiate things but along with that they should be also taught as whether it be fat or thin, fair or dark, tall or short, Nothing is wrong. You can flaunt your body and looks however god offered you. But we are not raised like that. We are bullied, made fun of and many more. Children are hating, teasing each other for their color, size, caste and many things. Growing up, I started gaining my weight. I started getting curves. My belly, waist, thighs, shoulders started becoming thick and my clothes tend to become unfit every 2 3 months. I used to go to buy clothes, nothing fits of my age. I had to buy bigger clothes, bigger t-shirts, bigger pants, bigger bras and so on. Everyone around me used to mock me saying look your extra skin is showing from your clothes and giggle at me. I used to feel bad. I used to try not to eat and starve myself. I am always a person with good appetite(they used to say as "esko mukh nai mitho xa dherai khaayera ni hoina. J deko xa gwaam gwaam khaanxe mitho maanera) Indeed it was true. I love every things which is edible. Every vegetables, every fruits. Starving didn't do anything. Exercising as in running, skipping, briskly walking etc didn't do anything. I tried and I failed but still bullying time and again didn't really stop. I was called 'moti', 'motu', 'hippo', 'gaida' but I used to listen to them, feel hurt somewhere and then later ignored them. At that time what mattered to me most was my study. I neglected whatever anyone has to say, and I focused on my school life. But those hateful comments, sometimes passed on me, despite my ignoring had killed my self confidence somehow. 

I love to dance. I used to dance on my grandfather's cassette-player playing Narayan Pokharel's bhajan. I used to dance on my locality whenever they conduct stage program during tihar festival. I used to dance on wedding functions of neighbours and people in my village. I always used to go to "Rateuli" after school is over and used to dance on every other "Rateuli". My neighbours were also fond of me for that. But somehow after gaining weight I stopped doing that. I still remember when I was in class 6, I wanted to dance solo on my school program. I told my classmate that I am interested to take part. They laughed at me. They said "Stage bhaachinxa ta naachis bhaney" (The stage will get collapsed because you are overweight!) and laughed at me. I stepped myself back. I stopped dancing anywhere. I used to think the stage will get collapsed. After that this hobby of me got killed. I never really talked about it that I could dance. The dancing was always left behind closed doors inside my room. Similarly, the confidence in me again got decreased when I saw myself on a group photo of school picnic when I was in class 8. We went to 'Sundar Dada', a picnic spot near Sauraha and a lake named 'Bish hazaari taal'. When my friend sent me photo on Facebook, I saw my belly being shown in the photo and I wasn't looking nice. Some friends even laughed at me for that small bump of belly. After that, I always feel shy to take whole body pictures. Even if I do, I try to hide my excessive fats and bulges by hiding it with hand. Or exhaling my breathe for a few seconds just to look good on photo. Yes, I really did it and I realized now that was so wrong. I don't want to do, but my confidence was so low that even if I try not to let it happen, I don't remember how it automatically happens. When a person is so much fat shamed, their confidence level eventually decreases. Even today, the way how I flaunt my selfies and post it, I couldn't do the  same for my whole body poses. I don't know how to do posing. I have tried numerous times to copy other people posings seeing online but I couldn't. Whenever I do click decent pictures, I don't see them. I feel weird seeing my pictures and videos for long. I know it is sad but it's true. 

Talking about videos, I remember there was this welcome and farewell program in third semester, where I wanted to wear Tamang dress for a ramp. I wore and did ramp that day even clicked pictures. I thought I looked nice and that dress suited me. Many friends and seniors told me I look good and even some told "Moti bhayeni you look good on this". I was eased. After someday I got the video of my ramp through my friend. I really wanted to look how I looked and everything. That video started to play and when I was walking with my ramp partner, the person near the videographer I don't know who is he, it was a guy who said in a giggly voice "ohhh yo moti ni raixa ta. Xyaa k garna man laagyo holaa esto lai ni hahahah" (ohh is this that fat girl, ewww why did she even want to do it hahahah), I felt heart broken that day.💔 Was it my fault that I wanna do a ramp show being a fat girl ? Was there any criteria to be selected for ramp? Why can't I wear a dress that I want because of me being fat? It's a different story that I may not look as attractive as those skinny girls who wear it but I can wear it. I know I was no wrong for that and that guy himself was a bad person in this picture to comment me rudely. But this is how some innocent people dealing with their problems everyday gets hurt and feels sad and neglected. I always wear long dresses which cover my waist, belly, bust and everything because I never wanted to hear "This dress does not suit you. This photo of yours is so bad. Look at your fat body! How can you even click and post such photos so openly despite of you being fat?" and also all those things that boy said to me from other people around me. I really don't want to hear those shitty comments passed on me. I don't want people to call me gaida, hatti, moti on my comments when I post my whole body pictures. Cause I used to think it will affect me. This is just a single example out of many examples. There are many cases when I posted photo with what I have and people commenting harsh on me eventually me crying whole night getting affected by those bullies I received. I was and I am fat shamed many times. I don't know but why it hurts to be called moti. Call me by my name. Love me by my heart and my nature not by my weight and structure. People said "ikh linxa ki bhanera ho!" I don't believe fat shaming to just encourage that person to lose weight. If you really want to encourage any fat people to lose weight, tell them how to reduce it slowly and effectively. That's how I believe it will create a difference because it is the right way to do that. Person might lose weight by your so called 'ikh' or whatever but that person suffers internally a lot creating many unpleasant scenarios. Try to be kind and compassionate everytime you meet. 

Seeing that girl being so confident on her body despite her curves and wearing whatever she likes, was the thing that I skipped my whole teenage and I feel really guilty about it. I wish I had never lost that confidence, I wish I had given no fucks about anything people has to say then things would have been going differently. I would be wearing whatever I wanted, I would be visiting wherever I wanted (cause I have missed going places just because of getting body shamed so many times which only I know and I really really regret that) and what not. Dear Jaylah(snapchat friend) , you are doing good, not only good but best you can do and I wished Sumee would have done the same on her teenage. But its never too late for nothing, I can take inspiration from my 15 year old snapchat friend and I could apply it on the future. Also to the boy who passed me comment through a voice over on that video, I wish you learn that people will be hurt because of your one small joke and can lose their confidence. Lastly to all the people out there, be kind, compassionate to everyone and create a better world for living :) 

P.S. I created this blog from a phone and I couldn't allign the paragraphs properly so it may look zigzag so sorry if it looks annoying while reading. :) 

To an extended #PennedBySumuu Journey, CHEERS!!! 

Have a great time ahead. See yaaa soooneesttt!!!!