Anxiety. A word that we all are familiar with.
Bullying. Something that majority of us have faced at some point of our lives, but we never had the courage to talk about it to anyone.
You might be thinking that anxiety and bullying just don't dovetail, but trust me, they do.
To start with,I would share my own experience.
When I was fifteen, I was living a really happy, joyful school life. I was confident, proud of myself and would always excel at everything, be it studies or co-curricular activities and what not.
But my definition of 'everything' lacked something- good looks.
I was a fat, chubby short heighted teenager who was really proud of herself and was prophesying an amazing school life ahead.
I loved the way I was and felt as if I was perfect.
It was back in 2013 when I got admission in another school. I felt really brittle for my first day because this school was huge. The number of students in my class were probably three times to that in my previous school.
Vociferous classrooms, a bunch of garrulous students. It definitely wasn't a perfect start.
But one must learn to accept changes, shouldn't he?
I had really long hair upto my knees. I was overweight and not so outspoken.
I was nowhere close to be described as a 'cool' student.
First few days of my school were fine but soon I became the victim of everyone's bad sense of humour and also bullying.
I was called names like white elephant. Students would pass insolent comments which I wanted to ignore, but I couldn't.
Gradually I became conscious of myself. I was always worried about how I looked, and what other people thought of me, but I never shared this with anyone else. Instead I bottled up all my emotions which was probably my biggest mistake.
I tried hard to lose weight but nothing would work. This led to increased agitation and gradually to panic attacks.
I could no longer go up on the stage or say something despite the fact that I had always been eloquent and excellent at orating.
Panic attacks felt so appalling but I didn't even have the confidence to tell anyone about them.
All of this continued for about two years and day by day it was getting worse. I fell ill and because of that I lost a lot of weight and luckily I didn't gain that back.
But this didn't help me with my anxiety issues.
I stopped meeting anyone, I was scared of stepping out of my house. Most of the times I would just cry myself to sleep.
I was never complacent even though I knew that I looked pretty good after losing weight but it didn't help.
Months passed and with each passing day I hated myself more and more.
I had apprehensive thoughts and I was at the verge of committing sucide.
That was the time, I spoke to my family members, sought medical help.
It's been months now and I wouldn't say that I have overcome all my fears but I have started loving myself.
I have learnt to accept the fact that it is okay to NOT be perfect.
I want everyone, specially teenagers to understand that you are perfect the way you already are.
Everyone has flaws, everyone makes mistakes but it is human to err.
Once you start loving yourself, other's opinions don't matter because you know that the only person you need to believe in you is YOU!
Also if someone bullies you, try to keep a brave front.
There's nothing that you can't achieve.
Just believe in yourself, be strong for you are as good as anyone else out there.
You aren't superior or inferior to anyone.
You are a beautiful version of yourself, who just needs to remind this to himself.
It's your life, live the way you want to.
Talk to your parents, friends whenever you face any sort of bullying. Talking to someone always helps.
Lastly do remember that it's okay to NOT be perfect.
