Bullied Teen Girl Gets Plastic Surgery
This one hit at me emotionally, because when I was in 5th grade, I actually wrote a journal entry about all the plastic surgery I wanted to get, like a nose job and liposuction, because I thought that would make me less bullied because then I wouldn't look like an ugly fat gorilla. I felt for this girl, and hope that her high school experience will be a lot better, as mine was. But if Nadia is expecting the bullies to suddenly turn around and treat her like she's the Beautiful Swan, I honestly doubt that will happen. Bullies are bullies because they like to tear people down- if she's expecting some kind of validation from them, it won't happen. More likely they'll instead call her names like "Plastic Face" or something similiar.
I remember I was sat down at one point by this girl, Aubrey. I was still getting teased pretty heavily in 10th grade, and she told me, "You are an amazing person and don't let anyone tell you that you're not." That's basically how you get through it- you have to come to the realization that the problem is with the person bullying you, not you. 11th and 12th grade were so much better. It wasn't because people stopped being bullies- I still got called names like "gorilla", but because *I* had taken pro-active steps in my life to gain confidence and make good friends. When I had that, the bullies didn't matter so much.
By changing herself, Nadia kind of let the bullies win, in a way. Of course, I can't blame her for doing it- at 14, I would have done it, too. But what I eventually learned(and this wasn't easy and it was one long road) is that you can't make people like you and want to get to know you if they don't want to. And if they're people who decided they don't like you because of superficial things like looks, they're not someone who's worth building any kind of relationship with. You do not need the validation of someone who gets their jollies from tearing someone down, you really don't.
Edited by methodwriter85, 10 August 2012 - 01:05 AM.
