Written by: Aayusi Shrestha - 26002, Grade X
Posted on: 15 May, 2023
It was the summer of 2012. A 10 year girl named Suzan was with her friends who were constantly pointing out her insecurities. Everyone else was wearing shorts and sleeveless shirts except for her. “Why would she wear such clothes in such hot weather?” gossiped her friends. It was not just her friends. It was everyone else. Suzan was an outgoing and friendly girl but once she gained a little weight and would talk a lot so people always made her feel uncomfortable about herself. When she turned 10 she had a really low self esteem and was a silent kid who only had a few friends. She changed schools when she was 12 and she could not make any new friends as she was not outgoing anymore and had a hard time talking to people. Her parents always told her to be more confident but she just could not. She tried. She tried a lot. Despite the fact that she was trying she was still really insecure.
When she was at school and whenever she had to do presentations she would have a panic attack and her voice would tremble. The teachers at school would tell her to be confident and her classmates would laugh at her saying “How hard is it to just present?”. Soon after, the teacher started picking on her and forced her to talk more believing that she would get better but it made it worse. Suzan had developed social anxiety and poor mental health. She also was depressed and the only thing that helped her was music. The only escape from this world for her was listening to music. Suzan had started to hate everything about her and wanted to kill herself but no one knew. Not even her family. She would starve herself and over exercise to look like girls on the internet. She felt constantly criticized and judged by all.
When Susan turned 16 she forced herself to be more confident. She had achieved her dream body and she had expected her insecurities to fade away but it never did, she only got better at suppressing it. In college she had made more friends all thanks to her fake confidence. Suzan also would crave validation from others as she was unnoticed throughout her entire childhood for not being ‘pretty enough’ for others or herself. All changed when she was able to make true friends, the ones who did not judge her, loved and accepted her for who she was. She eventually stopped trying so hard because she had changed her mindset. She had still not recovered from everything but she was trying to. Suzan stopped thinking about what others thought about her and started getting therapy. She was not that confident but she could talk to others freely and had started feeling comfortable with herself. She is now an influencer who influences people to embrace their flaws instead of hating them. We should all learn that not everyone is confident and it is not an easy thing to be confident for everyone. So stop giving unwanted advice to people who are insecure. There is a popular saying on the internet, “If you want to comment on someone's appearance and they can't fix it in ten seconds, don't do it.” I think all of us should keep this in mind before we say anything.
