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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2016-09-20
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKsdjv4JpcI
in the U. S. alone a student is bullied every ten seconds of every hour of every day three hundred and sixty five days a year and every single day a hundred and sixty thousand kids skip school because they're bullied that's over a hundred and eighty seven million hours a year of fear pain and hate and those are just the incidences that are reported I know what
being bullied feels like when I was a freshman I was assaulted at my private high school I was not a school in the inner cities or one that is known for having problems no I was at a school that any parent would feel lucky that their child was going to my story begins and I was born with a severely deformed foot my parents knew about have
issues and we're expecting the worst in fact they were told I may not even be born so of course they were overjoyed when they saw me and yeah I do have a deformed foot and by the way I am missing seven toenails but the very fact that I was a lie and breathing made everything else Pierre I had my first operation at just six months old
I went on to wear special shoes braces and casts and then have more surgeries I had physical therapy tell me walk jump skip and swim my parents were always very open about my disability they told me that was beautifully and wonderfully made and that my foot made me special I actually believe that I had a super power but there is something secret and unique about me
that no one else had I was different and I was proud but then during my freshman year in high school I was assaulted because of my deformity I was restrains and my sock and she were ripped off to expose my deformed foot they got that me as if I was a circus freak I said no I said no I said no I said no and they
didn't listen they did it anyways revealed the part of me that I wanted to hide the most and held it out for everyone to see do I have a voice am I worth anything is my body really as ugly and dirty as they had made it seem I felt use and for the first time in my life I felt ashamed part of me I have always
been told maybe special I was broken I was shattered into so many pieces that I honestly did not know how I would pull myself back together again I didn't talk in class I felt completely alone I became depressed I cried when I fell asleep and I cried when I woke up I couldn't focusing class and when I would try and study for tests I could only
think about it I started going to therapy but I still felt invisible and I'm not the only one nearly thirty percent of all students frequently bullied reports are having depression or feeling depressed and eleven percent reports have been major suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts those ninety seconds that day in November completely un did for teen years of self acceptance I know it's a cliche teenager thing
to say but it was true no one understood what I was going through until someone lives a single second in my shoes with my feet holding them up they probably won't get it soon after my assault I had the amazing opportunity to meet Bonnell a great leader humanitarian and lead singer of the band you'd still I had worked up the courage to tell him my story
and after I told him he said simi Khloe what happens to you is an injustice people often ask me if I get nervous before I go and speak before world leaders and I always tell them no because I know that my words are right and true and good and he's like Chloe when your words are right and true and good your voice is like a punch
not the physical punch but a verbal punch and not punch is supported by the voices of many borrows response turned me completely arounds his words inspired me to crawl out of the hole I had been hiding in and find my voice I realize that I wanted to be a voice for those that had nine to help others not feel as alone as I had felt sometimes
all it takes is a great leader to turn us around challenged by bonds words I start to think about what it would mean to stand beautiful if I could inspire people of all ages to embrace their uniqueness and boldly face their beautiful selves but somehow my assault would have been worth something and suddenly it wasn't even about my soul anymore it was realizing that we as
a human race are all beautiful the parts of us that society looks at and views ugly or weird or abnormal makes us unique our differences make us who we are and that person should be celebrated I also realize that I'm not the only broken person in the spirit world I reached out and met people who despite our differences physically airs socio economically were the same as
me they hurt like I did have been bullied like I had I had the opportunity to really young man with a rough past and upon meeting me he exclaims me you we have nothing in common you're young you're white you're from a family of privilege you can't possibly understand what's happened me I went solo my story this young man looked at me for a moment before
saying wow here I was thinking you can never understand me but it's like you totally get me and that's when I knew as he proceeded to tell me about his life although he's been through and all the times people have failed him I realize that I wasn't alone we all have something that has hurt us sadly broken this unites us but so is our path through
it I think it's time to redefine normal some people say my feet don't look normal but the way that my deformed foot looks it is normal to me it's my reality and that's just it normal doesn't exist we all have separate realities a different normal maybe you grew up in the wrong neighborhood whatever that's supposed to mean maybe you have a different skin color than the
majority or you're treated differently because of your sexual orientation maybe your religion is questions crow maybe you just think of math why do we put so much time and effort making ourselves into the cookie cutter standard of normal when we are each perfect in our own in perfect way everyone has insecurities parts of them they wish weren't there or try to hard to hide but you're
not alone I'm not alone we all have stuff and we all try and hide it those of us that have been bullied and those of us that are bullies we're all the same were all broken together in this big broken worlds but it does not have to end there I strongly believe that when people feel good about themselves they don't feel the need to bully others
the bullet are broken and the bullies are broken I was broken I'm not fixed but I am healing what if we could find beauties through brokenness what if we as broken people could learn to love ourselves especially those parts of us we try so hard to hide what would it mean to stands in our brokenness accepting our imperfect perfection what would it mean to stand beautiful
I've given a lot of thought to the girls that assaulted me at first I was numb and then I was scared and then I was angry for a very long time but as I began to process my own self acceptance I began to wonder why they would do this to me I mean what were they so insecure about that they had to hurt me in such
a shaming way and then I got it they were also broken and dealing with some form of pain that I couldn't even begin to fathom and then it was easy to forgive them because I know that my life is better without bitterness a juvenile court ultimately sense in some of battery which is an unlawful touching but my healing takes time as soon as I was able
to forgive them however I felt a little bit later a little more able to rejoin the world around me but not everyone is so fortunate bullying is an epidemic and in many instances it cannot be stopped one in four teenagers say that they've been bullied and one in five say that they've been a bully at some point it's a harsh cycle nearly two hundred and eighty
two thousand students are physically attacked at high schools each month one in three students say that they've overheard another student threaten to kill someone else and only younger scale child is bullied on the playgrounds every seven minutes and an eighty five percent of these instances there is no adult intervention many of the children in my generation are products of bullying prevention programs in elementary school we
learned what it means to fill someone's bucket but this never really made sense to me I mean how can you possibly fill someone else's bucket when yours is broken these programs are said to have an eighty to ninety percent success rate but are they really working if the message doesnt transfer into adulthood when I look around at the adults in my own life when I turn
on the news in here of the horrors that are happening in our world today I wonder how many of these people are still feeling the residual effects of bullying these past few months some adults have said simi that I've been making a big deal over something so small it's just the foot they said but it isn't my foot my body and no one has the right
to touch anyone without their consent ever I have an idea what if adults could also learn to love and accept their differences what if they too could stand up for others especially for those weaker than themselves and what it through this process they could stand beautiful as I've been standing up here on the stage before you today I hope you now know who I am I
am a sixteen year old girl who is choosing to stand beautiful I literally stand only deformed for it every day after my soul I hated my foot and felt embarrassed of it but despite this I began to constantly write the word beautiful over my scars reminding myself that my foot truly is beautiful I wrote it so often that I began to believe again that my foot
is special now I stand on a foundation knowing that my foot in perfect in the eyes of society is beautiful I stand on a beautiful foundation I stand beautiful but now you also know that I am a force to be reckoned with I want to change the world but I need your help I need you all to take action it knowledge your brokenness and the broken
this and others can someone surely accept the differences in another without first accepting the differences in themselves except your insecurities because we all have them in your each perfect in your home in perfect way love yourself because you deserve to be loved rock those differences embrace those imperfections you are worth celebrating I choose to stem beautiful before you today because my worth comes from within and
