Local news channel WSMV in Nashville, Tennessee recently ran a story about Kristen Layne. She is an 18-year-old that experienced online bullying regarding her weight after attempting to sell her prom dress on Facebook. The good news is, people rallied behind the teen, condemning the men for their hateful words.
Watch the video below.
She told the station,
“I was trying to sell my prom dress, and these two men were just saying some very hateful things, just telling me I was fat and that I wasn’t beautiful.?
I can relate to Kristen. It’s funny not funny how this happens to overweight people attempting to do things that everyone else does, in real life and online. I know the heartache it causes first hand. However, I am happily surprised at the amount of people that came to her defense.
I once was sitting outdoors at a pizza place with my mother. We were actually visiting my hometown due to an illness in the family and took a break from the emotional roller coaster by visiting a local restaurant that we had not been to in nearly a decade. As we sat outside at the picnic table, a car drove by and the occupants yelled one of the standard trite insults often flung by people of smaller mental size at people of larger physical size. It happens to adults. It happens to kids. It’s one of those things that just seem to be socially acceptable to do by many.
Honestly, I don’t ever remember being thin. I was born an average size baby, but by three years old I was ?heavy? or ?chubby? ? those kinder terms people assign when they don’t want to use those nasty three letters. I didn’t ?out grow? the fatness. I didn’t ?shoot up? with the experience predicted by well-meaning friends and family who advised, ?As she grows taller she will slim out.? It was one of the most common things for people to tell my mother when I was young and they thought I wasn’t paying attention to the conversations.
I was the ?fat girl? growing up. I remember feeling isolated in kindergarten because kids didn’t want to play with the ?fat girl.? That isolation in school didn’t change much, although I did get better at finding friends in my teens. But the saying, ?sticks and stones can break my bones . . . ? was seriously underestimating the pain from other things that get broken when insults are a daily experience.
Aside from the obvious heartache caused by the scorn of others, the whole clothing shopping experience can be devastating. I remember going school clothes shopping and being completely embarrassed that I had to look at ?boys husky? jeans because they didn’t make little girls jeans in my size. Consequently, I wore a lot of handmade clothing because women’s sizes and fashions looked far too old for an eight-year-old.
I love Kristen’s dress. I think she looked beautiful in it.
I applaud her for the manner in which she handled this. She defended herself, which is an extremely difficult thing to do when you’ve been knocked down quite a bit about a weight issue. She gave some wise words of advice,
?Don’t let anyone break you down.?
That pretty much sums it up. Self-worth really isn’t reliant upon the opinion of others. It took me years to understand that.
I think this 18-year-old has provided many with that reminder.
