When I was younger, I was bullied for having an ugly face and overweighted body. Everytime people lay their eyes on me, I could see the judgement and unpleased expression from their faces, as if having such appearance was a sin. As if my mere existance was a sin.
I grew up with a lack of confidence on my physical appearance. Even their random jokes about my body, my face, and my skin tone, could literally affect me so much—to the point I would overthink of it for days and nights, crying and questioning God why did He gave me such an ugly-looking face?
My physical appearance was the first factor that triggered my anxiety.
I suffered anxiety because of the words, jokes, and insults I received from the society. I suffered all of it for twenty goddamn years until I graduated college. The two decades of existence here in this world was hell.
Not until I found a job in a prestigious company.
I worked really hard and saved lots of money for my family and for myself. I deposited my first salary in a bank account with an amount of twenty thousand pesos.
Years passed, from twenty thousand, it became hundred thousand, to millions. I earned a huge of money from my hardwork and determination.
One of my goals was to undergo plastic surgery. It was one of my greatest dreams since then. All thanks to the society's harsh insults, I became persistent to work hard for this.
After months of having my face fixed, another months of burning some calories, and another few weeks of changing my name into a new sophisticated one—at last, I transformed into a woman with beautiful face and slim body.
Every guy along the hallway would stare at me with admiration, as if I was the perfect epitome of Aphrodite. Every girl I passed by would look at me with envy and amusement in their eyes, as if they just saw who's really the Queen of Beauty among them.
In just a snap, I felt acceptance. I felt beautiful.
It was so heart-warming to be beautiful. It's fun to feel like everyone accepts you because you're beautiful. It must be the luck of women who are born beautiful. That type of beauty that is acceptable by people's standards.
I tasted attention I was craving for since then. I never thought that my lovers would be left and right. Many tried to win my heart but only one man got it.
Marc Jason.
He was the bad boy type of guy I've always dreamed of. He courted me for three months and I saw how serious he was to me. His simple efforts from driving me home, learning cooking for me, sending me sweet messages, giving me chocolates and such, was enough to flutter my heart and fall for him.
We became officially together. Our relationship was going strong as the days go by and we got closer and more intimate to each other. And when I say intimate, I wholeheartedly let him in. From my heart, body and soul.
What can I do?
I trusted him so much—to the point I gave in myself to him. He was my first in everything and I was already hoping that he would also be the last. Seeing how happy and satisfied he was after we did that, also made me happy.
However, our love making didn't end there. It happened again and again and again. We already considered it as our quality time together. And I loved it—I loved touching him the way he touches me.
But it all changed when he urged me to take us a video while we were doing it.
At first, I was hesitant and a bit frightened. Thoughts flooded my mind. Like, what if the video would leak? What if someone would see it without my consent?
But then again, I trust Jason so bad and I wanted to make him happy. He wanted to try something new with me. So, we did it. And he told me he would treasure that video forever.
However, months passed, he cheated. He had an affair with some woman he just met for weeks! And it hurt me like hell. I felt like I was being betrayed, again. So, even though it was against my heart's will, I broke up with him.
After that break up, I thought everything was going back to normal, but I was wrong. In just a blink, everyone judged and made fun of me, and it was all because of that freaking video scandal.
I cried that day due to frustration. I felt like the world became against me when all I did was to trust that bastard that he would never leak that video with anyone! I was wrong on trusting him, after all.
After a few days of caging myself inside my room, I finally gave myself a chance to talk and explain my side in the public. I thought it would be hard at first to get their sympathy, but looking at these comments I was reading right now, my lips smiled.
"Stop spreading the video, poor sister."
"Don't you see? Sister is the victim here so she shouldn't be the one receiving such hate comments!”
"Poor girl, maybe she's depressed now because of what you're saying."
“STOP VICTIM BLAMING!”
Everyone, perhaps, most of them, became on my side. I was relieved and heavyhearted because of this. Relieved because everyone believed and was defending me, yet heavyhearted because I never experienced such treatment when I was still ugly.
When I was still ugly, everyone would judge me whenever I do something wrong. Even though they didn't know what the story was behind that, they still had the guts to say things bad about me.
That was also one of the reasons why I envy beautiful women. Their pleasing appearance makes their life a lot easier than those ugly ones.
As days went by, the issue eventually calm downed and thakfully, people had forgotten about it already. However, there's one thing I learned from this experience.
In order to get the society's sympathy, you have to be beautiful first.
