The Little Comments
I was going to make this a thread on Twitter. I was honestly even 80% done typing the thread when I realized I could just write it all on here. After all, I did say I wanted to start a blog right?
I had different title options for this post: Your Words Matter, The Things You Say, The Little Comments, Choose Your Words Wisely. It was hard to pick one, which is why I listed some of them here, lmao.
I’ll probably do another introductory post where I go on and on about how I’ve been saying I want to write more but I don’t know what to write about. But moving on to what I was going to do a thread about:
I’m in my room randomly thinking about how people make snide remarks about you, and when those little comments start to get to you and you do something that potentially harms you, these people act all innocent. I’ll explain what I mean.
I’m pretty slim — skinny actually. I get a lot of comments about my body/weight from people (mostly all these “aunties” and “uncles”), and while I try very hard to ignore them and not let them get to me, they still do.
If you’re skinny, you know what I’m talking about. It’s those little comments. “See how small you are.” “Eat more, nau.” “You need more flesh.” “I can carry you with one arm.” “You need to gain weight.” “Are you fasting?” Some of them even take it a step further and move your arm up and down like you’re a toy, lol. I absolutely hate it. But I was raised to “respect my elders”, so I can’t exactly change it for them.
Random: I remember this one time I was interested in learning how to play the drums. So I went to this drummer I knew and told him to teach me. He laughed at me and said, “You? You want to play the drums? Your arms would just break.” I was probably younger than 12 at the time, but I’ve never forgotten it.
I’ve always been skinny. It’s not an easy life, to be honest. I’ve gone through being bullied because I was too small to do anything. Getting called horrible names. Being mistreated. All of that. But I’m not going to go into those details right now.
I have this bottle of Apetamin in my room. I look at it every day and consider using it, mainly cause I’ve heard and seen that it works wonders. But I also know the side effects and how bad it could get, which is why I haven’t been able to bring myself to use it yet. But every day, I’m closer to taking it than I was the previous day. A voice in my head tells me I can handle it and survive the side effects. It’ll only be for a couple of weeks/months till I get to my ideal weight. It can’t be so bad.
Right?
The voice was compelling today. I was — maybe still am — very close to opening the bottle and taking it. I envisioned myself a couple of months from now rocking my new body, happy and carefree you know. I picked up the unopened bottle and nearly took off the cap. But then I stopped. I reminded myself that it would come at a cost and I needed to be sure that I was ready to bear that cost.
There’s a thread I bookmarked a while ago - where a lady spoke about how she nearly died from taking Apetamin. I go back to read that thread every time the urge to open the bottle comes. It scares me well enough to stop me — for a couple of days, at least.
Today, as I read the thread, I started thinking about how crazy this whole thing is. People make these little comments about you that constantly chip at your self-esteem. When you finally do something about it and get harmed in the process, they’d be the first ones to say, “Why did you do that?” They’d judge you for taking whatever action you took, like they weren’t the ones who pushed you over the edge in the first place. It makes no sense.
While I was looking for that thread, I came across a couple of tweets that perfectly shows what it’s like. The first one is a thread. Open it and read through.
The little comments you make do a lot more than you think. This isn’t limited to physical appearances only. It applies everywhere in various aspects of life. If you have nothing good to say or worth saying, respectfully shut up :)
It’s easier said than done, but be deliberate about it. Be kind. Build people up with your words. Don’t be the person who destroys self esteems.
The little comments make the biggest impact.
July 15 Update: A couple of days after I put out this post, I opened the bottle. I’m not going to go into details but I threw the bottle into the trash some days/weeks after. It was hard, but something someone told me stuck with me till I did. They said, “You might not like yourself but you must never hate yourself to the point that you feel the need to do anything [harmful] to change yourself.”
