From The Heart

This post is not easy to write...but it is one I feel is necessary. 

Yesterday, a video posted by a mother in Australia went viral. While picking up her nine-year-old son Quaden, a little person, she witnessed him being bullied by bigger kids. In tears Quaden is begging his mom to let him kill himself. He says, “Give me a knife, I want to kill myself.” Watching this video, my  heart broke. Learning he had attempted suicide in the past, my heart shattered. No one should ever be made to feel like this. No one. 

I’m not going to lie, being a little person in an average-sized world can really suck sometimes. You find yourself left out because you’re either too short, too slow, or too different. You often feel like no one understands, even your closest friends and family. How could they? They’re not constantly pointed and laughed at, “jokingly” used as an armrest, called a midget...I could go on. I would try to educate those around me. In first grade, I read a book about being a little person to a class of third graders. In fifth, I went to another elementary school to introduce myself to my future middle school classmates, answering any questions they may have about me. I would post on social media during dwarfism awareness month (October). I started this blog. 

Yet, more often than not, it feels like people are not willing to learn. I walked the halls of my high school during my junior year feeling invisible, calling my parents in tears until they would come rescue me. I would see adults try so hard to be stealthy as they pull out their phones to take a picture of me. There were many nights where I wished I wasn’t different, wasn’t a dwarf, wasn’t...me. 

Being a little person is a part of who I am. It is a part of who Quaden is. But he is so much more. I see pictures of him and I see a boy that is capable of anything. I see a survivor- a person who is able to continue living their life despite experiencing difficulties. I see Quaden. 

Two things started to put my shattered heart together- witnessing the out pour of love and support on social media from all corners of the world, and my brother. My brother Ben is three years younger and nearly two feet taller than me. Like most brothers and sisters I know, we teased each other, we fought each other- to this day I still call him a doodlehead because that was the best insult he could come up with at the age of three (to his credit, I couldn’t come up with anything better). But no matter how many times we argued, there was never any doubt that we would have each other’s back. He texted me last night saying he felt Quaden’s story was heartbreaking and, editing his words just a bit, would protect me from anyone who would make me feel even close to how Quaden felt. It brought tears to my eyes. 

I pursued the job I have now and started this blog because I want to be an advocate for myself and others. Having been raised by two prosecutors, I learned from the best. Yes, the main purpose of this blog is to advocate for accessible design in the fashion industry. But it is also a platform- a platform for me to make my voice heard in a society where I am easily overlooked, and I’m not going to take that for granted. To Quaden and his mom, I want to say that it doesn’t get easier, no matter how many times you wish it will. But I believe that you do get stronger. Bullies don’t win, they just don’t. To everyone else I quote Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.”