Hi Good day! This time I would like to share about some random articles which I read through social media. Though we people use to say, we must not criticize other human beings based on their looks and appearance. But still deep down, in certain situation we would have knowingly or unknowingly mocked someone based on their looks.
This so-called ugliness helped a woman to take care of her kids until she died. There was a woman called Mary Ann Bevan who was born on 20th December 1874 in Newham, London. She was known to be English woman. This woman leads an ordinary life during her childhood.
After school, she pursued a career in nursing and became successful too. In 1903, she got married to Thomas Bevan and given birth to four kids. After some years of marriage, she developed with health problems which slowly got worsen. Later she came to know that she was affected by rare disease called acromegaly.
(What is acromegaly?
It is a hormonal disorder, which occurs in adults where pituitary gland produces too much of growth hormones. This in turn increases size of the bone which leads to abnormal height i.e., large feet and hands. Body tissues of affected patients grows more quickly. It is caused by non-cancerous tumor cells.
Proper treatment can avoid serious problems. Taking drugs (as instructed) can reduce the unusual hormone growth. If required, the patient can undergo surgery and radiation to remove tumor cells.)
Because of this disease, Mary body shape began to grow abnormally. All her physical changes were noticed by all. But unfortunately, people started gossiping and commenting about her changes. Instead, no one had seen her pain and suffering she underwent because of this disease. She used to suffer with migraine and muscle ache extremely.
However, Mary made her living by accepting all these criticism and suffering. Around 1914 (11 years after her marriage) Mary’s husband Thomas was died leaving all the family responsibilities and kid’s future to his wife. Now Mary was the only person left to take care of her kid’s daily needs and afford good education to them. As she struggled hard to win her daily bread, she decided to find a way to win over these financial needs.
That time (around 1920’s), Mary came to know about a weird competition homeliest woman also known as Ugly Woman contest. She decided to take part in it (sacrificing her pride) and tried hard to win the contest to support her family. Fortunately, she won the contest and even got hired as “freak show performer (means display a people or animals with unusual or comically or repulsively ugly physical features performing at circus)" in Coney Island's Dreamland sideshow. She also worked as a circus attraction. Till her death in 1933, she continued to work as a freak performer.
As years passed, Mary’s sacrifice was noticed by all and she was identified as an inspirational figure, especially for individuals who are suffering with acromegaly or similar health conditions.
LIZZIE VELASQUEZ
Another living example is Elizabeth Anne Velasquez who was born on March 13, 1989 in Austin, Texas. She is an American motivational speaker, activist, author, and YouTuber. She was born with rare congenital disease (a condition which affects fewer than 2,00,000 people. Also called as orphan disease because drug companies don’t adopt these diseases to develop treatments or medicines) called Marfanoid–progeroid–lipodystrophy syndrome (a kind of disease where the affected person doesn’t gain weight i.e., lack of fat storage and defects in eyes).
Lizzie was born as premature baby and till today she doesn’t weight more than 64 pounds. Though she takes regular and frequent intake of food. She also suffers from right eye blindness and vision impairment in left eye. In 2006, Lizzie was called as the world’s ugliest woman. After this, she started raising voice against all kinds of bullying. Later in January 2014, Lizzie shared a TED talk (dedicated to researching and sharing knowledge that matters through short talks and presentations) about “How do you define yourself.” She even started a YouTube channel which gathers around 54 million views. She also turned as an influencer.
Lizzie even published a book with her mother called Lizzie beautiful - The Lizzie Velasquez Story, also written two books which offers personal stories and advice to teenagers. A documentary story about Lizzie (Brave heart) is premiered in 2015 at SXSW and later hired in lifetime. She continues to be a motivational speaker and author till today.
ROBERT HOGE
Robert Hoge was born as a fifth kid to Mary and Vince Hoge in 1972 in Brisbane. When Robert was born, he was suffering with following circumstances: big tumor in the middle of his face; eyes at the side of his head; and deformed legs (abnormality in the normal alignment of the leg occurring either within the bone or at the level of a joint). The moment his mother Mary encountered her son, she really felt broken and all kinds of negative vibes started running within her. She even thought of abandoning his son at orphanage.
Then she slowly took her time and tried to accept the reality. Before taking her newborn kid to home, Mary and his husband Vince decided to discuss about this with their other four kids at home. Luckily other four kids understood the situation and acted in matured way to take care of their sibling with utmost care. At the age of four, Robert underwent plastic surgery. These surgeons tried to fix the face structure of Robert externally without disturbing internal parts of him. At age 14, plastic surgeon discussed with Robert’s parents about performing major surgery to fix physical structure of their son’s face. But this surgery may cause high risk (life threat) or even he can lose his eyesight.
After deep discussion, Robert siblings refused to do this surgery. His brother said that, what would be so good, if he loses his eyesight or life in order to fix his face (physical appearance) to look good. So, they give upon surgery.
Robert learnt all this truth through the diary written by his mom long back. He even felt happy by reading through all this stuffs. Robert mom (Mary) shared this incident/Robert’s story to Australian reporter. Even reporter felt bad and asked Mary to erase the line “Even I thought of leaving my son in home” from the diary. But Mary refused to do so, asked the reporter to share it as such, saying that every woman for sure will come across this kind of hard situations. They need to fight against the hardest battle and shine like a star in their life. Let me be a good example for them.
Robert started his career as a journalist and then he slowly moved into politics as a media adviser to former Queensland premier Anna Bligh. Ms. Bligh added some points about Robert to the reporter. She said he was not only intelligent, but he also has mesmerizing charm which attracts all the listeners. No matter where he goes, he gains warm welcome and respect from people. As we started spending time with him, we forget to notice his appearance.
In his 30’s Robert, felt that it was time to share his story with the society. So, he left the job. Created a documentary which shares his medical issues and his parents unconditional love towards him. His major idea was to share about beauty which plays/influences the society.
His documentary was about disability, beauty, and ugliness. The statement of the documentary is summarized as “Lets accept the way we are and stop running away from reality. We can learn the differences we have between us. Without creating a mess, lets treat everyone equally.”
Robert was married to Kate and has two daughter's. Even Kate supports him in his journey and also felt proud about him that he started learning how beauty plays role in society and creating awareness about what beauty actually is?
At one stage of life, everyone will have the feeling that we are ugly and feel uncomfortable about ourselves. In that situation, we need to try and overcome fear of feeling low about ourselves.
I conclude by saying beauty doesn’t depends on how we look. It is completely based on the way we behave and respect other’s differences. Claiming ourselves ugly is not a big task when we are able to reach or happen to do something which makes others happy and learn from it. Huge respect to all the people who fight against these kinds of situations.
Comments