How to deafen the psychotropic negativity

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Elyes Ayadi , a young member of UNICEF with his sister Rania Ayadi

As a bullied child, people were used to calling me by different names: "ugly", "chubby boy", "useless". I had never paid much attention to these different comments. After all, everyone has the right to share their own thoughts.

Since the wind was carrying these words away, I kept ignoring them and growing up accepting to face this obnoxious reality. I remembered it being kind of hard, sometimes, to believe that these judgements were only dust in the air, not facts. My classmates were seeing me standing, always smiling, but they could not distinguish what was hidden behind this facade, given that I was dying on the floor. Against these bullet attacks, my response was never present, at least just for a while. In fact, only one sentence was enough to give back life to a buried silence.

“You are worthless”. Who would’ve even suspected that such words could change my life forever? Worthless, in other words, means without value. Zero (0) is a number that is worth nothing, am I a zero? Am I nothing? If I am nothing, am I able to live, breathe and be able to use all these worthy things? Am I a simple mistake?

Regardless of my bruises and enormous anxiety, these questions had become part of my daily life. I was deeply harmed and an innocent young broken heart was all these bullies had left. For times, I felt like my weapons and bravery weren’t enough to fight against these self struggles. “I am worth it” was what I told myself before attempting the unthinkable. Surprisingly, for the first time, no one was there to disagree with it. Since then, I realized that no one except me can ever be close enough to define me. Instead of listening to others, I introduced myself to set goals, and I decided: “I want and I am going to be happy”. This kind of mind set was the beginning of a joyful and more confident new adventure in my life.

I started writing and sharing my stories notably through Voice of Youth created by UNICEF and an international foundation, taking part in different organizations and associations in order to help different humans, and creating different projects aiming to help people struggling with low self-esteem.

Creating my own association has given me so much hubris, and especially by knowing that my experience with self-shaming contributes in the happiness and wellness of other bullied persons.

Step by step, I was actually fixing the shattered pieces of my heart. It was relieving for me and astonishing to see how I’ve reached my goal by living an ebullient journey.

It may sound sort of odd, but I really feel grateful towards all of my obdurate bullies for whom hurting me had become an addictive game.

All of these painful and torturous moments finished up by making me stronger and had given me the ability to learn paramount quotes about life and to build my own self image.

I am not worthless. I may have some flaws as any other human being, I can be discombobulated sometimes or even annoying, but we are all unique and each one can add some value to this world.

As the famous musician, Rod Williams, said: “We are all unique and have our own special place in the puzzle of the universe”.

I guess that life was only trying to assess me and challenge me, so given my life today, I can easily shout out loud: “I've successfully achieved this test.”

 

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Elyes Ayadi's association aiming to battle against self struggles and loneliness
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Switzerland