Report: self-love
Let's be honest: we women are often supercritical when it comes to ourselves. We quarrel with our stigma, instead of showing strength and self-esteem - and thus forcing happiness.
Photo: Private
- The fun in the foreground
- Hard earned money
- Proud of my looks and my skills
- I have become a much more open person
- Stuttering is a diaphragmatic and respiratory problem
- Much laugh hift
- Friends make life beautiful
- The power of positive thinking
- Accept the disease
"I was always the outsider" Fatma, 24, business economist, Mannheim
At 1.65 m, I weigh 85 kilos - that's obviously overweight. But I still think I'm beautiful. In the past, as a muley teen with Tunisian parents, I wanted to be like the other kids. At that time I still did not understand why I was never accepted into a clique. My dark complexion looks nice, but he turned me from childhood to an outsider.
Moreover, people with a migration background are considered uneducated and lazy in this country, they have to be three times as good at everything. My personal turning point came when I started yoga at the age of 17 and developed a completely new sensation for my body. I decided to show it to everyone - and to accept myself as I am: feminine and dark.
The fun in the foreground
I no longer wanted to see my otherness as weakness, but as strength. I concentrated only on my merits: bought blazers and dresses that emphasize my curves, wore bright colors that can not afford fair-skinned, did not hound me in sports, to burn 500 calories, but did things like volleyball, where the fun is in the foreground.
And I learned - knelt at school and studied successfully business administration. Today, thanks to my multicultural background, I have a great job: I work in international art marketing, my four languages are an invaluable asset!
"Not everyone can do this job!" Ricarda, 25, chambermaid, Oberammergau
Actually, I only accepted to work as a chambermaid seven years ago because I did not find teaching as a medical assistant. But how it goes, I got stuck. The job is bone-hard and ungrateful. One is either invisible or a stupid plaster. It often happened to me that people turned away when they heard what I was working on.
So at some point I started to keep the job secret, so much ashamed. "I'm in the hotel business, organization, " I said. Until I met Boris two and a half years ago, my friend. He is a copywriter in an advertising agency. As it got more serious, I did not want to start our relationship with a lie and confessed my job to him.
Hard earned money
His reaction was mistaken: "That's great, " he was pleased, "you can be totally proud of you, as hard as you deserve your money. That you can do that, is an awesome achievement! "Since then I am. Proud. What other people think about me, I do not care about today. I enjoy going to work because I can stand by her. And because I also admire myself a bit!
"Instead of a nose-op I bought rims" Kira, 24, student, casting
The fact that I thought I was a wallflower was because it was said to me as a child again and again: In our village I was Kira, the gray mouse in sackcloths. My petite sister teased me constantly because of my big bosom, hence the Hängerchen. Even my long nose was bad, my mother and my sister had already operated on her, and I wanted to do that too.
But it turned out differently: After graduation I went to Egypt for a year, as an entertainer. I should work with children and dance on stage. At first it made me panic, but it turned out that thanks to my time in the children's ballet I was the best dancer among all my colleagues.
Proud of my looks and my skills
Suddenly I was who and the kids loved me! That built me up. I developed pride in my looks and abilities. Meanwhile, I work with ADS children and soon make my doctor. The OP money for the nose, I put in rims for my convertible. I do not need tuning anymore!
"I used to hide my scars" Dina, 22, student, Cologne
When I was four, I burnt my right hand on a hot tip, it was awful, I can remember it exactly today. Although the doctors tried seven years later to beautify the hand with an operation, but you still see it. I spent half my life hiding my hand, drinking with my left, holding my hand under the table while eating, hiding it in photos, having total complexes!
Until I came to the university and all new, cool people met. After a few weeks, at the first group work, I took one heart and showed the other my hand. I realized: It was not difficult! Everyone said they had not noticed it before. And that I'm a great woman, it would not matter! Since then, I have never discussed my hand.
I have become a much more open person
My last friend did not notice her for months! In the meantime, I even wear nail polish again. Instead of being fixated on my hand, I prefer to go to the hairdresser once a month. It was really just a small step, but it has made me a much more open man, and I now know that there are more important things than such externals.
"They called me 'Fettack' and 'Stutterliese'" Julia, 33, animal psychologist, Berlin
The simplest things were impossible for me: reading aloud at school, talking on the phone, shopping ... I stuttered too hard! As a kid, I was still very fat and unattractive, so I was brutally teased from the day I enrolled. This in turn increased the stutter - a real vicious circle.
I was so screwed up that I still did not want to be helped, but my parents' pleading did not help. At some point I did not speak anymore, leaning from 90 kilos at the age of 14 to 45 kilos at the age of 16. One day my dad could not watch this and forced me to go to specialists: neurologists, psychiatrists, speech therapists.
Stuttering is a diaphragmatic and respiratory problem
The stuttering was a diaphragmatic and breathing problem, nothing bad at all. With the speech therapist I learned to breathe easier and to speak more freely: with yoga, breathing exercises, autogenic training and - funnily - with a lot of laughter. I can only advise everyone to get help if they can not get on their own.
After the therapy, I was even able to work in the café and study animal psychology. And flirting: Six years ago, I came together with my great love Stefan. Today I work as an international breeding judge and dog trainer, make speeches and give orders to the dogs - all without hesitation.
Much laugh hift
However, the stuttering comes again and again, in times of stress. But now I find it even good, as an alarm signal with too much pressure! I then follow the relaxation tips of the speech therapist: gardening, breathing exercises, sauna, sports. Or I just call Stefan. It makes me laugh then - that helps!
"Every kilo was a fight!" Kathleen, 22, aspiring educator, Potsdam
Like all teenagers, I used to want to be slim. It started with a diet, with compliments because I had lost weight - and I responded with even more starvation. At 18, I slipped into anorexia and - because I still liked to eat - into a bulimia. I weighed only 47 kilos at 1.62 meters at 19 and regularly vomited my food to stay that way.
After two years, I felt the effects: I love volleyball, but the bulimia consumed my energy. The condition became worse, the circulation, the concentration. I really did not feel well anymore and knew it would not continue like that. But I had to accept myself with more curves! I started slowly: the first kilo more, then the second.
Friends make life beautiful
At 50 kilograms, I got my first compliments - this time the right ones: because I had become sexier! At 52 kilos, I was finally able to run the warm-up sessions in volleyball and at 53 kilos, I met my friend Felix. Each kilo gave me something better than the kilo before: energy, joy of life, love. Today I weigh 55 and think I'm great.
I have no relapses, like to eat and keep my figure with sports. For me, my girls evening is the most beautiful: We buy treats, watch films and keep our bellies from laughing. Friends make life beautiful! And when I have a rare bout of self-doubt, I deliberately look at people in the city who laugh and seem very, very happy: there's never really anyone around that is morbidly thin. On the contrary!
"I only see the positives" Sarah, 21, Marketing Assistant, Hamburg
At 14, I had a severe kidney damage - fortunately, I immediately got a donor kidney. But four years later, the shock: The new kidney was also broken. Since then I have been constantly on dialysis, have access to the neck and surgical scars. Not very attractive. But that never made me despair.
I even work as a model - my clients know and support me. Of course it is annoying that I have to go to the hospital three times a week overnight. But luck finds me there too: Last July, I met a great doctor, with whom I have an exciting relationship today.
The power of positive thinking
My friends often ask how I manage to be so happy despite the illness. I believe in the power of positive thinking, smile gloomy thoughts and always try to create an optimistic version of the action! We will try another donation - the kidney of my mom. Nice, if you are so loved!
"My depression is also my strength" Sarah, 24, student, eating
That you are in a bad mood during puberty is normal. That's why nobody noticed that I have depression. When I was 15, I often cried for days without reason, when my parents went to see me with the doctor. Depression can overtake anyone and unfortunately there is no real cure.
But in two therapies, I've learned to handle it and accept my illness rather than dismiss it as "mis-production." Sometimes I have some dark phases, but then I know what to do: talk, talk, talk, with my friend or with girlfriends.
Accept the disease
Encapsulation is the wrong way and I feel the same stronger when I deal with my weakness open. Yoga, massages and Pilates help me too. In the meantime, I can even use my extreme sensitivity positively: I immediately feel how others are - and can deal with them better.
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