Her Heartbreaking TikTok Video Illuminates How Hurtful Words Can Really Be For Kids
TikTok creator Elyse Myers made a very powerful video about how certain hurtful comments can stay with someone all their life.
Elyse starts her video by explaining that she was fairly “round” as a kid.
“That would’ve been one way to describe me,” she says. Elyse then lists more positive ways to describe her during that time, mentioning that she was smart, talented, determined, witty, etc.
“So many ways to describe me,” she explains. “But the one thing that people loved to latch onto was the size of my body.”
“I was made aware of the size of my body long before I was ever taught how to love it.”
Elyse mentions how she is baffled by the long list of grown adults who commented on her body and appearance when she was only a kid.
She clearly recalls a time when a male substitute teacher said something that still affects her to this day.
Elyse was talking with her friends in class about how she wanted to be a cheerleader. The substitute interrupted her in front of everyone and suggested that she try out for something else.
TikTok; pictured above is Elyse
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“I need to save you from yourself,” he told her. “You would be much better suited in color guard, marching band, or wrestling, but not in a cheerleading outfit.”
Elyse describes the incident as being disgusting.
“I met that man for one hour when I was eleven,” she continues. “And I am 28, still undoing the damage that that one sentence had on my life.”
Elyse then makes a point that everyone should be reminded of.
“If you’re around humans in any way, I need you to understand how powerful your words are,” she points out.
“As easily as they can tear someone down, they can build someone back up. But it’s going to take a hell of a lot more work to build them up after you’ve torn them down.”
Elyse emphasizes how important it is to choose our words carefully when talking to one another, especially children. It can be so easy to make a passing comment on someone’s appearance that we may not even think of the next day, but it haunts that person for the rest of their life.
Elyse encourages her viewers to teach people how to love themselves, how they are beautiful, worthy, and that they are so much more than their looks.
“If I had as much attention poured into the things I was good at, that I cared about, that I loved, I would have been a completely different kid.”
Elyse then ends the video on a light note, revealing a picture of herself playing a cheerleader in her school’s production of Grease.
Even though the words of that substitute teacher had squandered her dream, she felt amazing up on that stage.
Thank you for your wisdom, Elyse!
To view the original TikTok video, visit the link here.
@elysemyers Your words are powerful. #coffeetalk #theadhdway #words
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