title. But there's a lesson to be learned from every
story if you ask me. One of my favourite quotes
ever is ''when life throws lemons at you, make
lemonades''..... This is her Story :
When she was in high school, Lizzie Velasquez was
dubbed "The World's Ugliest Woman" in an 8-
second-long YouTube video. Born with a medical
condition so rare that just two other people in the
world are thought to have it, Velasquez has no
adipose tissue and cannot create muscle, store
energy, or gain weight. She has zero percent body
fat and weighs just 60 pounds.
In the comments on YouTube, viewers called her
"it" and "monster" and encouraged her to kill
herself. Instead, Velasquez set four goals: To
become a motivational speaker, to publish a book,
to graduate college, and to build a family and a
career for herself.
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Now 23 years old, she's been a motivational
speaker for seven years and has given more than
200 workshops on embracing uniqueness, dealing
with bullies, and overcoming obstacles. She's a
senior majoring in Communications at Texas State
University in San Marcos, where she lives with her
best friend. Her first book, "Lizzie Beautiful," came
out in 2010 and her second, "Be Beautiful, Be You,"
was published earlier this month.
"The stares are what I'm really dealing with in
public right now," she told Dr. Drew Pinsky in an
interview on CNN's Headline News this week. "But I
think I'm getting to the point where… instead of
sitting by and watching people judge me, I'm
starting to want to go up to these people and
introduce myself or give them my card and say, 'Hi,
I'm Lizzie. Maybe you should stop staring and start
learning'."
Velasquez was born in San Antonio, Texas; she was
four weeks premature and weighed just 2 pounds,
10 ounces. "They told us they had no idea how she
could have survived," her mother, Rita, 45, told the
Daily Mail. "We had to buy doll's clothes from the
toy store because baby clothes were too big."
Doctors warned Rita and her husband, Lupe, that
their oldest child would never be able to walk or
talk, let alone live a normal life. (Her two younger
siblings were not affected by the syndrome.)
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Instead, she has thrived. Her internal organs, brain,
and bones developed normally, though her body is
tiny. Since she has no fatty tissue in which to store
nutrients, she has to eat every 15 to 20 minutes to
have enough energy to get through the day. One
brown eye started clouding over when she was 4
years old, and now she's blind in that eye and has
only limited sight in the other.
"Some days life doesn't make sense," she writes in
"Be Beautiful, Be You." "You just have to change
what you can, ask for help and pray about the rest."
She notes her triumphs and posts inspirational
messages on Tumblr, and says that she's learned
to embrace the things that make her unique.
Instead of trying to retaliate against people who
have made her feel badly, she sets goals for herself
and pushes herself to succeed in spite of the
haters. She's even reclaimed YouTube, video
blogging about everything from bullying to hair-
styling tips to staying positive.
"I feel really glad that I don't look like the
celebrities out there that are so beautiful," she told
Dr. Drew. "There's a lot of stereotypes attached to
that." Not looking like a supermodel "gives people
the opportunity to know you personally," she
explains. "If they're willing to take that extra step
they'll get to know the person you really are."
Of course, the horrible comments left on that old
YouTube video stung (the video has since been
removed, but Velasquez says she read every single
comment). Now, she says, she understands that
they're "just words."
"I'm human, and of course these things are going
to hurt," she said. "Their judgements of me isn't
who I am, and I'm not going to let these things
define me."
"I didn't sink down to their level," she said in a
follow-up video on YouTube last year. "Instead, I got
my revenge through my accomplishments and
determination. In the battle between the 'World's
Ugliest Woman' video vs. me, I think I won."
CULLED FROM Yahoo
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