"Be nice to people because you never know what struggles they are going through"

An example of why to be nice to people because you never know what they're dealing with.

Society is really mean to me. It doesn't help that I live in a city that absolutely loves to stare at and judge everyone and they don't feel embarrassed or rude to be caught staring. They WANT you to feel judged. They feel certain people deserve it. I'm one of those people. I'm society's scapegoat. Heaven forbid in this society that you are a WOMAN that is overweight. Society is 1000x harsher towards women who are overweight than men. On top of that, this backwards society wants me to feel shamed because I choose to dye my hair unnatural colours, I choose to have piercings and tattoos, and I choose to dress like a typical metal head or punk.

What people don't realize when they decide to stare, give me a judgmental look, or talk negatively about me right in front of me, is that they're not the only ones. Not to mention the fact that you CANNOT talk about someone within their view without them knowing. It is impossible. Your body language just screams it out, even if that person cannot hear what you are saying or do not understand the language you are speaking. Society is so non-confrontational and so spineless that people don't know how obvious it is because they never get called out on it. People are so afraid of being gaslit for calling people out on that, they don't do it, so these people that talk about people in front of them think people can't tell. There's also the fact that people somehow justify their bullying in their head. They think that you deserve it to force you to change as if they're somehow helping you. They don't realize that no one is here for THEM and they have no right to try to bully someone into changing their appearance to suit their tastes. What they also don't realize is how frequent it is aside from them doing it. When buddy has to give me a rude judgmental look, he doesn't realize that I already had many others do it to me.

If that type of bullying worked, I would not be fat and I would dress "normal" because it happens that often. I go to a store 4 blocks from my house and 6 different people will make me feel judged on the way there. If people understood how frequent people like me have to deal with blatant judging, then they'd realize doing it doesn't achieve anything for them.

Aside from that, I have my own struggles aside from everyone else giving me a hard time. Being this size is hard enough just to exist without the bullying. You can't fit in bus seats, you can't fit in restaurant seats if the chairs have arm rests. You can't fit in booths at restaurants either unless the table is not fixed and can be moved. You cannot sit anywhere where you cannot adjust the distance of the seat from the table. Bending is a struggle. Exercising is a struggle. Climbing stairs is a huge struggle. It's hard to find clothes that fit that aren't something your middle aged mom would wear. Plus size women's clothing is ridiculously expensive. I spend as much on a pair of jeans as one would spend on a pair of DESIGNER jeans and on top of that the companies know we are prone to wear out pants in the inner thigh so they make all the materials thinner so they can force us to buy more. The plus size clothing industry is a huge scam. I feel embarrassed in public or in front of friends because of my symptoms of my EDS that everyone will want to blame on my weight. I have hyperhydrosis. If I sweat too much, limp, walk too slow, wear a knee or wrist brace, everyone blames my weight. It is hard to sit comfortably because my weight exacerbates my back problems and there's a limited number of positions I can actually sit in. If all of those struggles don't make my life miserable enough to "just" lose the weight, then people treating me like garbage in public, or people I meet through the grapevine hating my guts upon first sight, isn't gonna solve my weight issue either.

The weight is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my personal struggles. I have a coordination problem. So often times when I have to run errands, I run out of spoons before I even get out of the door. I have to wrestle to get my clothes on. I drop things frequently. I fumble frequently. If I had a dollar for every time that I ran out of patience before I left the house, and then had to deal with how everyone treats me in public after that. When I have no patience left for that, I end up scolding people or even yelling at them and making myself look unstable and crazy. This just adds to the embarrassment I have from being in public and being the size I am and struggling with my connective tissue disorder that causes all these visible symptoms that I know people have a habit of stereotyping as  fat person things. 

I also have sensory processing disorder. My brain does not filter out background information as well as others. Normal people's brains will filter out useless consistent information. You never notice that you can always see your nose or your breathing until you pay attention, because your brain filters it out as useless information. You don't hear what others are saying in a crowd unless you listen. My brain does not filter out this information. I do not need to eavesdrop, I just hear everything. My brain doesn't filter out background noise or my peripheral vision. I notice when everyone is looking at me weird or talking about me, even if it's a situation where if it wasn't me the person wouldn't notice. So I notice it all. I cannot filter it out. I cannot ignore it. Even a typical brain could not ignore people being so rude when it's so frequent.

We need to stop gaslighting people. We need to stop telling people to ignore things and start telling people to stop being mean and rude to each other. We need to stand up for ourselves more. Society is only so harsh and rude because people believe too much in turning the other cheek and we don't have enough social consequences for people who are rude. We need to stand up for our friends and stand up for strangers when we see people being bullied. We need to stop telling everyone on social media to ignore things and start telling people to stop treating people badly. Stop victim blaming and gaslighting. Think about the fact that people have their own struggles before you make a rude comment or gesture.