The “Lizzie Beautiful” author says she's used to standing out, but dealing with bullies, like people on the internet who dubbed her “World's Ugliest Woman”, is hard. Yet, in our beauty-obsessed culture, Velazquez always finds a way to thrive and inspire.
“I'm human … of course these things are going to hurt ... [but] I'm not going to let those things define me," she told HLN’s Dr. Drew Tuesday night.
She added, “The stares are kind of what I'm really dealing with in public right now … 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’.”
She doesn't sound very confident or convincing; sounds pretty scripted, actually, like she's inculcated these defensive mantras into her affect.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the point you are making, "passaic friend"?
Delete(OK, guess you don't like my moniker, Pat?)
DeleteI suppose the point is that this is yet another example that the so-called power of positive thinking is superficial at best.
Pain is best dealt with via some kind of sober confrontation. Through such confrontation an objectively perceptible path of tiqqun may ultimately reveal itself & the sufferer's confidence for further confrontation will slowly build. Only via such honest means may she truly transcend her very real psychological obstacles and mature into a truly greater person than before.
A serious psychotherapy may achieve this; most cognitive techniques alone simply will not but rather simply cover up the problem or, worse, even wreak a continually reinforced self-deception. For some reason, it is this latter brand of therapy that much of the frum community seems to be turning toward--on the mistaken hashkafic assumption, no less, that it is more amenable to our Masorah than its more difficult, more drawn out humanistic alternatives. The reasons for that are several, I imagine, but it is a shame, since such a psychotherapy as I describe is amply supported by a strong, substantive religious commitment (which even alone would achieve much or perhaps most of the tiqqun).
Granted it's a relatively short clip, but for this viewer, at least, it didn't seem like she's thriving in her grappling with the pain her condition has embroiled her in.
[All that said, I'd like to clarify that I'm only an amateur--albeit longtime & devoted--to psychotherapeutic endeavors, not a practicing professional.]