India as a society body shames women when they don’t meet the beauty standards such as fairness, being slim and beautiful. Watch this snippet from the MHT Conversation to know about the body shaming struggles that Bhumika had to face in her school days.
In this MHT Conversation, Ms. Bhumika Kaushik talks about her experience of bullying and body shaming in an all-girls Indian school based out of Punjab, India. She mentions that the school years were traumatic for her and caused further damage to her self esteem. She speaks of the time when she was absolutely not ready to believe the fact that she was beautiful, just the way she was. Her self-esteem was further destroyed when her academic as well as creative accomplishments were overlooked due to her facial and body hair.
Along the conversation, she further elaborates the role of other girls and women in body shaming her over a womanly issue such as unusual body hair growth. At an age where she wished to strengthen her friendship with her peers, she received shame in the form of funny comments and remarks about her body instead. Some of her friends were indeed very supportive, although Bhumika wasn’t expecting girls to turn on to her so negatively. In her case, school teachers also indirectly or unknowingly participated in body shaming her by commenting on her body hair, suggesting her to go through painful procedures such as threading, waxing at a young age of 13-14 years old.
In order to deal with such experiences involving body shame from her peers and society, Bhumika had to resort to therapy in order to develop a strong self esteem. She had to connect with a mental health professional in order to learn how to be kind to herself and her body. Therapy also helped her get over these memories of bullying and body shaming from school.
Watch the full video: How Body Shaming affects your Self Esteem | Bhumika Kaushik | MHT Conversation
About Ms. Bhumika Kaushik
Ms. Bhumika Kaushik is currently employed in the corporate sector. She also runs a private blog by the name: Monster Under my Bed through which she wants to help and support other young girls who might be going through similar experiences such as bullying and body shaming. The podcast ends with a sweet message by Bhumika to listeners.
About MHT Conversation
MHT Conversations has been conceptualized with the aim to create a safe place for our speakers that is free of any kind of judgements. It is an online space where anybody from the mental health community or otherwise can come together and converse about topics that are relevant to the field of mental health. Ranging from personal anecdotes, struggles with mental illness, surviving through different low points in one’s life to experts giving their views on different therapies, disorders and even stigma related to the field, MHT Conversations includes it all and beyond.
These conversations are recorded at the time convenient to the speaker/s and published on the website only after obtaining appropriate consent. Mental Health Today takes pride in being an all-inclusive platform and invites all individuals, regardless of their caste, race, colour, sexual orientation, religion or gender to come on board MHT Conversations and help us in building an all-accepting community.
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