I guess this is kind of the same old cliche, the overweight highschool girl gets bullied, then she gets tattooed and pierced or something in-between.
I got always bullied since the first day i stepped into school. Which means that I was 6 at the time. The whole thing ended when i went abroad to study. The reasons why I got bullied were my weight (off course) and my height. At first at least. When I was 10 I weighted 65 kilos and i was like 1.70 tall which was a little bit of awkward. I was big. And from that point on i was the awkward big girl with no friends. I was the black sheep. No one wanted to hang out with me because I was the joke.
I always were a bit forward for my age maybe because i was isolated and i had all this time to myself and only to myself. I mean the way I acted or i thought were kinda older than me.
I dyed my hair red for the first time when i was 13, got my first piercing when i was 12 and my first tattoo at the age of 14.
In highschool the problem was that I was ugly, big, with no boobs and red hair. I was still the joke but a little bit worse than before. I had a Facebook page dedicated to me and only to me "I also want to burn Sevina" filled with comments like "she's fat and ugly" "her parents don't care" "she thinks she's someone" "she's gross, disgusting" and stuff like that.
I can't say it didn't hurt. I just was used to it by the time.
The problem is that i didn't get tattooed because my parents didn't care or because I thought that that way I would seem cool.
My parents did care and did love me and they still do. And I love them too off course.
And no way I ever thought that if i get tattooed or pierced or wear funny gothic clothes or whatever, people will like me or even notice me or that i would become "someone"
First of all they were noticing me even before doing all that stuff. Second of all I never thought I were someone. I still don't do.
It was kind of what I liked and no one could get it or still gets it. My tattoos are my moments. And its my skin. The ink is now my skin and therefore myself.
For me tattoos piercings and hair do not matter. They also didn't matter at the time. They were silly decisions i made back then (and i am still doing it) and guess what!
I haven't regretted anything and I don't think I will. Because it's just the outside and at the end it doesn't matter that much.
Of course after all this shit i got depressed and i started to cut myself or I didn't go out because I didn't want people to see my ugly face. But I don't feel special for that. It's the same old bullying story. People find someone to hate just for them to keep them interested and united. Even in politics it's the same shit.
Some kids also commit suicide. Thanks God or whatever it is out there , I did not. But I can't say that I didn't think about it or that I didn't try it.
And it was normal. Imagine walking through a place where people are pointing fingers at you and laughing at your face screaming that you are ugly.
I even gave up playing music because of it and it's not something I am proud of.
That was the time of course when I didn't know anyone outside the school. I knew that there was a world out there, somewhere where people could love me for what i am and not what i looked like.
And that was the alternative underground scene of Athens. Gothic bars, punk bars, industrial bars, all of them filled with 15-year old brocken hearted kids.
And at first I thought I fitted in. Then I realised that they were just a bunch of posers. They didn't care about me. They only cared about my small boobs and my funny clothes.
No one, no one could understand inside or outside the school that the whole outfit was not what i wanted to represent but me. Only me.
And I really don't understand why people care that much if you have dyed hair or piercings or tattoos. I mean, why should you be judged just because of that? And I mean, as an individual i do a lot of stuff. I write, I draw, I sing, I film, I have theories and a dog but shit, no. I am just the weird redhead kind of witch girl from high school. I was never the writer, or the clever one or the funny one or the talented one, no. I was the tattooed one. Sorry, I meant the fat, no boobed, tattooed one. The untouchable, undatable, black sheep.
People were saying i was on drugs or that i was fucking everyone I saw and stuff like that. In reality I was reading books and eating mom's food at the time. Or just feeling horrible about my face and my body.
At the age of 16 I decided to give up all of this shit. I dyed my hair black, took off the boots and started to wear only jeans and t-shirts. Of course the bullying continued. For them I was always the bad example. And I guess this was also maybe the worst year of my social life. Imagine having to pretend to be someone you are not. That was I. Maybe it were just clothes and hair but it felt like prison. I was trying to be "normal" and maybe to "fit in".
The whole thing lasted for a year. Things continued to be shitty around and i realised that this is not me.
But it's funny. I tried to fit in not by starting up smoking or drugs or getting pierced and tattooed. It was the opposite. I tried to fit in trying to pretend to be "normal".
Or at least what society defines as normal. For me that was the "clown" period.
I discovered the suicide girls site when I was round 12. Which means 7 years ago. I used to admire the beauty of the girls, watch them for hours. I still do off course.
It was like a world out there where beauty is not defined by being skinny or having blond hair, perfect skin or big titties.
They were the girls next door representing themselves and sharing their personal stories. And all of them were so goddamn beautiful and original in their own ways. By not even trying.
There was an awesome comment somewhere on the myspace account: "what people said made us strange or weird or screwed up".
And it was true. I guess this is why i got attached with the whole thing since then. I felt like I belong there.
Let me rephrase it. I don't say that suicide girls is a big family where "outsiders" like me are welcome and find a home. Maybe it is but i am not in position to know that now.
I'm saying that it is a great effort, maybe kind of an anarchistic one, breaking down all of these redicioulous definitions of normal, sexy and of social role-models. It brings a new meaning to all of that. And even though at first it may seem to someone as a site full of nude "alternative" chicks, for me it's more than that. It is a place where girls are allowed and welcome to express themselves and their bodies. It's more than showing off or being sexy. It's a whole new world. A free new world where having tattoos is not far beyond normal or where being "fat" (for example) is not something that puts you outside but instead makes you special and culpable to love yourself. And most importantly, having tattoos or weighting more does not define you as a person.
The whole thing screams "be who you are and love yourself". Just fucking stop caring what society says.
Like I said. I may look like I look but this doesn't define me. I am a person, an individual, who writes, films, draws, paints, reads, has friends, drinks coffee in the morning and smokes a dozen of cigarettes pro day, cries watching movies and gets sick twice a year. I am not different just because people say I look like it. I am not just an image and therefore I am not just my image. Like all the girls and boys out here.
And this is why suicide girls have made the world better. Because after all this years of effort now people are able to "fit in" (what a lame expression) and not just stand there being an inked camvas or a naughty sexual fantasy.
We are people. It's not the skin, the height, the weight, the tattoos or whatever. We are ideas, we are souls, we are ambitions. We are all different but somehow we are all the same.
And for those who wonder, now I am 19, i'm in one of the best art schools in europe, i have lots of friends (most of them not tattooed), I love my body and my face and i am being happy.