Lizzie Velasquez is 26 years old. She was born with a condition that is so rare, it doesn’t even have a name. She has absolutely zero body fat, unable to gain any weight and is blinded out of one eye. Bustle.com describes how she was described in a video as “the world’s ugliest woman.” Her story really began when she got mad enough to start her own You Tube channel and make a movie.  Which is debuting at SXSW this week.

Velasquez has a YouTube channel with over 314,000 subscribers who get to peek into her life. She described how she doesn’t, “know these people, but turning on my camera and pressing record is like opening a small window into my life for people who might need a friend or who are watching my videos because they don’t have a social life or are stuck at home or whatever they may be, and because of that, it makes me feel good to share my life.

Her overall outlook on her life is extremely positive. She even would want to thank the person who posted, “THE WORLD’S UGLIEST WOMAN,” because “…if I never found that video, it wouldn’t have been the spark to change everything. I think I’d still be in a way helping people but I don’t know if in the same way as now. I wouldn’t be mad. I’d be so grateful, which sounds so crazy. It changed everything.”

Before the bullies sprain their arms patting themselves on the back, not everyone who is bullied has this much strength. Lizzie is an amazing person. She is using her story to try and help others who are getting bullied by random strangers who make a meme, who comment on a video or who act the fool and ruin a child of God. For those of us who were bullied, thank you Lizzie for showing us how to move past the insecure idiots who bullied us to avoid their problems.

These are my responses to my bullies: Thanks.  To the kid on the bus who put gum in my hair in 8^th or 9^th grade, thanks. To the kids who made up cruel nicknames, thanks. To the teachers that wrote me off as some kind of freak or better still crazy, thanks. To the college “friends” who blamed me for being sexually assaulted thanks. Because of my college “friends”, I went and volunteered on a crisis line so nobody ever would feel as alone as I did. Because of the kids who made up nicknames, I do not use cruel nicknames.  For anyone.  Because of the teachers who called me crazy and worse, I learned to find out why someone was acting unusually in a group setting or a Sunday school class.  So thanks for teaching me what not to do and why. Empathy was a learned behavior for me and thank you all for teaching me to be empathic.