I'm really really really excited to be here
I kinda wanna tell you a little bit more the, I don't wanna say basics
cause we don't really know anything about my syndrome. I was born with this very
very rare syndrome
that only two other people in the world including myself that we know of , have
have basically what this syndrome causes is that I cannot gain weight
yes it does sound as good as it is
I could eat absolutely whatever I want whenever I want
and I won't really gain any weight. I'm gonna be 25 in March
and I never weighed over about 64 pounds my entire life
when I was in college
I hid, oh I didn't hide, I really new it was there
but is the giant tube of twinkies
doughnuts chips skittles and my roommate
would say I could hear you at 12:30 reaching under your bed
to get food. But I'm like "you know what it's alright, I can do these things"
because there are benefits to this syndrome. there are benefits
to not being able to gain weight their benefits to being visually impaired
there are benefits to being kinda really small. A lot of people think, Lizzie
how in the world are you saying there's benefits when you can only see out of
one eye let me tell you what the benefits are cuz they're
great
I wear contacts - 'contact'
Half of contacts
When I wear my reading glasses - half of prescription
if somebody is annoying me
being rude, stand on my right side
It's like you're not even there. I don't even know you're standing there
right now, If I stand like this, I have no clue
that there's this whole side of the room
Also, being small I am very willing to
volunteer myself to go to
Weight Watchers, go to
some gym and say: hi, I'm Lizzie
I will be your poster child
put my face on whatever you need it will say
hi I used this program - look how well it worked!
Even though there are really amazing things that have come from this syndrome, there are also things that
have been very very difficult, as you can imagine
Growing up, I was raised 150 percent normally
I was my parents first child
and when I was born the doctors told my mom
your daughter has a no amniotic fluid around her, at all.
So when I was born it was a miracle that I came out screaming
the doctors told my parents, we just wanna warn you
expect your daughter to never be able to talk, walk
crawl, think or do anything by herself.
now its first time parents you could think that my parents would say
Oh, no
why why are we getting our first child to have
all these unknown problems.
the first thing they told the doctor was we want to see her and we're going to
take her home
and love her in researching the best of our abilities
and that's what they did.
I credit pretty much everything that I've done in my life to my parents. My dad is here
with me today, and my mom is at home watching "Hi, mom!"
she is recovering from a surgery. She has been the glue that held her
family together giving me the strength to see that she's going through so much
but she has this fighting spirit that
she's instilled in me I
That I had still proudly been able to stand in front of people and say you know what
I had a really difficult life but that's okay
that's okay things have been scary
things have been taught. One of the biggest things that I had to deal with
growing up was something that I'm pretty sure every single one of us in this room
has dealt with before
can you guess what that is ?
Starts with a 'B'. Can you guys guess it? - Boys!
Boys??
Bullies!
I know what you all are thinking
I should have come....why can't I sit here with them?
I have to deal with bulling a lot but as I said I was raised very normally
so when I started kindergarten I had absolutely no idea that I look different
no clue I couldn't see that I look different from other kids
I think of it kind of as a big slap of reality for a five year old
because I went on to school first day, decked out with pocahontas gear
I was ready! I went in with my backpack that look like a turtle shell
cause it was bigger than me and I walked up to a little girl
smiled at her, she look up at me like I was a monster
like I was the scary thing she'd ever seen in her life
my first reaction was - she is really rude
I am fun kid and she is the one missing out so I'll just go over here
and play with blocks ... or boys
I thought the day was gonna get better and unfortunately it didn't
The day kind of got worse and worse and a lot of people just wanted to have absolutely nothing
to do with me and I couldn't understand why.
why, what did I do?
I didn't to anything to them. In my mind I was still a really cool kid.
So I had to go home and ask my parents: what's wrong with me? what did I do? why don't they like me?
and they sat me down and said: Lizzie the only thing that's different about you
is that your smaller than the other kids you have a syndrome
but it's not gonna define who you are. they said go to school
pick your head up smile continue to be yourself and people see that you're just like them.
And so that's what I did.
I want you to think and
ask yourself this in your head right now what defines you?
who are you? Is it where you come from
Is it your background, is it your friends? what is it? what defines who you are as a parson?
it's taking me a very long time to figure out
what defines me. For so long I thought that what defined me was
my outer appearance. I thought that
my little tiny legs and my little arms and my little face was ugly
I thought I was disgusting. I hated when I would wake up in the morning and I was
going to middle school and looking in the mirror getting ready thinking
can I just scrub this syndrome off? it would make my life
so much easier if I could just scrub it off! I could look like the other kids I
wouldn't have to buy clothes that had Dora the Explorer on it. I wouldn't have to
buy stuff that are of dazzled when I was trying to be like the cool kid
I would wish and pray and
hope and do whatever I could to pray that I would wake up in the morning I would be
different and wouldn't have to deal with these struggles. it's what I wanted every
single day
and every single day I was disappointed. I had an amazing amazing support system
around me. who never
pitty me, who are in there to pick me up if I'm sad
who are there to laugh with me during the good times and they taught me
that even though I have this syndrome, even though things are hard
i cant that defined me. My life was put into my hands
just like your lives are put into yours. You are the person
in the front seat of your car. You are the one who decides whether your car goes down
a bad path or a good path. You are the one that decides what defines you
let me tell you it could be really easy
I mean really hard to figure out what what defines you. Cause there are times
when I would get so annoyed and frustrated and I don't care what defines me.
When I was in high school I found a video
unfortunately, that somebody posted of me, labeling me the world's ugliest woman
There were four million views for this video, 8 seconds long,
no sound, thousands of comments. People saying Lizzie
please please just do the
world a favor put a gun to your head and kill yourself.
Think about that. If people told you that
strangers told you this. I cried my eyes out of course and I was ready to kinda fight back and
something kinda clicked in my head and I thought I'm was gonna leave it alone
I kind of started realizing that my life is in my hands
I could either choose to make this really good
or I can choose to make this really bad. I could either be grateful and open my
eyes and realize the things that I do have and make
those the things that define me. I can't see out of one eye
I can see out of the other. I might get sick a lot
I have really nice hair.
You guys are like the best little section right here
Oh I loose my train of thought!
okay where was I?
Hair! okay thank you thank you thank you
So I could either choose to be happy or I could choose to kind of
be upset with what I have and still kind of complain about it
but then I started realizing: Am I gonna let the people who call me a monster define me?
am I gonna let the people who said kill it with fire define me?
No I'm gonna let
my goals and my success and my accomplishments be the things that define me.
not outer appearance not the fact that I'm visually impaired not the fact that
I have this syndrome that nobody knows what it is
so I told myself I'm gonna work my butt off
and do whatever I could to make myself better because in my mind
the best way that I could get back at all those people
who made fun of me, who peesed me
to call me ugly and call me a monster was to make myself better
and to show them you know what, tell me those negative things
I'm gonna turn them around and I'm gonna use them as a ladder to climb up to my goals
that's what I did! I told myself I wanted to be motivational speaker
I wanna write a book, graduate college have my own family, my own career
eight years later, I'm sitting in front of you still doing motivational speaking
first thing
I accomplished it. I wanted to write a book, in a couple weeks
I will be submitting the manuscripts for my third book
I wanted to graduate college and I just finished
College!
I'm getting a degree in Communication Studies from Texas State University
in StMarcus and I have a minor in English I
really try to use real life experience while I was getting my degree
and my professes were not having it
But, I wanted to have lastly with my own family and my own career
and family part kinda down the line. In my career
I feel like I'm really doing well with it
considering the fact that when I decided I wanted to be a motivational speaker
I went home, I stand in front of my laptop went to Google
typed in: how to be a motivational speaker
I'm not even joking. I worked my butt off
I used the people who are telling me that I couldn't do this
to motivate me I use their negativity to light my fire to keep going
use that use that use that negativity that you have in your life to make
yourself better
because I guarantee you
guarantee you, you will win
I want to end with asking you again
I want you to leave here and ask yourself
what defines you? but remember
Brave starts here!! thank you