Beating the Body Shamers Michelle Thomas Open Letter
Michelle Thomas is a blogger who made headlines in 2015 when she spoke-out publicly about an incident she faced with whilst using a dating App. The morning after going on a date with a man, Michelle received a nasty message full of uncalled for critiques and abuse. Her response received hundreds of thousands of views. In this heartfelt open letter, Michelle talks to us about her personal battle with self-confidence and body image, how to deal with online shaming in your teen years and all about that infamous date.
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From the period when you’re about 15 or 16, it’s hard to figure out what exactly it is you want to do next with your life. I wanted to go to drama school, I auditioned for 3 years and I didn’t get in. In university during the summer holidays I ended up working at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and got jobs in comedy thanks to that. Now I’m 31 I’m just starting to feel like I know what I’m doing, which took a lot time, but you shouldn’t worry about that.
Our society seems to put a lot of emphasis on living out a ‘normal’ life. I was quite an old-headed kid, who read a lot and was perfectly happy to be left alone. I desperately wanted to be normal, which I associated with the cool kids at my school that seemed to have everything together. In the end I realised that the ‘normal kids’ were also thinking the same, and now I know that people I look up to like actors and designers, all these cool people were not normal, and that’s a really important thing. It’s the differences that make you special.
I was quite an odd kid and naturally a loner, making me a target for bullies. I was also bullied for being fat in school. That stuff stays with you and shapes your perception of yourself and it’s a difficult thing to overcome. Being constantly undermined or bullied because of a certain facet of yourself really puts a dent in your confidence. It’s hard to make it back out.
After ending a bad relationship I was in when I was around 21, I made sure I would never be undermined again. I ended unhealthy friendships, and changed my surroundings because unlike at school, where I couldn’t control my surroundings, I expected to be treated well now. It’s really easy to lose perspective, especially in your first relationship. You don’t recognize behaviour that is coercive or undermining. Bullying does not usually occur as one big incident, its subtle and it chips away at you.
Nearly a decade later I go on a date with a guy I met on Tinder, only to receive a 400 word message from him the next day, using language full of twists and turns, offering affection and then sliding this “you’re not good enough” language in. When I first read it, it was shocked and upset, but after that I started to feel angry, because someone doesn’t write that to do you a favour. They do it to abuse you, to bully you, to make you feel bad about yourself whilst elevating their status.
This is a man with a 13-year-old daughter, so he should know better. It seems he never made the connection between the way he treats women and the way he is teaching his daughter to be treated by men. That’s what made me write the open letter.
I suffer from anxiety and writing down my worries is very freeing. That’s what I’ve always done since I was a teenager - I find that writing a diary is a great tool to maintain my mental health. It’s like Dumbledore’s Pensieve, a kind of pool that he pours his thoughts and memories into to examine them more closely. You never have to show anyone or read it again, but it’s an outlet for you to process it.
I post pictures of myself on Instagram which some might say aren’t always the most flattering. It’s to show young girls and women that there’s not only one-way to be a woman. It’s me saying, ‘look at me, I look like this, and I’m ok with it’. Hopefully it offers a more humorous take on the issue and shows that, looks aren’t the only thing that matters.
