她被称为世界上最丑女人，却比所有人都美！

　　她叫丽兹·维拉斯奎兹(Lizzie Velasquez)，生来就没有脂肪组织。一天要吃60顿小餐，骨瘦如柴体重只有26公斤;右眼发蓝且已经失明，另一只眼睛是棕色的。她的病症困惑了全世界的医生，全世界只有三人受此病(马方综合症)的困扰。不同寻常的是她被称为“骷髅女孩”。

　　在利兹17岁那年的一个下午，她正准备上网听听歌，结果却意外的发现了一个，让她终生难忘的视频。这个视频很火，点击量达到了上百万次，而女主人公正是利兹，那些网友称她为“世界上最丑的女人”。而网友的评论像千万颗针一样，全部深深的刺进她的心里。他们说“她真的太丑了”“她应该生下来就被掐死”“她父母怎么没把她扔了”。

　　面对流言和一次一次的打击，她决定站起来。微笑，走向积极的一面。

　　在网络上被称作“全世界最丑的女人”，而她却以此罕见经历著书，她在TED上发表了演讲：《一颗勇敢的心：丽兹·维拉斯奎兹的故事》

　　“从我出生的那一刻起

　　医生就叫我父母不要期待任何事

　　他们说我将不停地哭

　　他们说我永远不会说话

　　永远不会走路

　　永远不会爬

　　他们说我将做不了任何事”

　　“而我的妈妈说，我要带她回家，尽我们所能爱她，抚养她。”

　　生活并没有让Lizzie丧失信念，父母将她像正常人一样抚养，幸运的是她在所生长的环境中并没有受到多少歧视。她做过拉拉队员，纪念册工作人员、报社、剧团，她还喜欢和朋友出去玩。

　　直到关于她的视频走红YouTube,一则只有8秒钟，没有声音的视频，有超过400万次的浏览……自此Lizzie了解了这个世界其他人对她的看法。她被冠以“世界最丑女人”“骷髅女孩”这样的称号。　

　　YouTube数以万计的评论对她说“你应该自杀。”还用她的面孔配以恐怖音效的视频。还有人在推特上给她发恶心的恐吓留言。

　　有很长一段时间，利兹都非常自闭。她把自己关起来，痛哭流涕，她说她对生活彻底绝望了。

　　好在，在家人不断的鼓励下，利兹重新振作了起来。她现在已经能够坦然的接受别人异样的眼光，甚至会勇敢的走向看她的人，给他们介绍自己，并告诉他们“请不要再这样盯着我看了”。

　　面对流言和一次一次的打击，她决定站起来。微笑，走向积极的一面。她决定成为激励人的演讲者，在艰难中给人们带来正能量。她决定写书，她要大学毕业，要拥有自己的家庭和事业!

　　大学第一年，她就出版了第一本书《Lizzie is Beautiful》,出版了英文和西班牙版。去年10月，她又出版了自己的第二本书《Be Beautiful,Be You》。她的第三本书也提上了日程表。今年5月，她将从德克萨斯州立大学毕业。

　　她告诉自己：Lizzie,你要证明给这些人看，他们不会再看不起你。　　

　　“我不准备让那些盯着我看的人，说我丑的人，说我将一事无成的医生，他们不会看不起我，他们不会赢。”

　　她经历了一场“世界最丑的女人”和她自己心房的整个斗争。她意识到，最好的反击就是你的成就。最后，她赢了。

　　“我知道，什么是被人欺负，什么是在网上被人欺负，我想成为这些人的保护者，他们觉得这不会好转了，”维拉斯奎兹说，据《独立英国》(The Independent UK)报道。“不只是为我的眼泪寻求庇护，我选择快乐，我意识到，这种综合症不是问题，而是一种祝福，这让我能够提升自己，激励他人。”

　　维拉斯奎兹身高5.2英尺，体重58磅，还有一只眼睛失明了。医学专家说，她的病情可能是一种新生儿型类早衰症。

　　世界上只有三个人患有这种天生的综合症，而她是其中之一。她是奥斯汀本地人，17岁时，她在音乐社交网站YouTube上搜索音乐时，受到严重打击，伤心欲绝。让她惊恐的是，她看到了一个关于她的刻薄的视频，题目是《世界上最丑的女人》，视频有400万浏览量，及许多充满仇恨和残忍的留言。

　　“我甚至不知道，我为什么要点击这个视频，但是我点击了，那时我迷失了，”她回忆说。“叫我怪物，或者问为什么我父母没有打掉我……我到底怎样去原谅那些让我杀掉自己的人呢?”

　　2013年，维拉斯奎兹上了国际性头条新闻，她发起反欺凌运动后，在TED演讲上做了令人振奋的发言。这个演讲的YouTube视频被世界上的数百人观看，并催生了她的最新纪录片。

　　“我们在生活中都有困难，但是比起她所经历的都算不得什么。她积极的态度鼓舞了世界上的每个人，”萨拉·波尔多(Sara Bordo)说，她在这个纪录片中与维拉斯奎兹合作，首次担任导演。

　　维拉斯奎兹正在美国游说建立第一个了联邦反霸凌法案。她在天主教教会中长大，并将她克服生活中的艰难的能力归功于信仰。

　　“这是我的磐石，带我走过一切;就是有时间一个人呆着，祷告，和神对话，并且知道他在那里听我，”她说。“即使有时在黑暗的时刻，这些事情好像看起来永远不会好转，如果你有信心，继续鼓励自己，你最终会度过一切。”　
　
演讲稿原文：

　　Hello, everybody.

　　I want you to do something with me really quick.

　　I want you to all think in your head,

　　remember the time -- because I know

　　every single one of you in here have done this --

　　when you're procrastinating doing homework

　　and you're procrastinating by listening to music on YouTube.

　　Now, you know, when you're looking at YouTube,

　　and you are watching a video,

　　there's "related videos" on the right-hand side of the screen.

　　I want you to imagine

　　that you are listening to some random song

　　and you see a little picture on the right-hand side

　　that looks pretty familiar.

　　So, you click on it.

　　And what you see is something that will change your entire life.

　　Now imagine if you clicked on the video,

　　and you realized that somebody posted a video

　　of you,

　　and labelled it "The World's Ugliest Woman,"

　　or "Man."

　　Think for a second.

　　How would you feel?

　　How do you think somebody would feel if they found that?

　　I will tell you,

　　because it happened to me.

　　And the moment I found this video,

　　I was given two options.

　　I could either choose happiness,

　　or I could choose to give up.

　　Now being in this situation isn't something that's new to me,

　　because I was born with a very, very rare syndrome.

　　There are only 3 people, including myself,

　　that we know of that have this syndrome.

　　I am 24 years old.

　　I've never weighed over 62 pounds in my entire life.

　　I literally could eat whatever I want,

　　whenever I want,

　　and not gain weight.

　　Now it might sound pretty amazing.

　　It is. Let's just be honest.

　　(Laughter)

　　But I am so small

　　and I look very different from other people.

　　So as you can imagine, when people see me

　　and they have never heard my story,

　　they don't know who I am they know nothing about me,

　　they see me and they think,

　　"What's wrong with that girl?"

　　"What eating disorder does she have?"

　　"Why is she so skinny?"

　　From the second I was born,

　　the doctors prepared my parents to expect

　　absolutely nothing out of me.

　　They said I wouldn't come out crying.

　　They said I'd never talk, I'd never walk, I'd never crawl,

　　I would literally accomplish nothing in my life.

　　And my parents said, "You know what?

　　We're going to take her home,

　　we're going to love her,

　　and we're going to raise her as best as we can."

　　(Applause )

　　So, that's exactly what they did.

　　They raised me completely normally.

　　I was a cute kid, I'm not gonna lie. (Laughter)

　　I was so small that my parents had to go to Toys “R” Us

　　to buy me doll clothes,

　　because regular baby clothes were way too big on me.

　　If you go like this,

　　that's the size I was when I was a baby.

　　I personally don't remember, but that's what my parents told me.

　　I grew up completely normally,

　　so normally to the point that, when I started kindergarten,

　　I had no clue that I was different.

　　I couldn't physically see

　　that I looked different from the other kids.

　　I unfortunately had to find out

　　in a way that I like to think of

　　as a big slap of reality for a 5-year-old.

　　I am sure you guys know the feeling,

　　the night before the first day of school, when you are super excited,

　　you have that like anxious feeling in your stomach,

　　because you don't know who's going to be in your class,

　　if you're going to make friends.

　　That's what I felt.

　　I had my full lunchbox,

　　my matching bow, my ruffled socks,

　　ready to go.

　　I walked in on the first day, and I saw a little girl reading a book.

　　I walked up to her, and I smiled at her,

　　and she looked up at me

　　like I was the scariest thing she'd ever seen.

　　And my first thought was, "She's rude.

　　I'm a fun kid. She is missing out." (Laughter)

　　So I let it go, and the rest of the day,

　　unfortunately, didn't get any better.

　　No one wanted to play with me, no one wanted to stand by me.

　　No one wanted to have a single thing to do with me,

　　because I was different.

　　And again, I couldn't understand,

　　because I was raised so normally.

　　So, going to the playground was hard.

　　I remember climbing up to the top of the playscape,

　　wanting to go down the slide,

　　but there was a long line.

　　And, as soon as I got up there, everybody moved.

　　And you would think, “Yeah, VIP to the slide."

　　(Laughter)

　　But they were moving because they were scared of me.

　　So that's when I had to go home and ask my parents,

　　"What is wrong with me?

　　Why doesn't anyone like me? I'm just like them."

　　And my parents encouraged me to go back to school, be myself

　　and eventually they'll see that I am just like them.

　　And that's exactly what I did.

　　So again, at such a young age, I was forced to be in a situation

　　of, I can either chose to be happy,

　　or I could choose to give up.

　　Luckily, I chose to be happy.

　　As I grew up, I started making a lot of friends.

　　I am pretty funny.

　　So I made a lot of friends really easily.

　　And once I started making friends,

　　my friends started becoming my body guards, per se.

　　When people would come up to me

　　and kind of tease me and make fun of me, which happened often,

　　they would come up and say, "This is my friend Lizzie, you know.

　　Be nice to her, she is pretty cool."

　　And luckily, it worked.

　　As I got older, I, of course, had to deal with a lot of bullying.

　　Luckily no physical bullying, but a lot of name calling and stares.

　　And so I felt self-conscious, a lot,

　　even though I was so young,

　　because I didn't look like the popular girls.

　　But I again continued to be myself.

　　During middle school, I did cheerleading.

　　I was a flyer. You could've seen how high I went up in the air.

　　(Laughter)

　　I'd realized that I was the people person.

　　I loved being around people,

　　I loved talking to people, meeting new people.

　　So I joined every organization that I could think of:

　　high school cheerleading,

　　yearbook staff, newspapers, theater.

　　I hate acting.

　　I won an award in a play.

　　I was doing all of these things,

　　and, once I got to high school, I was at a very high point,

　　and I felt really good about myself,

　　until the day I found the YouTube video.

　　This video is 8 seconds long.

　　It had no sound.

　　It had over 4 million views,

　　to this one video,

　　that was 8 seconds long.

　　I scrolled down,

　　and there were thousands of comments on it,

　　telling me I should kill myself;

　　If people see my face, they will go blind.

　　So I thought, "Those people...

　　How could they?

　　They don't know me.

　　They know absolutely nothing about me."

　　So again, I was put in the position:

　　choosing happiness, or to choose to give up.

　　And in that moment, I didn't want those people

　　to define who I was as a person.

　　I wanted to tell them off, I did,

　　but I told myself,

　　"Lizzie, you are going to prove to these people

　　that they're not going to win,

　　and they're not going to hold you down.

　　So, at this point, I am deciding,

　　"How am I going to get my 'revenge'?

　　What am I going to do?"

　　I am a very goal-oriented person.

　　So I decided to set four goals for myself.

　　I decided I was going to be a motivational speaker.

　　I was going to write a book,

　　I was going to graduate college

　　and I was going to have my own family and my own career.

　　I made these goals when I was

　　probably a sophomore, beginning of junior year.

　　2013 will be my eighth year of motivational speaking.

　　(Applause)

　　I told myself I wanted to write a book.

　　I never thought I would be like, on Harry Potter, or Twillight level,

　　but I knew I want to write a book.

　　My first year of college, I published my first book,

　　called "Lizzie Beautiful," in English and Spanish.

　　(Applause)

　　I never thought it would happen,

　　but I ended up writing my second book,

　　and it came out this past October,

　　called “Be Beautiful, Be You."

　　A couple days ago,

　　I got an e-mail from my publishing house

　　with a release date for my third book.

　　(Applause)

　　I told myself I wanted to graduate college.

　　And this May, I will be getting my degree

　　from Texas State University.

　　(Applause)

　　My fourth goal was to have my own family and my own career.

　　The family part, down the line.

　　I am only 24.

　　The career part, I feel like I have got in a good jump on it.

　　So now, I am faced with:

　　"What's next?

　　What am I going to do?"

　　One of the biggest motivations for me to accomplish all those things

　　was that YouTube video.

　　Every time I was sad,

　　every time I doubted myself --

　　you may think this sounds kind of crazy,

　　and you're thinking, "Why?" --

　　I would go back to that video

　　and I would look at every comment, every hateful comment,

　　and it was fuel to my fire to keep going.

　　Every nasty comment

　　made me want to work even harder,

　　even harder.

　　It's kind of funny timing, because my mom said,

　　"Well, your goals are pretty much going to be all done.

　　What are you going to do now?

　　Are you going to take a rest?"

　　And I said, "No, are you kidding?

　　Why would I waste my time?

　　My next goals are going to be even bigger."

　　But that bad video was finally taken down.

　　So I thought,

　　"Great! Things are looking up.

　　Life is pretty good."

　　This past Sunday, as I was preparing for this speech,

　　I started getting a lot of Tweeter notifications.

　　And when that happens, my heart sinks,

　　because I never know if it's something bad.

　　Unfortunately, it was something bad.

　　Somebody else posted another bad video of me.

　　This person had over a million subscribers to his channel.

　　He googled my name in his video,

　　had horrifying music playing when the search came up,

　　and all his subscribers started googling me,

　　and sending me really hateful things.

　　My dad's always told us you could have your one good cry,

　　and then you have to pick your chin up, smile,

　　and move onto the positive.

　　I had my one good cry,

　　I smiled,

　　and I said, "What great accomplishment is this video going to lead to?"

　　(Applause)

　　I told myself, "Lizzie, you are going to show these people

　　that they're not going to define you."

　　I am not going to let the people who stared at me,

　　the people who called my ugly,

　　the doctors who said I would never accomplish a thing...

　　They're not going to define me,

　　and they're not going to win.

　　I kind of looked at this whole battle

　　of “The World's Ugliest Women”

　　versus me,

　　and I realized

　　the best revenge is with your accomplishments.

　　So yes,

　　I won.

　　Thank you.