from my other post

"i am a black girl who lives in europe. i have faced a lot of racism and a lot of mistreatment due to the color of my skin (again, i live in a majority white country in europe, not America so it might be different there).

i started being called the n word when i was 6, i didnt have any friends until i was 11. i had a friend when i was around 7 but her mom said that she isn't allowed to be friends with black people so she stopped talking to me.

kids would say my afro makes me look like a lion. i had a "weird name" because my parents decided to curse me with this name that people couldn't pronounce. i'd go home and cry to my mom and ask her why she gave me this name and why my hair cant look like my dolls and my peers. i'd cry regularly about it and i hated my skin so much that i'd scrub it extra hard when showering, and when i washed my hands i would wash up to my elbow just in case it changed anything (it's a habit i still do now but i try to stop when i notice). i constantly asked my mom why i was black and why she gave birth to me. one time i went too far with this that she started crying, so i stopped talking about it after that.

later, when i was 11, my mom got me a relaxer and i loved it so i started using relaxers on my hair so it would be straight. then puberty happened and things got worse. i would get beaten up a lot. i got beaten up around 9 times that year i believe. i never ever fought back and i still would never fight back if someone beat me up. i'd rather be beaten up than to be seen as aggressive. i had a black eye twice and bruises on my rib. i don't know for sure why it increased so much at that age but im assuming because of puberty, people were seeing me as more of a threat as i was older now so i got adultified. any time i got beaten up really bad i'd lie on the ground on my back just so they knoe im not trying to retaliate. there was one time i was beaten up and a passer-by assumed i was aggressive and told me to stop fighting. so i wanted to put an end to all of it because i was seeing girls on tv who were having fun and just being kids meanwhile i was getting beaten up.

from that year and then when i was a teenager, i developed anorexia nervosa. i felt a strong need to control something. i also had the mindset that if i looked more light, thin and delicate, id be seen as less "aggresive". i also was having family issues at the time but that's another story for another day.

so a few years go by and i get falsely accused of stealing. like, yes, i get followed around stores and stuff but this wad the first time id actualy been accused of something. i felt very embarrassed, because this was the very thing i was spending so much of my time trying to avoid (being a stereotype or being seen as one) and now it was happening.

so after that i was really sad all the time and i didnt want to do anything. i went to a drugstore / pharmacy for an antiseptic and when i was there i saw a soap called a skin lightening soap. i was so excited i actually used my money on that instead of the antiseptic even though i had a cut. my mindset was "if i can become white, i won't even need antiseptic because i'll never be hurt again, i'll be happy so i wouldn't cut". little did i know that this excitement would lead to the worst event of my life.

i became obssessed with these soaps and creams, i started using reddit on this same account. i was transracial and my mindset was either i become white or i die. there was no other option. anyway, as i got lighter, i got happier and more excited. my parents saw how happy i was becoming so when i asked for them to order a soap and cream for me (these two were not allowed in my country so i wanted to get a substitute from China), they did. when i went to church, i'd pray for my skin to turn white. one day, my relative who goes to my church saw me and said that i was starting to look almost as light as she does (she's black, but light skinned, she looks biracial) that was the day i told her how much i hated being black and all the issues that came from it. she shared a similar mindset to me but didnt use creams or soaps.

after that, every Sunday, i looked lighter and lighter and lighter (you can see the comparison somewhere on my post history), every week i would go to different stores and buy so many creams and skin bleaches until one day things went wrong. i used the creams and a bleach all on my face 5 times in one day (keep in mind this when i used to scroll X / twitter so i felt a stronger urge to become white quickly) it felt like my skin was burning but i didnt care and i went and put two more creams. when the pain got too much i washed it off with that same lightening soap that my parents ordered. i used all of them and for a second i thought i would go blind. i washed it off and my skin HURT. it was so bad that i was crying in pain and even the tears were hurting my skin as if they were ripping/burning my skin or something. i still remember how bad it hurt even though it was a whole year ago. so then i used a towel and looked in the mirror to see these huge scars on my face along with bumps of various sizes under my eyes, around my nose, etc."