A Voice Is To Be Used, Not Stifled.

Hesitant hands hover over the keyboard, heart thumps as the blank screen awaits, fresh for new ideas to be displayed in the form of 26 letters in new unique compositions. A frantic intake of oxygen, followed by a brief exhalation. Eyes swiftly close, to be reopened in a wave of fear.

The constraint of the inability to post freely. The hand over my mouth has become more prominent and uncomfortable.

My words are censored, carefully selected.

What was once such an easy task is debilitating. The tedious process of filtering information regarding my life into suitable sentences and sets of photographs. What was once a fun, light hearted activity has become a stress inducing exercise.

The fear consumes my soul. It has for many months. The frequent inactivity gnaws my bones. I know I must post regularly, simply due to my own desire to do so. Yet this desire is rarely translated onto the screen or the page. Fear appears regularly, eating up the keyboard and ripping up the pages in a terror induced rampage.

Slumped against the chair, hands pressed against the face. A sigh of dejection and a quick shake of hair are the only physical signs of the turmoil.

A stretch of the limbs and a deep exhale from lungs attempting to avoid the fear lingering in the room. I must remember the reason for starting this blog. I must recall the happiness instilled in my being by this blog. Remembering I have a voice. A voice is to used, not stifled. 

I avoided posting about my emotions on my blog since September 2015. I wanted to be a different person but we can't simply deny vital components to our identity. Instead of joy, I felt anxious when even writing a post, breaking into a fear-induced sweat - thinking about what others thought.

The title of this blog is The Random Life of Aveen. It is my life, my thoughts, my events, my musings, my emotions. My own personal platform which I have not utilised as much as I should have as of late.

I turned my back on my identity. Trying to 'fit in' and 'blend in' is something you should never do. A lack of time caused some posts to be written but a lack of accepting my own emotions caused 90% of the posts not being posted.

We all need a support network, a place to voice our opinions and to be ourselves. I've had to accept that I am in fact a blogger - something I like a lot. I can't change that. It is a part element of the composition of my identity.

I questioned my identity for many months after starting college. I struggled with being a student, student-teacher, blogger, friend and many more persona's, yet as I type these words, I feel a weight lift. To deny oneself of their identity is a shame.

 I am a writer and a blogger. I feel through words, my comfort comes from the 26 letters comprising of our alphabet. It's my method of making sense of the world, and a blog is another addition of that.

A blog is for voicing our true, genuine thoughts, feelings and emotions. A blog is not for pretending every element of our lives is perfect. A blog is a platform where we should feel enabled to speak with confidence, our words booming and ricocheting across the Internet, not whispering meekly because we're afraid of insulting a person in real life.

It happened to me personally that I was given grief due to the content of my posts in 'real life.' It's an experience that taught me that we must be truthful to ourselves. If we post something that aggravates another, we generally are being truthful.

I have decided to take the plunge once more and post more personal content on The Random Life of Aveen. Several posts I posted as of late have felt so lack lustre, empty and devoid of content and emotion.

It's time to change that. 

Wave goodbye to the posts of poor content and airbrushed emotions.

 Say welcome back to the truthful, gritty posts where I actually discuss my emotions and actions. 

Fat Shaming & Skinny Shaming.

So this blog post has taken a lot of time, effort and thought to write. I would have written this sooner however, with great indecision I delayed writing this post, until now.

I suppose I am known for controversy on this blog, however this subject is deeply personal for me and has been an extremely negative part of my life for as long as I can remember so these are my views, and you may not like them. (And that's okay, we are all so diverse)


I've been reading a lot of blog posts recently about ''skinny shaming'' and how unfair it is to smaller framed people. It's not right, however, I'd like to mention fat shaming and how I have experienced so much of it as a young child and into early adolescence. I was never the thinnest child around the age of 9 or 10, but I would never have been classed as ''fat or obese'' medically. Yet I was by my peers. I experienced such awful abuse at a young age for being ''too big'' yet when we're children, particularly girls aged around 10 or 11, the majority of them are pudgy.

I had such little self-confidence until around the age of sixteen-and-a-half due to this and various other factors. I used to loathe buying clothes, as I would never be wearing a size 8 or 10. I remember a girl in my year during Transition Year talking about her size moaning that ''I'm actually a size 6, but my ass is an 8'' and sighing as if it was a global calamity.

My self-confidence increased when I started writing here on this little blog, yet also with having a growth spurt and thinning out a little. It's the same for a lot of girls. I think it's scary how we place so much self-worth into how others perceive us, instead of our talents and skills. I love school and do well in subjects, but for many, that wouldn't matter, only my looks would. I think this ideology is in a way, terrifying. Many focus on their exterior selves much more than their interior selves. I ask you, what is the point of being beautiful on the inside and be ugly on the inside from putting others down?

Of course it is perfectly fine to care about how you look. I always do something with my hair in particular. Whether I straighten it and put a cute bow or wear a huge doughnut bun. I like to make an effort. But it's when it consumes you and you forget about what's on the inside.

So this brings me back onto skinny and fat shaming. It shouldn't happen full stop. But I feel that I've been reading so many blog posts about SKINNY SHAMING, and nobody will speak out against fat shaming, which I experienced for such a long time during an important time of psychological development as a young girl. I'm better now, I even take OOTD's and take selfies, for fun. I don't hide any more. I stand up tall and wear skinny jeans all the time.

 But girls have to stop putting each other down based on their size, appearance, body shape or even hair style. Just because someone isn't the same body shape as you, doesn't give you the right to call them out on it. I'm 5''8 with curves and hips. A lot of girls have an athletic figure or all sorts of figures, just because they're different doesn't mean you should tell them they're ''weird'' or even ''fat'' It's just disgusting and shows contempt and ignorance (in the context of lack of knowledge) on your behalf.

I think at times that society has conditioned us to believe that unless you have the ''perfect'' body, you have nothing. Excuse me, but I would rather have good grades than a flat stomach (but having both would be preferable!) We've all become so accustomed to seeing Size Zero models on the runways, airbrushed on magazines and on television. I often wonder, if a regular sized girl was to appear on a runway, would she be called normal or would she be considered the awful F word? It's definitely food for thought.

On a final note. Don't partake in body shaming, whether it be fat or skinny shaming. We are all unique individuals with unique experiences. Calling someone an unkind word could lower their self-confidence and esteem even further when they may already have body issues. Nobody is perfect. I've seen girls who look like models, with beautiful exterior looks, be the worst people, constantly putting others down and gossiping in the back of the classroom judging everyone on their appearance. Be kind to people. If anyone says hello to me in the corridors, I always make it a point to say hi back and ask how they are. You don't know what anyone is going through. Some days we need someone to ask how we are, or to say that they like your new hairstyle or scarf. Above all, be a good person on the inside. What goes around comes around.

Stay Strong, Happy & Fearless

Aveen xx