Actress Kelly Marie Tran Opens Up on "The Spiral of Self Hate" That STAR WARS Trolls Caused
For the first time since Star Wars: The Last Jedi, actress Kelly Marie Tran, who left Twitter due to constant bullying and harassment from Star Wars trolls, speaks out on the matter and shares what these bullies caused her to go through.
Bullying is a huge problem on social media these days because it's so easy to do it while cowering behind a computer or mobile device screen. It's sad, but a lot of people are affected by it, and unfortunately, it seems to be getting worse instead of better.
While talking to The New York Times, Tran talks about the "spiral of self hate" that this harassment led her down:
"Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of color already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories. Their words reinforced a narrative I had heard my whole life: that I was 'other,' that I didn’t belong, that I wasn’t good enough, simply because I wasn’t like them."
She went on to say that she couldn't shake the things that people were saying and that it led her down to some deep dark places in her mind:
"For months, I went down a spiral of self-hate, into the darkest recesses of my mind, places where I tore myself apart, where I put their words above my own self-worth."
I'm sure that anyone that has ever been bullied can relate to that. I know that I've felt the same way many times throughout my life when I've been belittled and beat down by the words of people. It's hard and it's not an easy task to pull yourself up out of that darkness. But she managed to do it and find her strength again and move forward. She goes on to offer some inspiring words of encouragement:
"I want to live in a world where children of color don’t spend their entire adolescence wishing to be white. I want to live in a world where women are not subjected to scrutiny for their appearance, or their actions, or their general existence. I want to live in a world where people of all races, religions, socioeconomic classes, sexual orientations, gender identities and abilities are seen as what they have always been: human beings."
We should always be striving to be better individuals.