I spent a day with people w/ DWARFISM

I'm Anthony Padilla and I'm curious to know what you would do if behind every corner there was someone pointing at you, laughing at you or even taking a photo of you without your consent. I

spent

a day with

people

with

dwarfism

who grappled with that reality on Daily We Discover the painful truth about limb lengthening and other surgical procedures and how being seen strictly as a dwarf, a little person, or other derogatory names has impacted their entire lives. Hi Sarah, it's nice to see you. This episode is sponsored by Better. help online therapy visit betterhelp.com padilla because sometimes existing is exhausting now there are many different words and ways to describe

people

with

dwarfism

what do you prefer I use dwarf if you said see me in public and you were curious why I was small I would tell you that I have a form of dwarfism, the little person is okay, no I love every time you put a word little in front of anything, it decreases, okay, you can't, that's the main one, really yes, because that term comes from the word mosquito, which is a fly, so you're calling us insect like a little person, you hear it all, troll, the most derogatory term would be, but even some little people are okay with that, it's more the way the term is used.

I even get offended when people call me a midget, look there's a midget, it's the same as look there's a, it makes you feel non-human. Can you explain what dwarfism is? So a little person is anyone who is under five feet and who is not. proportionate, so for example, you are proportionate when you sit, you can put your hands on your barrier, which I often rely on, I cannot reach if I am sitting upright, my torso is the same as yours, where my arms and my arms are face to face. my legs are shorter dwarfism is a skeletal dysplasia, which means that our cartilage does not turn into bone as quickly children of average height grow two to two and a half inches a year we grow between one and one and a half when you reach about 13 for girls and 15 or 16 for boys their growth plates close and that's the end my type of dwarfism, achondroplasia, which is the most common form, our arms and legs don't grow as fast, our bodies usually have an average height, what is your daily life like?

Unlike someone who doesn't have dwarfism, most of our daily lives look like yours, except maybe with a couple of stools around, there are things that are a little more difficult like, "You brought something for us, I made this". It's a pedal extension, so they basically clip onto the pedals. It's super portable. It takes you about 15 minutes to place them in your car. They can also get you out of some speeding tickets because the cops have no idea what they are. Oh you're speeding because I've got the extras like yeah, stuck under my brakes, look at it like no, they're lost in translation, is it strictly a height difference or is there some health issue or complication that goes along with it with each type of little person? there are different physical problems that you can incur things that are common are like crowded teeth back surgeries are very common within achondroplasia spinal diffusions are very common tilting of the legs like my legs are quite bowed I really can't put them together, but many Small people have much more bow legs, so they may end up having to use a walker or cane or have them surgically fixed personally.

I had very bow legs as a child so they had to be straightened or else I would. I have been walking on my ankles and they still do it now, in fact it is less scary now that they have found better ways. Did you go through the gruesome process through the cursor? What is the gruesome process? They come in and break your bone and then cut a piece off of your hip and then put a piece of your hip on it and then fuse it together so your leg goes straight back. . I then had the option of wearing a full body cast. up to here or I have pins coming out of my legs they are out in your legs they are in your arch and they are out and they are out oh my God and what do you have a titan or tight they put an allen key I don't even like your leg it's a ikea furniture yeah they get an allen key and turn it oh there was a moment when you first realized you were different.

I was about three years old and we were at a fair and Someone said something probably involved the word and my uncle's response was that if you don't get away from us, I will slap your butt and I will like so much anger and I thought, oh, this is really bad in the first degree. and the teacher said put all her hands on her desk and put her feet on the floor a cute little boy named Clayton and Clayton raised his hand like the good boy he is, but this girl can't put her feet on the floor . and at that moment I thought, oh he's pointing at me, I thought everyone else can put their feet on the ground, it was a big revelation for me, but I didn't really think about it because it was never part of my upbringing.

Having been raised with another little person, I felt very normal in my entire environment and it wasn't until school that I felt different. There were a couple of incidents where a girl picked me up in the bathroom and pushed me in front of a mirror and said you're a freak, so that probably happened to me when I was six or seven, when I started school. Catholic. That's when it was just torture. I felt like I was living in prison because you were forced to go somewhere where you would confront. This kind of harassment every day, every day, every day, when did you first realize that there was a stigma around dwarfism almost immediately afterward?

It was like a catapult to discover that people were looking at me more and that was the moment when I really liked it. then all of a sudden I started hearing it, I started hearing it, sometimes it's scary when you don't know what the future holds for you because you're so different that you want to be like everyone else, you want to be on the cheer team and there are some things that you just can't physically act like a little person, it's not like you see petty thieves or something, you really can't, your life of crime was abandoned immediately, no, that's short, did you grow up in a family where everyone was familiar with dwarfism, no, you know, I came and they said okay, we have to figure this out.

That's how much anyone can have a dwarf child. I think midget numbers 80 actually come from parents of average height and that's usually the First time I'm a parent of average height or encountering dwarfism because there are only 90,000 of us in the United States. My brother, who was five years older than me, took it upon himself to be my biggest defender. I don't think I had it as bad as I could have. Because he was always present and he is big and a soccer player and every time he left a school he left a bodyguard, he went with an older boy who was younger than him but older than me and he was a little big and he Go, look, You're my sister's bodyguard while I'm away so every year whatever school I was at a guy would come up to me and act like he was your bodyguard this year so let me know if anything happens or if anyone appears.

I'll take care of it. Your brother sent me. So I had a kind of layer of protection. How did you deal with that as a child feeling dehumanized? I ended up having a lot of emotional problems. I had an eating disorder. I was depressed. I really think that most dwarfs have PTSD when you're three years old you realize that people don't like you not only do they not like you they think your body is disgusting they think your body is a sideshow like that It was a disaster, which is why Just like my work right now is trying to change the narrative around disability in general, all of my anger is really aimed at changing misinformation and changing the way people think about it. .

If you were ever angry or resentful for being different, I was furious for just being It's just that we're just being born, yeah, like I chose it, which I knew intellectually, I knew I didn't, but still it's like you blame yourself for being different. Kara eight years ago is a very, very angry person. Kara is now not as angry as I can be. get angry and I can, I can use that anger, but it's not just this ball of anger about something that you really had, no and it's okay to be a midget, when did you realize that being a midget is okay, fully realize that I would you say no? until about eight years ago, so you

spent

most of your life feeling like it's not okay, that I don't feel like I've come to terms with that, that it's okay to be a midget, that it's revolutionary because the world tells you that You're not fine, what's up with dating?

Was it ever a problem? Oh, it's still a problem. It's okay, because there are so many better things than fetishization, fetishization, it's very difficult to know who wants to date you and who wants to date you. because it looks like it's going to be an adventure, I hit rock bottom hanging out with this dumb guy who looks like you ironically and I don't have any pictures of him. You may very well be very dumb if you're anything like me, I'll just say it. he was my best friend for two years, we started dating, he couldn't handle going from being my best friend to dating and it was an emotional rollercoaster that I went on a psychological rollercoaster that I continued on because I felt inadequate for the first time. time at that time.

What I knew this was going to be a problem was, uh, he wanted to go see a movie, he wanted to sit in the back, we walked into the theater after it had already started and I don't like checking in like they were red. flag red flag red flag he wanted to sit in the back like the last seat and then he wanted to leave before the movie ended, he said we should get out of here before the movie ended, he didn't want to be seen with you he didn't want to be seen seen with me, I was so afraid of being seen with me and that was like that crucial moment where I was like oh, you're doing this because I'm small, this has nothing to do with you.

Not liking me, this has a lot to do with caring what other people think, so after we said, well, we can't do this, that's when I was like, "Okay, mom, let's get heavy," that's when I wanted to change for him instead of Make him change for me the lengthening of the mixture is this crazy process where they break your bones and then every day they turn the screw, it basically opens up the cartilage and muscles and stretches them all , and you do this for a year of your life. That was the point where I thought I wanted to look like everyone else and I remember begging my mom, she said no, I hit rock bottom, I was in a total depression and that's what my mom said: you don't want to lengthen your limbs. . for you, you want limb lengthening for someone else and when you come to me and tell me you want limb lengthening for yourself, then we can have a real conversation and she was right, she didn't want limb lengthening for me, she wanted it for a dumb guy, so I changed everything in my life, I went to college, started reading books, decided I wanted to be in the entertainment industry full time, and two years later I moved to California, bye, a lot of people might think that once you become an Adult, you have overcome bullying, you know, go away, that children are the ones who bully.

Do you have to deal with any discrimination in your adulthood? I think all little people do it. My husband and I were in this hardware store. A woman kept taking pictures of. He said: "If she takes one more photo of us I'm going to be mad at her and I was mortified and totally embarrassed and the manager got involved because it was that kind of situation and it turns out she was like I loved it." Little people turn me on, I get turned on by them and these are the photos I took, who I talk about a lot more and I'll address it head on and tell you what I like about the new thing. york is that when someone acts inappropriately, if you stay out of it, other people will say why they said oh, you're being a and then turn the crowd against them, so if someone is commenting on something right now, you would say, here we go, there we go.

Why do you think prejudice still exists as strongly as it does about people with dwarfism? When you see a little person, it's rare that one in 30,000 isn't something you encounter on a regular basis and I feel like it's a fascination. human nature, but there is a way to handle human nature. My husband was acting last week and someone said, "I've never approached anyone who's as short as you and he said, if you ever approached a redhead and you were like, I've never met a redhead. Would that redhead like you?" look like you're crazy? At the end of the day, we're very unintimidating because we're so small that you don't feel like I'm going to kick your butt or anything, you just feel like, no matter what happens, everything's going to be okay, so it's like a power dynamic in the sense that people feel like they can say or do anything because they don't feel intimidated by you, unfortunately yes.

Have you ever had to deal with the association of being cute or childish simply because you're right?when I was a child? I remember thinking that the three words I hated the most were cute, adorable, and precious because you immediately feel my merman and I felt like those words were almost as bad as calling me. You were telling me that you know a lot about the history of dwarfism and it's like no one talks about the history of dwarfism. It begins in Egypt, where we were demigods. We had a high status, many of us were in the position, we were midwives because of our small hands, so it was considered a divine thing to be able to give birth and then as time went by, it got worse and so, once you hit renaissance time the italian courts were building weird little rooms and they dressed the dwarves and they dressed them in tiny court clothes and they put them in these little rooms where people could come and watch them in entertainment, watch them dance whatever and then you know what. you appear pt barnum and the Circuses and side shows used to sell bodies for midgets, so they sold them at these side shows where they were treated horribly and put on display for show.

How do you feel about the way dwarfism is portrayed in the media? Look at Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, okay, I guess you're well-liked within the dwarf community, you're not labeled as grumpy, the emotions associated with each of you, that's it, that's it, and you're waiting for me to show up. a white savior and clean your house in the meantime. They're grown men that have been working in the mine, I think they got it since you were two or three years old, that's what you see and guess what they're doing again, you think people don't know how? there's a lot of stigma is that they surround you because they love it because that's what they grew up with that's my favorite I love that we have that taika waititi who's doing willy wonka and the chocolate factory again willy wonka save the oompa loompas and look at them What would they do without Willy Wonka saving them?

Willy Wonka can't have the factory without the oompa loompa so how is he saving it? They are not saving him. He wouldn't be rich with a chocolate factory without the oompa loompas running his factory because he's not running what he needed when he was a kid. He needed someone who looked like me and would fight for me, so I feel like I wasn't given any opportunities in the media and I wanted to be in this world of entertainment. I wanted to be a singer it's how I first imagined my life I created a lot of impersonations I did mini Britney mini gaga I would impersonate some of her dance moves you know hey brittany moving on when I said you know what I don't want to impersonate anymore I want to do something different little women , it was really that way out.

I wanted to show the world who we were and how we lived life and how we made things possible in our daily lives. How successful is it? Can you tell how successful it has become? We are one of the first. reality shows from the United States to be broadcast all over the world we were number one in Mexico for three years and that was six seasons that lasted three years we were number one in the Mexican network and I think that this success really has a lot to do with our Real life situations is what made it so relatable and why it became so popular around the world.

Why do you think little women have become popular around the world? They gave me a good voiceover. No, oh, because they are dubs, yes, they are totally abandoned. Oh, I have a very stoner-like voice, she's like here, it's a very strange thing because they don't have that kind of community there, they don't have a community of little people that perform there, so I feel like it's you know, it's the same as the side eye, you're curious even to this day we have all these reality shows that are based on our bodies, little women from Los Angeles, there was one particular time you went to a restaurant. shot tall or short people why that tells me you don't really care about us you are fetishizing our bodies under the guise of a story but it's not really about the story but the story is that our bodies are weird the show Definitely, whenever there was a challenge, they wanted to do it.

Any time there was something uncomfortable, they wanted to do it. If you look at almost every one of our scenes, we're like on high stools, yeah, why would you do that? and it's the producers who were smart and are really showing how different it is for us, how different it is for us to stand on a bar stool, how different it is for us to do things that advertise that people wouldn't want to blink. twice. but a little person has a hard time at the end of the day, like she's grateful for everything she did on that show because she really taught a lot of the world that different is just as cool as average; some people might think that making something all about the fact that this person is different is exploitative, highlight the way they are different and start the conversation about that and you know, I can't go without thinking of a better help to sponsor this episode, Therapy has helped me reframe my view of the world and myself by allowing me to empathize with my younger self and therefore better understand who I am today, but therapy can be personalized to what is right for you and It can be useful to help with motivation or feelings of depression, anxiety, stress, insecurity or anything else.

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Spent today with podcast viewers and listeners with 10 off your first month at betterhelp.com padilla. That's better, H-e-l-p-com padilla, now let's go back to the world of people with dwarfism. Some people might think that making something about the fact that this person is different is exploitation in the entertainment industry. This is a 50-50 conversation. Why are so few people doing this? elf jobs why are there little people doing these other derogatory jobs now those jobs don't exist those jobs are created by computer those jobs are just short people many people are afraid to offer those jobs to little people because they are afraid that they will offend at the end of the day, that's how I made a living and those types of jobs are completely gone now, whereas that's great in the little people community for the entertainment world that's in the little people. community of people becomes a lot harder when you're trying out for jobs where the directors already have a vision of an advertised person, why take that away when technically it's at the end of the day you're acting if there's someone watching who has dwarfism and perhaps you feel insecure because of the stigma surrounding dwarfism and faced similar struggles that you had to face as a child.

Is there anything you want to tell them? All the information that comes to you that you are less is not you. Is the way. Society has been set up and you are experiencing inequality and violence because of the way society is set up, but it is not your fault, so don't beat yourself up about any of that, understand that it is an external source, it is not you. . So, giving yourself daily affirmations, even if it just means choosing one little thing that you like about yourself and really trying to feel energy towards the things that make you happy, whether it's physical or internal, and you have to instill that. on yourself and really affirmations meditation, that's how I really created a different mindset that I was able to create the life of my dreams.

It's okay to be different and it's okay to be successful as someone who is different and you can have the ability to be successful. Although you are different, I spent the day with people with dwarfism and one thing that really moves me is how the feelings of being celebrated versus being exploited can be completely different from person to person, even within the same community, we are all an individual. and like tara said, we look different, but so does everyone else and i want to learn how to drive stick. You should, oh my god, we should try.

You should know how to drive with a stick. No, every time I tell them I want to drive stick. then I show you my pedal extensions everyone has a quick um and maybe maybe tomorrow maybe tomorrow yeah I have to do it I have plans for that day I bought an extra pedal just so I can learn how to drive with a stick and no one has willing state. to show me how you just get in my car and take it for a spin we'll see what happens I'm totally fine with that no I tried it I tried stick driving once and I almost totaled my friend's car so I did it we would do being in the same boat I think we both need to learn to drive