Victoria Beckham recently opened up about suffering from childhood bullying due to her learning disability called dyscalculia.
On the 22 October episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, the fashion designer revealed what she went through as a child.
Victoria Beckham On Being Bullied In School
The 51-year-old, who has revealed a lot about her life in the Netflix docuseries, Victoria Beckham, reminisced that she was "quite shy and awkward" as a child.
The former Spice Girl singer shared, "I struggled academically enormously. I'm a self-diagnosed dyslexic. I suffer from dyscalculia. All those things that weren't recognised when I was a kid. They just called me 'thick'."
Recalling how it was not common for people to talk about mental health at the time, she shares, "We didn't talk about mental health like we do nowadays, so I just internalised all of that, and it just made me more and more shy."
She could not even tell her parents even though they were supportive, "I suppose I was ashamed, embarrassed, and so I didn't tell anybody. But my entire school life was miserable.
"It gave me a thick skin because that bullying continued when I went to college, and I was told that I wasn't good enough, that I didn't look right. I was told I was too fat to even be on the stage. And that gave me a thick skin," she shared.
The actress also recounted that she was socially awkward and never really fit in with the rest of the kids in her school.
Further opening about her physical appearance back in school, Victoria shared, "I had terrible skin. I had awful, awful acne. I had very limp hair. I remember standing on the playground - literally standing on my own - and kids just picking up Coke cans from puddles and throwing them at me. I was physically and mentally really bullied at school."
However, Victoria never let the bullying and struggles bring her down. She says the trauma helped her develop a thick skin.
"That gave me thick skin. I suppose, for what I was going to get next, which was very much a public bullying, really, from the media. So I think it toughened me up and prepared me for what was coming next," she said.
What Is Dyscalculia?
According to Cleveland Clinic, dyscalculia is a learning disorder that affects how a person does maths. This disorder affects the areas of the brain that handle maths- and number-related skills and understanding. People with this disorder often suffer from anxiety, depression and other difficult feelings.