SHE IS NOT THE UGLIEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD

Lizzie Velasquez, now 26, credits a life of bullying for making her the empowered motivational speaker she is today. Photo courtesy of “A Brave Heart.”

For many teens, being dubbed the “World’s Ugliest Woman” on a viral YouTube video

would be a blow to the esteem too huge to recover from. But for Lizzie Velasquez — who was just 17 when she happened upon that exact phrase about herself — the bullying insult became the powerful motivator that helped her find her life’s purpose. And now she’s the subject of a new documentary, A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story.

STORY: Why I Told My Daughter About My Bullying Past

"If I ever see that person [who made the video] I would jump on them and give them the biggest hug in the world and tell them, ‘Thank you for bringing the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life,’ " Velasquez, 26, told People magazine this week. “That video changed everything and it has given me the platform that I have now to be the voice for anyone who’s ever been bullied — and not just myself.”

Valesquez, who weighs just around 60 pounds and is blind in one eye due to a rare and unnamed syndrome that doesn’t allow her to gain weight, used that video to become an anti-bullying activist and motivational speaker. Her incredible ascension is documented in the new film, which premiered earlier this month at SWSW in Austin, Tex.

“It went over so well with the kids in the audience,” Tina Meier, founder and executive director of the anti-bullying Megan Meier Foundation, who makes an appearance in the film, tells Yahoo Parenting. “Looking over at Lizzie’s parents as they watched her up on that big screen, seeing how they were so proud because they have gone through so much — it gave me goose bumps just looking at them.” Tina lost her 13-year-old daughter Megan to suicide following cyber bullying in 2006, and has been working through her Missouri-based foundation ever since to help prevent others from going through such tragedy. Working with Velasquez on the film to strengthen each other’s message, she says, has been incredible.

“I think so many times kids hear about ‘do this, don’t do this’ and it’s coming from adults,” Meier says. “When they hear from someone like Lizzie, who has struggled so much but then see what she’s been able to do, it’s such an inspiration. They see, if she can do this, I can do this.”

A Brave Heart is the inspiring result of a TEDx talk Velasquez gave in 2013, in which she discusses her rare syndrome — she’s one of only two people in the world known to have it — and the impact it’s had on her life, including the excessive bullying she’s experienced.  “Things have been scary, things have been tough… I’ve had to deal with bullying a lot,” Velasquez, who was not available to speak with Yahoo Parenting this week, explains in the TEDx video. She talks about how eager she was to meet others on the first day of kindergarten, and how she had “absolutely no idea” that she looked different until she saw how other kids reacted to her.