She has constantly been bullied, mocked, and teased on social media for her unique fashion sense and her creative hairstyles. At red carpet events, people would criticize how Real Housewives of Durban star Annie Ludick-Mthembu owns a salon but "fails to get her own hair right' or how her "eyelashes are never aligned.' "Is the heat causing Annie's lashes to misbehave?' one viewer asked. "Annie cock eye or are her lashes too big for her face,' said another. "What tf is up with Annie's eye?! Looks weird as hell.'

She often appears thick-skinned and can take the heat, but Annie says, the negativity often gets to her.

OPENING UP ABOUT BELL'S PALSY

In the recent episode of #RHODurban, Annie opens up about suffering from Bell's palsy, a neurological disorder that causes weakness on one side of the face. This has been the reason for Annie's lazy eye and her eyelashes "looking off.' With Bell's palsy, one of the nerves that control muscles in your face becomes injured or stops working properly and the symptoms are noticeable through a sudden weakness or paralysis on one side of your face or drooping eyebrows and mouth. "My eye keeps giving me lopsided face effects, and when I get tired my eye falls,' Annie says. "My face is uneven because I had something called Bells' Palsy and all the muscles, and face gets paralysed on the one side.' Annie says she had it during her first pregnancy. "I feel so uncomfortable about it because people are always asking 'what's wrong with your face or your eye?'

HEALING AND GETTING HELP

Growing up in the UK, Annie says she was bullied badly. "They would hit me over the head with umbrellas and do anything to get at me. They attacked me for such a long time, and I would go into my own space because I was alone and not accepted. During lunchtime, I would sit by myself and read a book.' Annie tells ZiMoja that she felt it was important to share the experience because she's had a lot of people comment on it for the last two to three years that she has been on the RHODurban platform. "It makes me very self-conscious, and I thought I should just open up and say what happened to me,' she says. "A lot of people suffer from Bell's Palsy and there is no medication that can right your face nor any cure; some people never recover. It's all about having to rebuild the muscles in your face and that can take years of physio.' Annie says the negative criticism does get to her and she has had to seek therapy. "I definitely am not immune to what people say about me online,' she says. "It used to trigger me quite badly, this is why I went out and sought therapy to assist me with coming to terms with my past hurt and to also have a better perspective on the backlash I get on social media.'