Woman’s Shoe Shopping Video Sparks Conversation on Clubfoot (Exclusive)

Amy Areias never thought she’d become the center of a viral conversation about shoes and scars. But with her phone camera on and a pair of tiny sneakers in hand, she let the world into a part of her life she had never spoken about publicly before.

“So I went to get a new pair of sneakers yesterday at the Locker, and when I put the shoes up on the counter to be checked out, the girl that was checking me out said, ‘Oh, my gosh, these shoes are so cute,’ ” Areias tells PEOPLE. “And I said, ‘Yeah, I know, I have small feet,’ and she’s like, ‘Wait a minute, these are for you?’ And I go, ‘Yeah.’ ”

For Areias, the moment wasn’t just about sneakers. It was the first step in revealing a lifelong condition she had kept private out of self-consciousness and fear of being judged.

“I was born with a disability, a very rare disability called clubfoot, not everybody is born with it,” Areias says. “Basically, I had surgeries from the point that I was not even 1 year old yet, until I was maybe 8 or 9.”

She remembers growing up in casts that stretched from her upper thigh to her toes. “I just remember not being able to walk because I was constantly in a wheelchair,” Areias recalls. “Kids were looking at me like, ‘What, she’s in casts, what?’ and they were so big on me.”

The condition shaped her entire childhood. “It was a lot for me, and it was also a lot for my parents,” Areias admits. “After so many surgeries and being bullied, it was really hard.”

The procedures meant her feet couldn’t grow normally. “When my feet were in casts, they were basically suffocated and did not have the opportunity to properly grow,” she says. “So now I wear little kids’ shoes.”

She holds up her newest sneakers for the camera. “I am no bigger than a size two,” Areias explains in the viral clip. “The sneakers that I just got yesterday are a one and a half.”

With a self-deprecating laugh, she points to the tag on the shoe. “I don’t know if you can really see how small it actually is,” Areias says. “And then it says right there, one and a half at the very top.”

She takes it a step further by doing something she had never done on social media before. “And as weird as it is to do this, these are my feet,” Areias says. “As you can see, I have a scar going down both my legs because they had to take tendons out, and my right foot is clearly smaller than my left foot.”

Still, she tries to find positives where she can. “The only reason I am somewhat thankful for my small feet is because, depending on the brand of shoe that I want to buy, it’s not always as expensive, because it is a kid’s size shoe,” Areias shares. “So these tennis shoes right here were only $65.”

Behind the candor is a lifetime of feeling watched. “People are like, ‘Oh, my gosh, your feet are so tiny. What size do you wear?’ ” Areias tells PEOPLE. “And they’re totally mind-boggled when I tell them.”

At the same time, she remembers when the differences first clicked for her. “I kind of first became aware when I was walking, and I was old enough to know that, hey, I’m kind of walking weird, like, my feet aren’t straight,” she says. “I have a lot of scars on my feet, and I wondered why my right foot was smaller than my left.”

Her parents were her earliest champions. “They tried to help me, like, ‘Hey, it’s your feet, it’s just surgeries, nothing to be ashamed of, you didn’t do anything wrong,’ ” Areias admits. “But going places and finding shoes was so annoying.”

Sometimes even that meant compromise. “I sometimes find shoes, I sometimes don’t,” she explains. “I sometimes have to have two different sizes, because one might not fit my right foot but might fit my left.”

As an adult, she’s gotten more used to it. “Now that I’m more aware, I’m like, okay, I wear little kids’ shoes,” Areias says. “They’re just shoes, you know, but that always kind of made me a little insecure.”

Her viral TikTok, she admits, almost never happened. “I wasn’t even planning on posting that,” Areias says. “It was the day I went to the shoe store with my mom, and I just thought, who’s going to make fun of you — if they do, that’s on them, not you.”

The video took off overnight. “The next day, it was just comments, comments, comments,” she recalls. “People asked about balance, what kind of shoes I could wear, even if I could wear light-up shoes.”

The response stunned her. “I didn’t realize people would resonate with it more than I thought,” Areias says. “It was too overwhelming.” She tries to stay grounded through it. “I don’t feel as weird about it now,” Areias says. “The only shoes I will not wear are sandals.”

That discomfort is rooted in her past. “When I was in casts, my feet didn’t have the opportunity to properly grow, and the cast squished my toes together, so some of them overlap more on my left foot than my right,” she explains. “I’ve never liked wearing sandals because I don’t want people looking at my toes.”

The comments section, however, showed her she isn’t alone. “A lot of people are like, wow, my child has clubfoot,” Areias says. “Or, hey, I have clubfoot, I’m 15 and I wear a size three in kids’ shoes.”

She’s honest about the challenge of shopping. “Sometimes when I walk over to kids’ shoes, I don’t want to say it too loud,” she shares. “When I take my shoes off and try them on, I kind of look around to see if people are going to look at me and think, wow, she has really tiny feet.”

Still, she tries to brush it off. “Even if you’re afraid, it’s okay,” she notes. “However, somebody who reacts to it is a reflection of them.”

That perspective has carried her into adulthood. “Be safe in your own body,” Areias says. “If anybody talks bad about it, just move on and ignore it.”

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Support has made the journey easier. “I didn’t really feel like I needed support groups when I had my parents,” Areias explains. “Now I have my boyfriend, and when I told him about my condition, he thought it was really cool.”

His acceptance gave her courage. “If he can accept me for this — something I’ve been self-conscious about all my life — then he’s pretty good in my eyes,” she says.

Areias hopes her story will encourage others to embrace difference. “I hope people take away that this is more common actually than I thought it was,” she says. “I hope parents can show my story to their kids so they stop being so self-conscious.”

Today, Areias has reframed her story. “They’re just shoes, they’re just feet,” she says. “And I’ve gotten used to it for the most part.”