When most people hear the word bullying, they think of kids being stuffed into lockers and shoved in trashcans, however that is not what it looks like all the time. Especially now with social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, bullying is done through writing about each other and gossiping about one another. Even though sometimes there is no physical hurt coming from the bully, it can often lead to self physical pain brought on by not liking yourself and feeling like you are not good enough.
A friend of mine wrote a "note" on Facebook sharing his painful experiences from bullying and I respect this so much. I always say that if we are brave and share our tragic experiences with one another, it can help us all to grow and put an end to horrible things such as bullying. I encourage you to please read this entire page and really think about it... This is what his story said:
"Today... I thought about myself, and I thought about my life, and I realized how much different my life would be without prejudice, I love my life, and I love myself, I love my thoughts, and I love my ideas and I express them out loud, I'm not ashamed of myself, and I dont give a fuck about what the world thinks of me because it's not gonna change a god damn thing about me, so why not let them know me, I have no secrets, nothing to hide, and I'm not afraid. But it wasn't always like that, when I was growing up I wasn't happy with my life at all, I was the child that was fat, I was the child that was "weird", I was the one that would always wear mismatching socks, and the one that would draw demons, and rainbows, and death in my sketchbook. The other kids made fun of me, they called me names, they pushed me around, they would avoid me, it was really hard for me to find friends, or real friends at least. I spent those years telling myself that I was going to get away from that, I told myself that one day karma would come back around. I told myself that I would change, I told myself that nobody was going to make fun of me, they were going to envy me. Those kids that teased me pushed me to a suicidal depression state where I hated my body, and I was afraid to speak my mind, I was afraid to talk at all, I wanted to die. I was overdosing on Advil and beating myself until I had full body bruises, I spent my childhood hating myself and when I broke, It all went downhill from there, I was convinced that I was worthless, I spent a full three years of my life eating only the minimum that I needed to survive hoping that I would loose weight, and I did, I went from 260lbs. To 114lbs. Insanely fast, I was anorexic, when I looked in the mirror I felt like I was looking at a corpse and I hated it, but I couldn't gain weight, my body wouldn't let me eat, it took me forever to get my body used to food again, eventually I evened out, but during that whole time I was just trying to fit in, trying to be normal, trying to make friends, none of it seemed to be working out for me, I was still the kid that everyone made fun of and looked down on, I was tired of it. One day I just had to say enough and when I did, I started being me again, I learned that changing yourself for other people gets you nowhere in life and hiding your ideas just holds you back. I gained the confidence that I needed to take my jacket off, for once in my life people wanted to be friends with me, and I found friends that I feel comfortable around, friends that are okay with who I am and what I do, they don't call me weird, and they don't make me feel like a bad kid, I learned to be okay with people not liking me because I see what happened to those kids that were so mean to me, they're still doing the same bullshit to someone else, and they're miserable, there lives have gone to shit and all they have is the power they feel when they make another kid hate themselves, I'm kind of happy to say that I've gone through the bullying experience and it's something that no child should have to go through, it was a long adventure that took away a large part of my life that I'll never get back, but I also don't regret because it made me a stronger person, it made me realize that I am me, you can say what you want, but I'll still be me, and I'm happy being me, I don't have anything that I'd like to change about myself, I'm not perfect but I surely wouldn't wanna be anybody else, And without that experience I would never be who I am today, it's the reason that I'm so open minded, it makes you understand that nobody's perfect and if I'm going to not like someone, it's going to be because I don't like their personality, not because of they're race or their sexuality or their religion or where they were born, and if I don't like someone I won't make fun of them, and I won't be mean to them, I just won't talk to them I wrote about this because I have a story and while I was going through that I never realized that I wasn't the only one going through that, and I didn't know that I would ever be this comfortable in my body or happy in my life. Hundreds of minors in similar situations kill themselves every year, all because they just wanted to be themselves, and someone else didn't want them to."If more people share their stories like this, we can all learn and change things. I think it is very brave of this kid to share his story with everyone and I respect the fact that he has learned from being bullied and doesn't care what people think anymore...
Thanks for reading,
-B
My friend wrote that story!!
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