I, too, was bullied through my years in school. Not to the extent that I wanted to die, but the bullying left me feeling very alone and very value-less. Most of the bullying stemmed from my appearance. A girl even told me once that she would shove me down a storm drain...if I could fit. That was in elementary school. This transformed into more emotional abuse when I made my way into a group a friends that would later hurt me deeply. By my senior year, I was eating lunch in a classroom with three other students to avoid the pain the lunchroom caused.
It was difficult. At the time, this pain was the worst thing ever. I thought high school was supposed to be the best time of my life.
I was wrong. Making it into college has transformed me for the better. Words fail when I try to explain how my experiences now exceed anything I experienced in secondary school.
What I learned in bullying? There are good people and bad people. Sometimes, it feels like there's more bad people. But like Robert Frost says, the only way out is through. As a teacher...as a parent, the best thing I can do is bring awareness to the issues in the classroom and bring hope that there's something better waiting. I believe that if we wait long enough, better will come.
I also had to learn my value. Some students discussed confidence. That is essential in overcoming bullying. We as people, at any age, need to be confident so the words hurt less. "You're fat" is met with "But I'm beautiful" "You're a nerd" is met with "Thanks for noticing that I study so much."
A Young Adult writer reflects on his past abuse...
First, I deeply apologize for every ignorant person that bullied you in your life, thats not fair and ridiculous. I myself was bullied although mine was in elementary and middle school. I was the weird girl that liked to read books and play by myself, as long as the girl hat went to a different school once a week to do accelerated learning, along with being severely overweight. I was very "uncool" to everyone until I got into high school when people realized that I was good at sports, eventually going to states in track. That was when I became "cool" and people decided to be my friend, but this hurt more because they only wanted to be my friend since I was an athlete. I wanted people to like me not what I was good at. That video was a real eye opener into why bullying sometimes does not get taken seriously sometimes. People like to blame others for things that they do and this is the same with bullying, people want to blame the person they bully because they are an easy target or something stupid. To me it is just preposterous.
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