Hi Everybody,

I wanted to talk about something that I’ve experienced as a child.  Bullying!

Yes, I know we are seeing a lot of this in the news. So, I want to shed some light on the situation.

So here is my perspective on bullying:

When I say being bullied should never be a part of children’s life. I mean it. Experiencing bullying first hand has presented an understanding that life is not always peaches and cream.

Children who bully others may have been bullied themselves.  So the only way they know how to exist is to do what has been done to them.

I’m not saying it right but try to see it from both stand points. 

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I would never say that what I have witnessed in the news lately is right. I have watch children’s parents cry because bullying has taken something so precious away.

I will say this, I don’t like the fact that it takes a child to lose their life for the world to wake up and see that bullying is real.

I will say we all need to pay attention to the signs that a child is in distress. Meaning parents, teachers, counselors Etc.

We all need to do our part in helping these children.

There will always be signs something is wrong. Whether the child is not performing to the best of their ability, always wanting to be alone, crying, not eating, misbehaving. These are all signs. Pay attention!! 

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I know when I was younger.  Due to being bullied I never wanted to go to school. So I would act out and not do well on assignments so the school would have to send me to principal office, to make a phone call to my parent. Just so I could get a break from the bully. This person would always find a way to sit next to me and torment me.

There were plenty of times I spoke to the teacher about it. If he/ she didn’t see the person tormenting the child how can he/she discipline that particular student?   He/she can’t. So the abuse kept happening. I deeply was distress to point that I would pretend I was sick just to stay home.

Even when you speaking up for yourself,  the bully would continue to do it on the sly because now they know someone is watching. So every time the teacher would turn their back the bully would throw something, pull something and/or take something that belongs to another student.

This causes fights. As well as loss of confidence in one’s self.

I didn’t gain my confidence back until after I left Middle School.

So From the 6th to 8th grade. I dealt with 3 girls (Different grades and years)who thought it was ok to be mean and ruthless.

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I was so tired of these girls that it got to the point that I had no choice but to inform my parent what was going on. It was to the point that they were following me to my after-school program. Throwing food at me at lunchtime. I was going home dirty like I was not able to feed myself properly.   Come on now I was in Middle School if I didn’t know how to feed myself correctly something was wrong.

So my parent started questioning, why are you coming home dirty every single day? This when I would break down and confessed that I was being bullied.

The tears came from me harboring it and just taking the abuse non- stop. Hoping someone would see and get these girls off my back.

It was so bad that one day after school I was jumped by these two sisters because they were angry about me helping the teacher. Like how foolish do you have to be? Now that I think about it they were just super jealous.

As a child, you don’t think like that. You’re just seeing these kids acting mean and snotty to you.  You just don’t understand it.  You try and deal with it.

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Here’s how I dealt with it:

My parent could only do so much. She went to the police they could not do anything because they said I didn’t have any physical bruises. So they couldn’t arrest these girls. So that didn’t help.

In the end, I was left with less hope.

So then she went to the school:

At the time schools was doing meetings. Where you have a sit down with the parent(s) of the bully, the bullies, the parent of the victim and the victim. You sit with the dean of the school you have a conversation about what needs to change and the victim then has to explain what they are feeling. To me, it was the worse thing to have to explain my pain to these girls who were the ones who provoked it. Only to have them use my pain against me.

Their parent told my parent kids will be kids and we would be friends after this was all over.

NOT A Chance that was happening. Tuhh

I wanted to be done with them as soon as possible and the quarter could not come to a close fast enough.

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Here is my is my advice for the victims:

You are not alone, you can get through this by speaking up and standing tall. Life gets better and you will go on to be an amazing individual. I went on to be a college grad. I met so really amazing people along those course of my life which is not over yet.

You can only get better. This also taught me how to treat others because it’s so much better to treat people with kindness.

Keep being you. If you don’t have anything world you have you. No one can be you but you. Let those kids know you are not breakable. You don’t have to tell them, show them.

I stand with you. You don’t have to go at it alone.