Usually when I want to write about a certain subject, I know how to begin writing about it pretty quickly. However, when it comes to bullying, I am not sure where to begin, to be honest. It is such a sore subject because I would say most people who had been to school or are current students in school(public or private) have experienced bullying in some way.According to an organization called "Champions of Choices", bullying is ".... a form of harassment and can be defined as a willful attempt to control others through verbal abuse, exclusion, or physical violence." With that definition in mind, it would be hard to think that most people have not endured such things or did such things to someone else. I recently have been made aware that bullying is a huge issue in schools today, and now, I want to write something about it.
A few Sundays ago, I was hanging out with some of the youth of my church at my church. We were sitting at a table, goofing around, and then started to talk about life. I don't remember how we got into the subject, but one of the girls,who's a pre-teen, started to talk about how she was bullied in Colorado up until last year. She talked about how she would be in hiding in the bathroom away from other students because she was being bullied so much. She would just cry and cry. She would get hit by these bullies and be called names for no reason in front of other students. They teased her about her weight and clothes just to embarrass her in front of others. Going to school was a living nightmare for her. She tried to tell the teachers but none of them were fighting for her in her corner. She felt so alone at school and felt that no one cared because, pretty much no one didn't. However, during that time, she had a loving mom who tried to do all that she can to make school safe for her daughter, but to no avail. She ended up putting this pre-teen, into homeschooling.
As I was hearing her story, I felt my heart breaking more and more as she went on. I could not think of a reason for kids to be so mean and cold-hearted to her. I wasn't crying on the outside but felt like I was on the inside. She even said that she was becoming emotional for it was so hard to talk about those memories. I don't blame her. Maybe it is because they didn't happen so long ago in her past.
Also while she was telling me her story, I started to feel familiar emotions in my own heart about my past. Has that ever happen to you? Sometimes, when you hear someone's story, it is like it's your story relived by someone else. Well, here's my story.
It goes back to my kindergarden years. There was this one boy in my class who would make fun of me because my head was bigger than theirs. Yep, that's right and it was true,but that was their source of content to make me feel bad for no reason at all. I know that kids will be kids, but that was when my spirit would start to be crushed at the tender age of five. Fast forward to first grade. My family had moved to the next town over,so I
thought things would be different because I would be going to a different school. I was wrong. I was harassed at that school as well. I remember in second grade, I was out on the basketball court playing with a basketball by myself. Next thing I remember, a group of kids came and stole the ball from me and harassed me at the same time for a long while. They did it just for fun. These were the same people who would make fun of me the rest of that year, as they have done the previous year during first grade. I couldn't understand why! I didn't do anything to these guys to invoke such a dis-pleasurable way to treat me. That memory has stuck with me for twenty years. I am thankful to God that I moved to another school that was more up-scale than the previous two, but I still dealt with being made fun of until I graduated high school.
Although people call it "making fun of someone", there's nothing cheerful about breaking down another human being's spirit for your own pleasure. That same girl who told me her story, had also told me that someone told her people picked on her because they were jealous of her. That may be true. I would say that people pick on other's because they don't want any of the embarrassing comments made on them. When someone is being made fun of or physically picked on, they feel exposed. They lose a sense of identity as a fine human being, even to the point where they may believe that they are the person that their bullies call them. I have no doubt that that is how suicides happen. I have heard of stories where suicide victims have believed what was told to them about themselves by others. They have killed themselves because they hated the image they thought they portrayed. That reminds me.Some of the biggest bullies I have heard about are not even in the victims' schools. They are in the victims' homes. They're called fathers. I have watched TV shows and movies with fathers making fun of their kids and abusing them constantly.I believe that the writers can write those kinds of things in the script because those kinds of things happen in the real world. No one has the power and influence into a child's life like the father does, and by mocking their child and beating their kid senseless on a daily basis, the child either will become a suicide victim, deformed in some way, physically scarred or emotionally scarred(maybe both) for the rest of their lives because of the one man who's suppose to discipline them with love, shelter them with affirmation and treat them with care,among other things, twenty-four seven. A kid should NEVER be afraid of his or her father,but I am afraid that is a reality in many homes right now as I write this post. I am not saying that all fathers are that way because that's far from the truth; it's just I have heard more of fathers bullying their kids rather than mothers,although there are mothers who do it too.
While I have been writing this post, I had to stop and posture myself many times because emotions were rising in my own heart. I confessed to the girl who shared her story that even at twenty-seven years old at the time, I still deal with emotions from my past and these feelings are about events that happened over fifteen years ago! But I also told her that these feelings are what remind us that we're human. Although I have come to know Jesus since then, my human heart still feels the affects of what happened years ago. In spite of those feelings, however, I know I can forgive them for what they have done to me because I have been forgiven much of what I have done to others and to God.
If you are someone who is going through any kind of bullying, I feel for you. I honestly do. I have been there and it is an ugly nightmare to live. A message I want you to read and remember is YOU ARE PRICELESS. People make fun of you because they are insecure in themselves and want you to feel insecure so that they will feel better about themselves. Another message I want you to read and remember is YOU ARE NOT ALONE. There are kids your age who are being bullied constantly and feel abandoned. Suicide is all they can think about now. That's why there are organizations like Champions of Choices where a man name Marc Mero tours nationwide to schools everywhere to tell kids that their story is NOT UNIQUELY THEIR OWN. I beg you to please reach out to someone or call this phone number asap:407-862-4800. Do not waste time. If you want to have Marc Mero come to your child's school or if you work at a school and would like to have him come, click on the hyperlink above or click here: http://www.thinkpoz.org/booking-request-form/.
If you are a student who knows or suspects someone is being bullied, befriend them. No matter how different they are from you, befriend them as well as speak up for them to a teacher someone else who could do something about their situation. Sometimes we go down and out for the count in life and need others to fight for us when we have no strength to fight at all. You can change the course of someone's life today by befriending them. And who knows? maybe you'll be changing the world because you changed one person's life for good.
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