Real Teens Speak Out

GIRLS

GIRLS START WHISPERING ABOUT ME AND THEN POINT AND LAUGH AND ONCE I HEAR THEM THEY ARE MEAN.

Bullying is Never Right

Personally, I think the people the media effects most are kids, teenagers, and young adults. I remember being 8 and looking at these people thinking that I just wasn’t good enough, and never will be. I cried every day because of the way I looked. I hated going to school, and it was hard to look at myself in the mirror. Now, at 16 years old, I still find it hard to look in a mirror. That is what I grew up around. The people on the magazines never left my head. At 8 I hated myself, at 12 I became depressed, and at 13 I started cutting myself. It’s been 3 and a half years and I find it a struggle each and every day to try and look like those people on TV or in the magazines. Now, at 16 years old, I’m looking back thinking why I ever thought any of that was right. The depression, the cutting, the self-hate has never left me alone. Every day I wonder if I am going to be able to make it. Every day I wonder if this is going to be the day where I relapse.

No, I’m not perfect. There have been times where I have relapsed. There have been nights where I didn’t think I was going to make it through the pain. But, guess what? Those feelings don’t last forever. I made it through those nights. I struggled and I cried, but I made it through. Nothing can take that away from me. The feelings come back. They do. I’m not going to lie. Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve any of this. Sometimes I wonder why this is happening to me. Other times I think I deserve the things that have happened to me. Coming from a broken home, having 2 sisters pass away, having my cousin, who was my best friend, pass away, and being bullied constantly at school because I have never been skinny. Ever. It runs in the family. We can exercise and diet all we want, but we are still going to be bigger. That’s okay. As I have gone through all of these things, I have begun to realize that I’m not perfect. I never have been, and I never will be. And that is okay. That is what makes me who I am. An imperfect, struggling, bigger girl, and a loving person that is going to fight like hell. That’s what we as humans do. We fight. We win. Nothing can ever hold us back.

A lot of people ask why? Why are we here? Why is this happening to me? Why is this my life? What a lot of people don’t know is that you aren’t given anything you aren’t strong enough to handle. Each and every person has strength they didn’t know they have. We live in a world where crying is supposedly a sign of weakness. Where if you break a bone, everyone wants to know how you are doing, but if you have a mental illness, everyone thinks you’re crazy. Having a mental illness isn’t crazy! It happens to millions of people across the world every single day. Sadly, it can start at such a young age. A huge cause of something like depression in kids and teenagers is school bullying. It is so damaging. Especially when someone already has depression. It just makes it worse. Bullying can happen at any age though. In is world, some people are just mean and rotten. The most common reason of bullying is that the bully has something bad going on in their life. So, they feel they need to make other people suffer just as much as they are suffering themselves. Another big reason is because they are being bullied them self. It is so horrible that people feel the need to tear other people down to make themselves feel better. Bullying is never right. Ever!

End bullying!

My name is Taylor. I am 25 years old and studying to achieve my second degree at a University here in Montana. I posted my relationship with my long-time, on/off boyfriend on a social media website. The next day there were two comments on the status from his sister and ex girlfriend encouraging him to dump me. I deleted the comments and messaged the girls letting them know that those comments would not be tolerated on my posts. I received several extremely hurtful messages from both girls. Both girls’ names and profile pictures would be blocked out for privacy purposes. My goal in sharing my story is simply to add another voice to the growing thunderous roar that will become the bullying prevention campaign. Let’s rid the world of bullying forever!

My experience of being bullied.

Ever since primary people had always bullied me because I was from another country. I had no friends and everyone isolated me. I cried and cried but I could not find the courage to tell my parents. The teachers ignored me and did not do anything to support me. Soon it got worse and I was blamed for the things I never did. The teachers did not believe me because my bullies acted differently in front of the teachers than they did with me. Several years later I found the courage to tell my parents where they took action and the police was involved in this too. The bullying had stopped but new people started to bully me too. They made fun of my name called me names made fun of my personality and the way I spoke people also laughed at me and pointed at me. I was always picked last on sport teams despite being good at sports. I would even get isolated and people would ignore me.

People called me retarded but when I told the teachers they got attention from other people and somehow even though I was the victim it was put against me. Rumors were spread about me and nobody was there to support me except my parents. Eventually everything ended as I moved schools in another town to a school where I had actually became popular and had lots of friends. But everything ended once again as everyone moved their separate paths in Secondary school.

I had started in a class which I liked and where I had two friends. But then I was moved to another class for whatever reason I cannot remember. I had made friends with two girls but they eventually found a better friend and started ignoring me and isolating me even spreading rumors about me and laughing at me. I accidentally came upon a friend when I was picked for a school team. She sat beside me and we had a good conversation. From then on as time began to pass we became best friends and would do everything together there was even a time where I had forgotten all of my pain and misery and I was actually starting to enjoy life.

But life did not go so smoothly. Problems came upon me and I made several mistakes in my life once of those where my haters took the advantage over my life. The only important and special person I had in my school was my best friend she was always there for me when I needed her. But eventually my haters came up with a plan to separate us and to leave me all alone in the shadows. By that time I also started to fail my exams and had personal problems I was lost in the world. My biggest mistake yet was to ask my friend for space. I did not want her to follow my footsteps the only thing I wanted for her was to have a good time and to be popular and to make a path for her own self instead of following me everywhere. Rumors were spread about me by my haters and my best friend had taken a liking upon them. I tried fixing my mistakes by apologizing to her but that wasn’t enough my haters would always interfere and she had no time to have a proper talk with me anymore.

But I too wasn’t a saint and I was friends with her ex best friend her enemy but that was only because she left me no choice. I accidentally told her enemy something I shouldn’t have and she got in trouble for it. But she managed to forgive me and we became friends again. But time went by and she started to ignore me even when I was nice to her. Strange occurring also took place in the school. My book had gone missing and someone had wrote my name all over the school furniture. I confronted her but she replied in a way in which I was convinced it was her but she had also hurt my feelings.

I had done my best to look alright through the time she ignored me and hurt me. Day and day again she would ignore me and walk off with my haters. My haters would brag about all the good times they had and how they were becoming best friends. One day I heard two boys calling out my name. They told me that my friend had called me bad names. I was very convinced therefore I confronted her and told her I did not want to be her friend anymore..I even told her I would tell the whole school of her secret but honestly deep within I was never planning to do that. I just felt so hurt being ditched by a person who meant so much to me. My hater pretended to be the hero and told me to never do this to any of her friends or else. My hater told on me and so did my friend.

The principal investigated and found out it was my hater who said those mean things…I asked her to explain to my friend. But she probably explained for her own advantage. I was going to apologize to my friend the following week but I became ill and was not able to attend school. Upon coming back I had discovered that my best friend had teamed up with them completely and they had even had so many great times. In school I do not have any friends and I can call myself a loner. I wish this did not happen and I wish everything was how it used to be but life does not flow smoothly. Upon facing deep depression and hatred from people I eventually started focusing more on school and my after school life. I had joined several clubs outside of school and I took a huge liking to studying.

Eventually little by little I had managed to recover although facing depression and hatred from people I had managed to start sticking up for myself and being able to look on the bright side of life. Life is sure unfair sometimes but there is always a chance for tomorrow. Life is not about failing and falling it’s about being able to stand up and to try again no matter how many times it takes to achieve something. Practice makes perfect and hard efforts are always rewarded.

I may be a loner in school and I may have no friends but that does not mean I have no friends outside of school. I always find something to do when I have nothing to do in school. At break I sometimes tend to study in a classroom. Everyday at break time I go and buy lunch and sit with people. After eating I organize my locker. Sometimes I help out a teacher with errands around the school and things as such. I also like to read books. Although my life is not the best I am very grateful to myself for being able to be there for myself. No matter how tough life gets I will always have the courage to endure it. It’s not always about friends and popularity. It’s about yourself and being able to be who you truly are. I will never give up and I shall always strive to try my best and no matter how long it takes I will always keep trying until I succeed for that is my way of life.

Not All Stories Can Be Summed Up With A Title

Hi. I’ve never really done this sort of thing before, so I don’t know what I’m doing really, but I can just wing it as I go along. I do that a lot.

I’ve been bullied since day two of kindergarten (I made myself throw up on day one so that I would be able to go home. I can throw up on command, it comes in handy more than you think), and it’s changed who I am. I used to not care what people thought, but then again, that’s a little kid thing. But for me, that’s everything. There was this girl in kindergarten named Andrea. She wasn’t exactly horrible, just made me feel bad about myself but not once did I stand down to her, despite my new sense of anxiety of being picked on.

In second grade, a new school, things were mostly fine, if you excluded the scenario in which I asked a popular girl if I could play with her and, please read this with the snootiest voice you can manage, her response was, “You better not.” The mostly okay-ness ended when two girls named Emily and Chloe transferred into my class and tormented me. Emily stole a friend from me and Chloe kicked me down further on the social ladder simply because she could and because we had the same first and last name. By fifth grade, I told a girl by the name of Aubrey how I wished I could just get back at Emily for everything she’s done and everything she’s said. Something about sometimes wishing I could just throw a rock at her slipped my mind, so she picked up a rock and so it began. Humans, in general, usually try to make themselves look perfect to keep up their image, but there you go. There’s that.

As years went by, kids got meaner, as you would naturally expect, and I found myself feeling lost and helpless. Girls stole my shoes, boys would push me onto the ground any chance they got, and anything I said was ignored. I still had most of the same old friends, although one of which decided I wasn’t worth their time and joined the “cool” group with his brother following his lead (although he didn’t become cool).
I’m not going to lie and make my life sadder than what it was, because I had friends, but sometimes people are just sad. I’ve been wondering why I’ve been sad for a long time now and I have a partial answer:

You see, I’m what you would call genderfluid. Of course, my default friends (kids of parent’s friends, there’s two of them and they live right next to me) are religious therefore I can’t tell them. I can’t tell anybody, really, it’s not an easy thing to accept. It feels like I’m being pulled literally into two parts, the long way. I wish I could tell my mom, but have you ever tried telling your mom that everything that she’s ever known about you is pretty much wrong? Just imagine it, “Oh by the way, you only have a daughter, sorry. And bisexual. Oops, right?”

More recently, I was online and a girl spoke to me about wanting to know what killing herself felt like. I couldn’t save her, and her friends were well aware that I was the last one to speak to her, so it was my fault. They told me to kill myself. The funny thing is, that the whole thing started with them accusing one of my friends for telling one of their friends to kill himself and they were all screaming about how you don’t tell someone to kill themselves, ever. Funny how that worked out, isn’t it?

Of course, I won’t try to kill myself because I tried to last year and since then my eyes have been opened so much. There’s so much to do in so little time and I have so little opportunity to do any of it, but I still have my dreams. I want to see the stars, I want to save a species or two, I want to be famous but at the same time just a little nobody living a nobody life with a nobody family that has mountains of potential dreams like mine of their own. I’m a bit of a dreamer, but it leaves me heartbroken. I can dream that I age a few years and marry David Tennant, but that doesn’t make it happen or that it ever will. But still, I refuse to stop dreaming of being on Doctor Who, because sometimes, just sometimes, a dream comes true. I sound a bit obsessed, but those were just two coincidental dreams, one of which impossible and the one just really, really unlikely. Also, I’ve been binge watching Doctor Who for a few weeks.

There wasn’t really a point to this, but there you go. The terribly written life story of Ashe Wood, the sometimes boy who’s scared of being forgotten, and at the same time afraid of being known.

Bye, whoever you are.

Struggle

When I was in 3rd,4th, and 5th grade, I was bullied. I was I the counselor’s office almost everyday. I was afraid to go to class, afraid to go to lunch, afraid to face my bully. Finally one year, my bully stopped. But that wasn’t the end, this year another bully emerged. She would call me a "snake", told me I was "fake", and annouce to the whole entire class, she was irritated at me. I felt so alone and I felt depressed. At one point, I felt like giving up . She would say " THANK GOD THOSE SNAKES ARE GONE!" when me and my friend sat at a different table. It hurt a lot. She still bullies me today. But I’m not letting it get in my way. I’m gonna stay strong and keep my head held high.

A Teen’s Struggle

Everything used to be fine, as fine as a father who does not care and a mother who fell into a depression can get. I live with my grandparents with my sister because my father pretty much got with another girl, and got another girl. This was his 4th child, with 3 girls. He left us, and my mom was depressed. This was when I was too young to understand. I was oblivious to the depression and sadness my mother felt. The house was a mess, and eventually the government made my mom give me and my sister up.

We were lucky our grandparents lived in the same town. I was pretty bad in school, not grades, but my behavior. Then… high school came around. People used to be hard on me when I was in middle school. Things were tough, and I had to focus on school work. Now, things are just plain terrible. I force a smile on my face, and as I get closer to graduation, I grow more disheartened at my classmates. I learnt, once I called them out for calling me weak, that they don’t realize they are even mocking me! This was a depressing moment, because people have called me stupid before. They likely don’t realize what I am going through. I am in special ed, (ADHD and auspbergs, however you spell it) and I don’t fit in with them because they don’t accept me. They are occasionally bullied, I have seen it. Bullying is not common in our school unless you are in special ed. This is just wrong on so many levels.

The bullies don’t punch or kick us physically, but they break our heart by laughing at us. The others may not completely understand, and I don’t either. However, I stand up for my fellow special ed students. If I tell an adult, the adult does nothing. They often say “Stay away from them” even if someone threw a sports drink cap at me. “Stay away from them” they said, and that was the end of the conversation. The irony is not just that I can’t stay away from the students who throw stuff at me, it is the fact that most places say “Report bullying to a teacher” when the teachers can’t do much if they don’t see it unless the bully left a physical mark.

Often the only mark they leave is a scar in your heart, which is impossible to see. This lazy belief has to stop if bullying is to be stopped. Though I know there are others who would love to be me, because they have a life much worse than mine, the life I live is difficult but not impossible. That is my struggle, a struggle to defeat bullying while protecting the only others who understand from this same sadness. A struggle to keep going on with my unknown fate. A struggle to keep strong. All of this with a childish heart and some hope.

Perfect

I’m just a speck, in reality, just a speck surrounded by all of the dirt, all of the water, all of stardust and broken dreams, and all of the other specks.
Why does it matter what the other specks think if we’re all small and insignificant in the world?
We’re what’s important to us, no need for anyone else’s negative opinion but we still take it in anyway, no matter what we’re told.
I could write a thousand words telling why not to listen, but we’re only human wanting to be perfect to everyone.
Forget the standards, go be your own kind of perfect.

Don’t Cry

When I was in middle school, this group of girls would always talk about me. I never even knew why, but one day, I went up to them and asked why they did. They didn’t respond, so I went to get help from my friend. My friend didn’t talk to me, or even look at me. Turns out, those girls spread a rumor about me, the rumor was that I had said something about all my friends, and ever since then, none of those friends have ever talked to me. Every time something like this happened to me, I just didn’t speak. The more I spoke, the more rumors spread. I then had my parents cyber-school me. But then, I was cyber bullied. They left rude and disgusting comments on my pictures and videos. I then decided to delete my social media apps. After that, I thought it was over, but it wasn’t. My parents decided that I was ready to go back to school, and that was a big mistake. By then, the group of girls were well known throughout the entire school, and if you spoke up, or even said anything about them, you were bullied from that day on. But I was done with them, I couldn’t take it anymore. It was just to hard. I had to do something. I went up to them and told them to stop. And to think about what they’re saying. I was sent to the school consular to talk about my "Problems With Being Social" And by then, I just didn’t care, I ignored everybody, I was alone, and nobody helped, or even saw me when I needed them the most. I never told my parents, or brothers, or sisters, I just kept it to myself, and never spoke.
Because The Only Thing That Could Be Said, Was Help.

A girl who can’t be herself

I have a family of 8 siblings and I am one of the middle child and I am the only one with ADHD and other health problems and everybody would tell me to be myself and I would be okay I will and when I would be myself I would be bullied because of my ADHD and other health problems. I have a group of friends who if they saw someone bullying me they would get in between me and the other person and tell them to go away but then I moved and its been hard for me to find friends like that where I am now. I have been thinking of cutting for a very long time since I was 7 actuality and I listening to DEMI LOVATO songs on the internet because that is the only way that I can listen to her songs and listening to her songs I relate to every single one of them listening to the songs makes me feel like I should stay and helps me to be myself and not to be so depressed. Listening to DEMI’S songs makes me stronger and makes me want to tell someone about some of my health problems that nobody knows about but I can’t tell anybody when I try to tell someone nothing comes out of my mouth. The reason I am still here is because of DEMI LOVATO and my pets if it wasn’t for them I probably wouldn’t be here today.