Real Teens Speak Out

Getting bullied

Hi. I’m 12 years old. I’m not a teenager as you can see. I get bullied at school sometimes, but the ones that bully me the most are my friends and my best friend. Because of that I hurt myself. My best friend knows that but she still bullies me. In fact when she found out she started bullying me more. Well it’s not the first time that happened to me. My best friend in kindergarden would call me pregnant because I had a belly. I started thinking of suicidal thoughts when I was 9 years old. And every year got worse for me. Summer is especialy hard because I don’t go to school. I don’t like to go to school but my classmates are there for me so i feel happy. Drawing and listening to music just makes go away from reality and into another universe where it’s calm so that’s why I spend a lot of time drawing in my free time. I still get bullied but I’m happy because I have my classmates there for me.

My life so far…

Hi my name is R and I’m 13 years old,
My life has was really difficult I got bullied everyday and I have autism. People would say horrible stuff too me people called me ugly,fat,sket,clapped,slag,tissues,Witch, plastic and more. I got beaten up a few times people threatened me all the time. People have even waited outside of school to bully me they also bullied me on social media. I told my mum,dad and teachers my mum and dad went to the school loads of times to get the teachers to have a word with the people that were bullying me. The teachers didn’t do anything I started feeling depressed,uncomfortable,isolated,alone and scared I started self harming also I didn’t come into school sometimes because I was upset and scared to go in. I was getting worser and worser. eventually my mum and dad decided to put me In a different school. I’m much happier in my new school I’ve blocked all of the bully’s. My self esteem is very low still and I don’t like going out by myself. But I will get there. It will soon be okay believe in yourself don’t let anyone bring you down they are jealous of you. Make sure you tell someone if people are being horrible to you xx

“Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.”(LIE)

I have been bullyed my whole time through elementary and JR. High school, now going to be High school. I have dealt with many different types,of bullying. I have been threatened about being hit, stabbed,and even killed. I have been pushed around many times where I even thought about taking my life… Loseing everything I had, just because of them. The bullies. I am girl. The only thing that made me different from one is that I am a tom boy… I am not one of the popular kids that have 5 pounds of make up on… I show my true self. I am always nice to others. I just have had no friends… Or true friends… They always picked on me and made me feel an inch high… I have been kicked and slapped my other boys and girls but I do not hit back… I never would think of myself that way. Now I am going to go to high school where more await for me… It dose not help that I am short and slightly overweight. So now I deal with more to come that just being threatened.. I may be in one of the situations I stated above… I would never hurt anyone… I have never bullied since I know what it feels like. When I stand up for others, it makes me get bullied more. I do not know what to do… I am feeling super nervous… They say “stick and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me” but…. This is not true. It hurts like a pin staving through the heart. My name is D. I have never bullied, or hurt anyone. I just hope I will have better years in high school than my other years…

Survivor

I have been bullied. I witnessed bullying. I stand up to bullies. I am strong- I am a survivor. You are too! Stand up today.

The day where I was enough was enough

I’m 15 and I’ve been a victim of cyber bullying for a while now with threatening comments on instagram and text messagesit feels like I can’t escape from it. You are supposed to feel safe at home right well with this all happening I don’t feel safe anywhere. I try to be mindful of bullying cases around the world on the news but sometimes it is to hard to handle and times like this is when I just start crying.
I had a cousin who took her own life over cyber bullying and that terrifies me. It has been 4 months since my cousin took her own life and I still haven’t gotten over it. You start to feel like the world is going to revolve around the media. In Australia around 8 young kids attempt to take their life and it was a success every week, we need to put a stop to it before it gets worst. Life is pain but you just have to live through the pain.
The bullying has gotten really bad to the point where I had to start to see the psychologist. They’ve been saying hurtful comments like, nobody likes you, you are so dum go to hell, life would be better without you, Your so disgusting and ugly go and die, So happy we got rid of your cousin she was nobody and so are you, Kill yourself, Fake, Loser, You don’t belong here you belong in hell, Get a life, Your disgusting inside and out what a waste of skin you are, Who do you think you are ugly face. This is just some of the hurtful words. This has impacted my life and stayed with me, there is no escape like bullying at school. These messages haunt me and I’m losing sleep cause of it.
WORDS HURT!

There’s help out there!

I’m a school counselor now for over 10 years. In the 5th grade two kids picked on me for a long time, i never told anyone until i just couldn’t take it anymore. I was like a raging bull, screaming, throwing things and just acting crazy. I remember my mom and the teacher talking about what happened and that’s when i told them what these two kids were doing to me. For the most part i was a quiet child, minded my business and never bothered anyone. I had and still have an awkwardness that for what ever reason follows me, i still have to work on that when i meet new people or i have to face administration. So i guess that’s why these kids targeted me…. After my outburst i never saw those two again… and i was oh so happy. I realized then and i realize now how important it is to tell someone, anyone, friend, family, teacher!!! You don’t have to deal with this alone. I am constantly blowing up the spot of bullies and there followers!!! and though it may seem like nothing gets done, believe that someone one is talking or has spoke to that parent or child in your defense…. I tell my kids to keep coming to me even if they think i’m busy i want them to know i am here for them. And in the case that i am not here i have very friendly colleagues who are open to hearing your story. Please don’t feel like you alone in this, bullying isn’t anything new it happens and has happened to so many of us and we have survived and it has made us stronger in life!!!

Life is hard, but will it all change?

For the past 9 years i have been bullied. I have been to 7 schools and never really stayed at a school long enough to make great friends. Right now i am at my 7th school. The bullying just seems to follow me everywhere. I have attempted suicide 5 times and it doesn’t help anything. So please don’t ever try suicide. Life sucks yes, but it will only change if you make it. You are the only one that can change YOUR life around. Be yourself and dis the haters.
Thanks

Picking Up the Pieces

Bullying isn’t “easy.” It’s not something that should be dismissed. I’m glad to see there are people taking it more seriously. I was “too” everything. Too poor- I was on-and-off homeless between the ages of four and seven. Too tall- I was always tall for my age. Too thin- I was underweight most of my childhood since I got taller faster than i could gain weight. Too smart- I was capable of reading newspapers as a first grader. Too loud in elementary school. Too shy from middle school on when I hit puberty and it became much less able to easily get past the bullying and I grew anxious and realized “maybe if I become invisible and not noticed they’ll leave me alone.” My clothes were “ugly” and “wrong” because I was poor. I was always called ugly. The worst of it was my teeth. My teeth look off-white or maybe very slightly yellowish now but that’s a massive improvement that came only with a lot of so-called “cosmetic” dental work. I have a condition called fluorosis. For those who do not know what fluorosis is, it’s basically the beginnings of fluoride poisoning. Overexposure to fluoride as a small child makes your teeth grow in brown and misshapen. And what do parents and teachers like to tell kids in regards to the teeth? “If you don’t brush your teeth, they’ll turn brown and rotten.” People didn’t like my voice either.

It came in many forms. Mostly verbal and emotional torment. In middle and high school, cyberbullying. Harassing IMs from fake accounts. Nasty anonymous comments on my Livejournal. People never wanted to be at the same table as me or next to me on the bus. People would say “ew” whenever they saw me, a reference to the “bad hygiene” they thought I had because of my fluorosis. They’d steal my belongings and my homework. They’d mock me over my mom not having my car and for not having the same toys other kids had because my mom couldn’t afford them, and later on, over not having name brand clothes. They’d pelt me with balls in gym class. I wasn’t particularly coordinated in elementary and middle school so gym class was a nightmare.

I had a very tiny number of friends. And my bullies did everything they could to sabotage those. They would bully my friends for being kind to me. They would tell my friends they wouldn’t have any friends but me if they kept talking to me and that everyone would hate them too. They’d act friendly to some of my friends but say things like “you have to stop being friends with her or I won’t hang out with you and do X, Y and Z with you.” They would lie and tell my friends I was badmouthing them to try to make them angry at me.

Don’t let my smile fool you, even if I have hit a point post-dental treatment where I no longer fear smiling with my mouth open,the bullying has left me with a LOT of confidence issues. If I were to say I never struggle now as an adult, I’d be lying. Bullying has affected me in ways I still cannot put to words. Other than the very few friends I’ve had since childhood that stuck by me even when everyone else hated me, even though people gave them a hard time for being nice to me- I have an extremely difficult time trusting people. I overanalyze interactions, especially online, and withdraw if I pick up on even the slightest sign that something might be “wrong”. I need a lot more reassurance than people seem willing to give that I’m not being “annoying” or “hard to deal with” since I’ve heard my whole life that I was annoying and not someone people want around, that “too much of you is hazardous to the health,” whatever that even means. Hear that kind of stuff enough, you start to believe it, no matter how much you’re told to love yourself and that you must accept yourself first before others accept you.

On the other hand? I know certain things about how not to treat people. I know that taking part in direct, overt public bashing is a very messed up thing to do to a person. I very rarely do even “friendly insults” to friends, especially online- I know how easily they can affect someone who has dealt with those from bullies that used them to hurt and to make a person feel insignificant and worthless. I know that if I take a long time to reply to someone in messaging that I speak to regularly, they could still use reassurance. You know that you can endure a lot and you become a very mentally tough person in some ways- you have to be as a survivor. You learn to be understanding of a broad range of points of view and to get along with people very different from yourself. You end up with an eclectic range of friends.

In conclusion to what became a long essay- and sadly actually STILL the abridged version as I left a lot of the more graphic stuff out, to all those enduring bullying currently- it will become a thing of the past one day. Even if that day is far off. Even if you have to wait until graduation or even a few months past graduation, it will end, the ordeal. And if you encounter a toxic workplace echoing post bullying as I did once? You have more control in that situation than you did as a student. You gain much more control as an adult to not repeat what you’re suffering now. You’ll get through this, even though it is actual mental torture right now. And there are, or at least will at some future point be, people that care about you. Keep holding on. You matter.

my bullying story

Hello my name is Brittany i have been bullied for most of my life but i don’t have all day to tell it to you but here is some advice for those of you that are getting bullied and think that you are worthless and nothing well let me tell you something no matter what you situation is you are not worthless and you are very special each and everyone of you if you weren’t then you wouldn’t be here. please please please please do not ever commit suicide if you do then it will show you that you aren’t strong i can say this because i have thought of killing myself several times and each time i think to myself do not do this you are special and there are people out there that love, admire and care for you go out there and find them most importantly love yourself and have faith and pray and everything will be OK.

Cyber bullied after a day of fun

I had invited a group of friends over on a Saturday day. They had posted videos of us on Snapchat. Later that day my ex best friend had seen me having fun with other friends and decided to tell her friends that I was talking behind their back. They had then each texted me in their separate Snapchat accounts. They had texted me that I’m a stupid snitch, lesbian, atheist, etc… they had also told me that they hated me and threatened to jump me. It was a horrible night after that, which had also affected me for the next several days. I was encouraged to listen to close family members and friends who told me to just ignore it. I eventually did, but other teenagers might not which may lead to bad decisions such as depression, anxiety/stress, or even suicide.