Real Teens Speak Out

Cast overboard

To the teachers, principal, and administration of our Jr. High school:

You know how Benjamin Franklin wrote all sorts of proverbs like “a penny saved is a penny earned”? Well I had written my own.

“The one who rocks the boat will be cast overboard”

Every time we dealt with harassment and cruelty, we “rocked the boat”. But alas, we were the ones punished for it and ultimately nothing was done.
“Oh they’re just words”.
“Just ignore them and they’ll stop”
“Oh s/he’s just lashing out.”
“Oh I had a bully once and I just did this one-time-situational-fix and they went away.”
“Have you ever heard the story of The Boy Who Cried ‘Wolf’?”
“The worst kind of bully is a crybully. Don’t be a crybully who cries just to get others in trouble.”
Every time. We were given some variation of those phrases. At best we were told “We’ll look into it”, but we all know that was just another canned expression made to get us to stop bothering them. The most that ever came from a “We’ll look into it” was an ineffectual reminder and never any effective punishment.
They picked on us because we were “Troublemakers”. If you picked on a “Troublemaker”, you could usually get away with it – because the adults will always assume they’re some high-maintenance crybaby calling out because our precious little feelings were hurt by a fly on the wall. In fact, you could often blame it on them.

Bullies are not stupid. They know who to pick on. If they pick on fellow “Troublemakers”, the teachers are less inclined to come over. They know that if they touch the “Goldenboy”, the teachers will practically teleport right to the spot and yank them into suspension faster than you can say “Stop”. As a result? Many of the “Goldenboys” became the worst bullies. Because it was always their word versus a troublemaker’s word. our reputations were stained in your eyes.

One time, we had a bullying seminar, and you said what was one of the most callous things I could ever imagine.
“If you don’t speak up about it, that must not have bothered you that much to begin with.”
What a hunk of burning trash.

We did speak up.
Like the person who rocked the lifeboat to warn you of the saboteur on board, you tossed us overboard. Every time. We learned that if we remained silent, we’d only just get more torment.

This is why we are silent.
We speak, but it never gets an acknowledgement.
So we remain silent.
After all, why bother speaking to someone who won’t listen?

Sincerely,
the “Troublemakers”.

Video spread.

So, I had this friend. Atleast I thought she was my friend. When in actual fact she was the reason for my suffering. Here’s my bullying story.
I was 14 years old. A happy teenager for the most part. I had just started this new school year and saw this girl alone in class. Initially, I felt sorry for her, so I invited her to come sit with me and my other friend. Me and this girl became really close. Best friends. We did everything together, I trusted her with everything and anything, which was my downfall.
One day, I was around her house after school. We were messing around playing dress up. She handed me an object and suggested it would be funny for me to pretend to do sexual things with this object. So I jokingly, I pretended to do sexual things with this object. I was young, things like that were funny to a 14 year old, y’know. We laughed so hard. She suggested she should film it. I was hestitant at first, but she insisted it would be so funny to look back on I guess. So, I let her film it. The video was no longer than 30 seconds, containing no nudity, but that’s all it took for 2 years of pain. We laughed about the video, and I didn’t have any thoughts of the video going else where, because I trusted her.
A few days past, I completely forgot about the video at this point. I remember clearly after school I was talking to ‘kate’, before I told her I was going for a nap. 2 hours later, I woke up to a phone call from her frantic telling me the video was on Facebook. Initially, I was confused, ‘what video?’. She told me that on her way home from school, a guy on the bus got hold of her phone and found the video. She claimed that he had ’emailed’ the video to himself. My heart began to race, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I felt faint and sick to my stomach. She told me to go on Facebook. I’ll never ever forget this. The first thing that came up on my screen was the video. Top of my newsfeed. I was absolutely mortified. Y’see I wasn’t exactly popular at my school, I was the quiet girl. So, for people to see this, and not know who I am, they didn’t see this as a joke. No one was ever meant to see it. If only I had known.
People began sharing, liking, commenting on this video of me. I was devestated, I felt completely broken. I stared at my computer screen. Watching comment after comment about how ‘disgusting’, ‘ugly’, ‘slutty’ I was. I was called every name under the sun, by many many people. My world was just completely flipped upside down. I was getting messages of abuse by this point too, some from people I didn’t even know. It had only been up for a matter of hours. People were commenting not only about me, but how weird my family were. That broke my heart even more. I messaged the people who put it on their Facebook. I asked them, how did you get this?! I was frantic. Begging them to delete it. They wouldn’t tell me anything. I spend that whole night crying.
The next day, I remember it was a Monday morning. I couldn’t bare the thought of going into school that morning. I didn’t go in that day. I genuinely didn’t feel well, amongst what had happened the previous night.
Tuesday morning, I found the courage to go into school. My god, I’ll never forget it. I walked into class. I’m pretty sure everyone in the class was shouting abuse at me, at least that’s what it felt like. I remember feeling so alone, never felt so alone in my life. I remember thinking, what’s the point of me living right now. I would be better of dead than facing all this abuse. I remember thinking, wow if there really is someone up there, they sure as hell don’t like me.
From the moment that video was posted online. My life changed. I became severely depressed. I started self harming. I couldn’t tell any adults about this. I mean, how on earth could I explain this to an adult. They wouldn’t understand, is what I thought.
So, maybe 2 months had past. Still being bullied every single day. Halfway through the school day, a teacher walked past me. She told me, you have to come with me right now. I was confused, she was a science teacher so I presumed it was about that class. She took me into a small printer room. I’ll never forget. She told me that there was a video going round of me on the school, the SCHOOL computers and on multiple students memory pens. I felt weak, dizzy, I burst into floods of tears. I couldn’t believe it. My own teachers had seen this video. How humiliating. She then proceeded to tell me that the video was on YouTube with hundreds of views. I honestly wanted to die on the spot there and then. Bits of the conversation were blurry. But the last thing she said was your parents have been told. There are no words to physically express how much pain I felt in this moment of time. She talked to me like it was my own fault, like I had sent this around. I did this to my self. I suppose I did do this to myself. I walked out that room. Heartbroken, crying like I’ve never cried before. I walked into assembly, everyone was staring at me. I walked all the way to the front where my class was sitting. 5 minutes in, I couldn’t bare it anymore I ran out assembly. Balling. One girl came after me. She didn’t care how I felt, I know she wanted to know what was going on. But at this point, I would have done anything for someone to listen to me. I spend the rest of that day, crying. Every lesson I was crying. Not one person other than that girl asked me if I was ok. It was as though I deserved it. This was hands down one of the worst days of my life. I couldn’t live anymore.
My life slowly began to get better. I became stronger. I learnt to ignore the bullying until they got bored. Yes, it took what seemed like forever but eventually it went away. I honestly, had no support at this time. I did it all on my own.
After a few years went by, I asked one of the people why they posted it on their Facebook and how they obtained the video. I wasn’t nice about it. I wanted to know the truth. I told him he was one of the people who ruined my life at that time. He actually apologised, but what shocked me even more is where he told me he got it from. He told me that ‘kate’, my best friend at the time had sent it to him and multiple people. He also told me she was the one who sent it to the guy on the bus. Not only that, she was the one who posted it on YouTube.
I couldn’t but could believe it. Luckily me and this girl were not friends by the time I found this out. But my heart still hurts abit. To think I trusted someone so much. She was my best friend. Yet, she was the one who did this to me. I still have anxiety about people filming me or posting videos of me. I don’t think this will ever go away.
Looking back, I wish from the start I would have told someone. An adult figure, who could have sorted it out and stop the spreading of this video. Explain my side before the bullies could tell their version or events. I wish I even went to the police.
This, is my bullying story.

A year and a half of my school life destroyed

I was bullied at the age of 15 because I trusted the wrong person. Me and a girl I was friends with shared sensitive images, which she ended up sharing with other people. For a year and a half I was threatened online and had been called horrible words, I will always remember what they said to me. The worst was the boyfriend, who sent me death threats, telling me that I should be 6ft under and I belong in hospital. Like I said I will always remember everything, but I’ve learned from my mistakes, maybe now I find it a tiny bit hard to trust people. I know that when someone is bullying you, tell an adult straight away, for me I told my older sister. Always tell the truth if it may be embarrassing, but its just good to be honest.

two years ago I moved to a christian private school. you would think that a christian school wouldn’t have bullying but it does. I’m different from a lot of people i’m more of a hippy than anything else and I always got teased for being too nice or caring for someone when they had a situation that they couldn’t do anything about. but this last year everyone started to call me mamma k. I hated it I would tell them to stop and they never did to this day they still call me that but now i’m over it and I dont care what they call me because being a nice person is better than being a bad person.

Bullied because I’m nice

In the beginning of 7th grade I was dating this guy (wasn’t really dating because middle school relationships aren’t really real) and I thought I really liked him, it had been at least 4 months and things were going really good. One day we were walking in the hall together and I saw a sixth grader and started talking to him because he had my favorite teacher, after we left I made a comment about him being cute (in a baby way) and he got mad at me… for no Reason! After that he told me that we were over because I cheated on him and I was a liar, it really messed me up, all of his friends called me names and many other things, I would get texts saying I was disgusting, but all I did was start a conversation and call a little kid cute. Stuff got really bad and I would cry for hours on end for weeks because I lost my best friends and no one wanted to talk to me because I was gross. It got better after a few weeks and I made new and better friends.

trans

They called me fat and Dumb and how i was really a boy but that’s not how I feel inside my parents accepted me I don’t know why they bully me because I am trans. I just want to feel normal at school a few months past and I stood up to them i am happy now but it will always be my past and what I had to go through to be where i am today

A girl

i was bullied in middle because i was fat a girl called me fat chicken legs and she said i was going to kill everyone if i stepped on the ground i found strength in myself when my friend told me that is not true and i was worth more…

Cyberbullied

I was cyberbullied when I was in eight and ninth grade. I was harassed through texts and emails. I had death threats sent to me, and people accusing me of the cause of their own suicide. Messages saying that I should go kill myself, but then I wasn’t even worth it for the funeral. Oh the verbal abuse! There grew a point where their toxic words were like venom. It was a drug that I could never not read. For a while, I didn’t understand why. Why was it me that was being bullied? What did I do to deserve this? How could I fix this? It took a lot of time to learn how to be myself again. Through it all, I learned that we choose what we listen to, whether it is good or bad. I am now eager to graduate in a few months and am here to say that life, as cruel and relenting it can be, does have its blissful moments between its tempests.

So I live in Missouri and I’m 16 now but when I was in elementary school I was bullied every day on the bus and at school a boy who lives down the road from me would draw pictures of how he would blow my house up or bring a knife to school and show it to me and say he was gonna kill me with it. Well when I told the teachers they never did anything about it so I told my mom well she went to the principal but it didn’t really make an impact I still got bullied every day and threatened with the knife. This continued up till middle school then he would blame stuff on me and I would end up in trouble at one point I even contemplated killing myself. I got so tired of it I ended up on a contract with the principal at one point for something he did he always found a way to talk himself out of it. It continued on into high school but nothing really ever changed I still get bullied sometimes and I even resorted to cutting myself for a while. But eventually, I stopped.The boy still bullies me and threatens me but it is nowhere near as bad as it once was. high school has taught me to just paste on a smile cause teachers can’t stop everything. I’m a junior in high school right now and will be done soon so then I won’t have to worry about him anymore.

Post-Traumatic stress

My 6th grade year was terrible I was in a different country for a sabbatical year because my dad was working there. So basically I start school and everything is going ok until a girl in our class tried to kill herself becuase of these two kids and they made derogatory comments about her and mocked how she spoke and spread random whisper campaigns around to make her feel bad. As soon as I noticed this I took a stand against them and spoke publicly and said that what they did was wrong. At the start they just harassed me, but then it grow to physically assualting me and stabbing me with pencils and threatening to break my arm. Then they robbed me while holding me at knife point. I tried returning to my school which was very nice with great peers, but I had at that point serious depression and after three months I tried to kill myself. I ended up at the hospital for a week and a half where I would be released after promising to attend an outpatient program. I did and am doing much better but even though I hang out with friends and am back at school I still feel like a piece of me is missing. I recently helped a girl who was going through a lot of the same stuff that I went through only she went through it in the states at my old school. It really triggered me but I worked through it. I’m basically trying to say there’s always light at the end of the tunnel just push forward.