When you start to become an adult and really grow into who you are supposed to be, no one wants to looks back to when they felt so small and insignificant.

However, every person who has ever been bullied or belittled will remember those moments all a little too well. Looking back, I have a few things I’d like to say to these people who made me feel this way.

Did you really gain anything by calling me names?

Did I ever actually provoke you or do anything to make you shed so many crude remarks upon me? Did you know that your words and your actions didn’t just remain in that moment, but carried over to the tears that were left on my pillows at night? Did you know that in every decision that seemed a little out of my comfort zone to make, your words would echo in my ears, enabling me from doing something for myself?

I bet you didn’t know that, because I bet you only ever thought about yourself. But it doesn’t matter about what you should have known. It matters what you should know now.

I am here. I am alive. I am striving. I am chasing after my dreams and I am not letting anything or anyone stand in my way. I am strong, I am confident, and I have found what matters. Me.

Yes, your words still linger, but they no longer defy me. If anything, they drive me to my success knowing that I am anything but what you labeled me to be. No thanks to you, I found my voice and my strength to live out my passions and to be exactly who I am.