Bullying impacts every single child at least once in their lifetime. My story, it wasn’t just once. I’m not the skinniest or prettiest girl around, I was innocent and apparently, that means I was a target. At first, I tried to shrug off the hurtful words. Family was there and my imagination blocked me for a few years. When my family moved to a townhouse at age 12, that’s when I couldn’t hide anymore. The harassment skyrocketed. At that age, I didn’t know how to handle my emotions. The tears wouldn’t stop and I wish now I would’ve had gone to someone. There’s no way to stop it, there’s no way to go back and change what has happened. I need to live in the present and my experience with bullying has changed my view on life.

Being bullied is experienced differently for every person. There are more severe cases and then there are less severe. My experience wasn’t super extreme, what I mean by that is physical abuse. There were on three times that I can remember where it got physical for me. I had ice thrown at my head, I got punched in the gut, and I had pop cans thrown at me. Never did I retaliate though. I think that’s impacted me the most today. No matter how bad it got, I never attacked back. Some may see that as weak, but it’s strong. Rage is temptation. It’s so tempting to punch someone back, throw something back. It takes strength to take the beatings. It takes strength to tell another person. That’s something I never had the ability to do. I always feared it would backlash. I worried telling my parent would lead to more bullying, which in most cases, is true.

There is no easy way to explain what it feels like to be bullied for long periods of time. What it feels like to get negative terms thrown at you like knives. Like I said before, every experience is different. Mine, I was bullied for being overweight mostly, I was a weird kid as well. Most people can relate to the weight problem though. I love food, always have, always will. Since I was overweight for a pre-teen, the name calling became more and more clever. I was called fat, cow, whale, marshmallow, ugly, etc. Those words hurt me, they stung every single time I heard them. Made it so I didn’t want to go outside my own house. I did anyway because I wanted to hang out with friends. What hurt the most was the people who saw it happening. The people who did nothing to stop it. The harassing got so bad, the bullies would yell at me in school. My teacher saw it happened. He did nothing. He did not ask me if I was okay or if I needed help. Just watched. I don’t hold it against him today, he was kind of an ass anyway.

Most would think I would seek revenge on those who treated me poorly. That my goal would be to give my two cents to the bullies. What good would that do though? They can say sorry and move on with their life. What closure would my stubborn nature get? No, I didn’t want to get even. I wanted to be free. If I were to live in my past, I would be trapped there. Reliving my past over and over until I just crashed. I didn’t want that. I wanted to prove that I am better than those who tore down my being. I am better than them. They are still bullies while I try to build people up. Unfortunately, there is no way to stop bullying. Children learn hatred from family and even the media, things one can’t fully control. There are ways to help minimize bullying in public. One can go to a teacher, one can go to another adult. That can work. The most effective way is to stand up. Speak out and be loud. No one will listen to you if you’re quiet. Make sure that harasser knows that you saw what he or she did and that they should knock it off.

The main point of this spiel is how my view on life has changed from bullying. All the hurtful words that were thrown at me hurt, hurt so badly. It broke down whatever barrier I had built and I was defenseless. Looking back on this I wonder why I was in that state of mind. Why did I let those words that I knew were false get to me so much? I don’t really have an answer, it just did.I learned to embrace what was unique about myself. Accept that I can only change is I want to change. As of right now, I'm happy with who I am.

The moral oral of this article is, be nice to people. Easier said than done, but really think about it. Everyone is different. Separate views, cultures, religions, sexualities, and genders. That’s the beauty of the world. If all humans were the same, earth would be pretty boring. Embrace individuality. Believe it or not, you’re different as well.