Hello I'm a victim of bulling. It happened at my now former church and was recently threatened. The bully came to the church and made the announcement there to all whom were there and I was told via facebook by a member there. I am filing a police report and have let my friends know (outside of church) and so everyone is on alert. I am still crying but am giving all my fear to God and keeping my faith that I will be safe. The threat was he is going to hire someone to do physcial  harm to me.  This isn't the first time he's been a bully towards me. I've done nothing to him to deserve this. I have an eleven yr. old dog that needs me and I need him and he doesn't want to lose me and is staying close to my side. He senses something isn't right and he is right. Thank you and God bless.

Growing up, I was a larger girl. Though I wasn't fat. I had more muscle than average girls. I played soccer and had fun doing it. By the age of 10, I had to stop playing soccer because the bones in my legs had torques. I had twisted bones, and soccer made my legs hurt too much. I have two brothers, so we used to play outside during the summers. By the time I was in grade 6, I was being called fat, ugly, stupid. I cried a lot that year. The tears seemed to never leave my face very long. In addition to being bullied at school, my brothers called me the same names.

In grade 6, I joined the local karate class. I took karate for 2 years and then stopped because I wanted to have a fresh start in high school. I promised myself that I would get back to it. But I never did. So in the 7th grade, I was still being called those names. I was one of the fastest girl runners at my school, and I out-ran more than half of the boys in my class. I loved track that year. I went to regional track competitions with my school for 3 years (6,7,8). We didn't manage to place, but we did our best and made it to the finals every year I went. By 8th grade, the names never stopped coming my way. They cut me like knives, and I will never forget the moments I spent outside in the corner alone at recess. Or the times I ran to the girl's washroom during class so no one would see me cry.

Throughout elementary school, I was picked on by the same boys every year. No matter how much I tried to tell the principal and my parents, nothing stopped. This school I was bullied at was Catholic. Isn't bullying supposed to be prevented? What did I do wrong that justice wasn't served? I talked to the teachers, school council and even my parents. Nothing! It was the worse time of my life in elementary school.

In grade 8, the names still slapped me in the face. I spent most recesses alone and suffering with the questions of living or dying. I didn't want to be left alone. I wanted friends to hang out with, people to talk to. The teachers would see me alone and ask if I was okay. I lied and said yes. No matter how many times I prayed to someone out there, I was never answered. My hope in humanity dwindled. At grade 8 graduation, I believed that high school would be a new beginning to me. It would give me a chance to meet new people and make new friends. I so desperately wanted to leave my old life behind me.

It was finally grade 9. After being in school for a couple of weeks, I made new friends, and connected again with old friends from 4th grade. It was the end of September that I heard that dreaded word that I loathed the most. Fat. Someone called me that name, and from that point forward, I starved myself. The months of first semester dragged on slowly. I began to thin away to a pile of bones. I started at 140lbs and ended up down to 89lbs by the time February came. I was sick, weak, and tired all the time. I exercised endlessly after school. I threw my food out, and hid it in my room where no one went. March came, and I was admitted into the hospital.

On February 16th, 2011, I went to the local walk in clinic. They did a blood test and checked my vital signs. March 7th came and the hospital in the city called our house while I was at school. They told my parents that if they didn't take me to the hospital, I was going to die. Right after school, I "ate," got changed, and packed my things. I ended up staying in emergency for 1 day. I was told that I had to drink juice. Because I was extremely sick, I didn't want to. The doctor told me that if I didn't, I was goingEto die. My heart rate was 35 beats per minute. That's 3 times less than what it should have been. The nurses told me that I could go into cardiac arrest any minute. My parents left at 10pm that night because the drive home was an hour. One of the nurses let me use a DVD player that the floor had and put in Glee for me. I watched 2 episodes before I fell asleep. After that night in the Emergency department, I was moved.

After several months in the hospital, I was discharged and free to use the tools I learned through the rehabilitation process. That summer, I began exercising which was too soon for me. I began to over exercise again. That point, I was passing out frequently. I was then sent to hospital for the second time. What really happened that set me off? August 16th, I was shopping with my aunt and cousins. I didn't want to go, but they wouldn't leave me alone. In the mall, I saw thinner girls, and it made me upset. I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be thin. That evening, we went out for dinner. I ordered a salad and ate that. I wasn't full, but there was no way that I was going to eat like a pig in public.

During my grade 10 year, I passed all of my exams with 80's (A's). I wish I could say that grade 10 was good. It wasn't. This one girl named Chloe bullied me endlessly. I began to cut that year. I became friends with the new girl named Christina. Christina told the teachers what she was doing to me, and she comforted me when I was extremely down. Christina, if you ever see this, thank you so much for keeping her away from me when you could. Chloe would throw paper air planes at me in math, talk to me behind my back, laugh when I entered the room, and called me names. My cutting started that year. I loved the feeling of pain. Cutting was a way for me to cope with life. Healthy or not, I did it.

Today, I am no longer bullied by anyone. I'm in the 12th grade, and I'm excited for June graduation. I'm excited to go off to University and live a life that I lead for myself.
Believe me, there is hope! Speak out! If at first you're not heard, speak louder! Shout if you have to!

Because of those speaking out in my old Elementary school and my High School about bullying, there are now laws in place to stop bullying. That's a great feat! If you don't have laws against bullying in your local schools, demand them to be put in place. Everyone deserves to be protected.

We can make a stand against bullying if we speak out! Words mean more if you have the passion to support them. Without that passion, words are empty.

It all started when I had to switch school districts in the middle of 4th grade. When I walked into the classroom of my new school I instantly knew that nobody liked me. Like I wasn't welcome there. This girl I could tell didn't like me. She bullied me 4th and 5th grade. But, when we got to middle school. 6th grade she left me alone because I had a new bully. He. Would shove me into lockers. Sometime so hard that I could barely breath. Well, the girl but came back for 7th and 8th grade. Then, my mom got involved and got a "restraining order" against her for my first year of high school. But, that didn't stop another bully from doing anything. Some guy started bullying me and his first words to me were, "You should hang yourself because nobody likes you." When I went home, that night, was my first Suicide attempt. I tried it two more times that year. I also self-harmed. Now, I'm in 11th grade. You'd thing that I'm doing good because I I'm typing this on the website, right? Well, I still struggle with self-harm and suicidal thoughts...

We moved every few years. Every move brought the hope for something different but usually was more of the same: being picked on. One place I remember smiling faces and kids saying I was "swell" as they used their hand to gesture the word by holding it out then making it go limp as if to have someone kiss the top of it. I soon learned the hard way that it wasn't good to be "swell!" High school was a blur of bullying including being asked to a dance but it was a big joke. I am not sure how other kids make it through bullying without having friends. Luckily, wherever I lived, I always had a few close friends. Friends can help get you through anything. I don't think I ever told my parents, especially the experiences earlier in life. It would not surprise me that many of the parents do not know about their children's experiences with bullying until it has already gone on quite a while...

It all started in 5th grade, the girl i sat next to on the bus kept giving me head lice for a month straight. When one of the kids next to me saw the lice in my hair, he shouted it loudly in front of everyone. That hurt so much that I actually ran out of the room crying. That is how i spent my entire 5th grade years, being made fun of because I had lice. I was called "Bug Head" or "lice girl". I was forced to move to another school so I could start fresh. It went great until my 6th grade year. As i started to hit puberty, i started getting acne and started my period so i always had to  smell like period blood for a whole week. All the kids would laugh and point at my pimples and tell me how ugly I was and how everyone hated me. Then one day I started my period and I had no clue until I checked. I was covered in blood, it was on my school chair and my sweater. I went home right away and came right back to school. No one teased me the rest of the day but the next day is a day I will never forget. I came into school late because of my alarm. I walked into the classroom and looked at my desk like always, and there they were.....opened pads with red marker all over then. Everyone just started laughing while i cried outside the classroom. That was the last time I was bullied in 6th grade. Then 7th grade came. I was doing great for the first half of the year. Once gym class started for me I started to get bullied again. I was being shoved into lockers everyday while walking to my next class. I was always told that I am so fat and ugly that I should go kill myself. That is when I started cutting. I stopped once I was out of middle school. On came my first two years of high school, I started cutting again because i had gotten bigger and uglier as they would say. The cutting became deeper and I shut everyone out of my life, even my own family. But as i became a Jr. in high school , i learned that it does not matter what people think of you, it matters how you look at yourself. All that matters is what you want and how you feel about yourself. I have gotten stronger, like I you, the one reading this will. All it takes is some time and a very large support group who loves you for who you are no matter. If you think you do not have a support group you have the same thought i had. If you look around you and on this and many other websites... your support group contains people who have been though the same thing, people who have a friend or family member do the things that you do...either way we still love you, You are beautiful and perfect in my eyes.

My name's Kandice, and I'm 17 as a sophomore in Florida. I had a friend, who was my everything since I was 3 years old; we slept over each others houses, went on vacations together, pretty much had that relationship that would've lasted a lifetime. But one day, my sister came home, OD, after a party.... my parents did everything they could to get her better, and away from the area we lived in. Which they did, we moved from the far side of Casselberry, to the opposite side of Winter Park. I switched schools, my sister switched her schedule. My sister was in High school, when she was bullied. People told her constantly "Go die, gothic!" "you don't deserve to live, breath or eat fatass!" and others such as "how do you even get boyfriends?" I was 8 when my sister would come home crying everyday, and run to the bathroom. I was traumatized, badly, when she would have blood all over her clothes. By time I got to 5th grade, I wasn't pretty.. I was made fun of. I was overweight, and quiet. I had some friends, but they were real, only used me. I felt like, I should just die. When I started feeling alone going into middle school, I got really close to my grandmother on both sides. They told me exactly what every grandma does. "Don't feel bad, meet new friends" Except when I did, It was the complete opposite... my 'friends' were the ones using m secrets against me. There were a couple guys in middle school that I liked, and everytime I said something to my friends, theyd ruin everything for me. 8th grade was one of the hardest years of my life enduring... I met a girl, Rachelle, and we were best friends. I went on vacation to Ohio with her, and we did everything together. Until I was almost expelled. Rachelle, my bestfriend, told everything I ever said about this chick to her face. And I was so close to fighting. Until I met Christina, my bestfriend to this day, who convinced me not to. I was in the back of a cop car, with handcuffs, and my dad on the phone. I was really close to following my sisters footsteps at that rate. But freshman year, did nothing but get my hopes up. I was relieved at the fact my past was behind me, and I’d finally get a fresh, mature start. But that was the opposite. The highlight of that year, was the fact I started driving in the 3^rd month of school. My grandfather started getting really sick, and very.. forgetful. I’d go to his house everyday, in the morning and at night, and just talk to him. I lost all of my friends, I had 2 true friends, and a crap ton of drama. Being made fun of, coming home crying. Going to school crying, coming home in the worst mood ever. I could never catch a break. Being called “fatass, blob, gordo, lardo, etc” it really hits you, like you never think it would. Summer of 2013, I went on vacation, thinking that it would be the best time of the year... it wasn’t. My grandfather ended up going into the hospital half way through my vacation.  From june 21-June 30.. my grandpa told me everything.. everything from the time he was 12 and had his first crush. I told him the same. The last words, on July 3, 2013 at 2:55 (8 minutes before he passed) I said “please, help me through highschool, and find a way to get away from bullies, and help me help someone else.” He turned to me, and said “I’ll always be there, now you be the backbone.” Obviously, sophomore year sucks.. crying myself to sleep, only having Christina as a friend, boys not wanting to talk to me cause im overweight, getting dirty looks from skinny girls, being called nams as you walk through the halls, teachers and principals don’t do a thing about it. But, I defended 2 people when they were being bullied, because my grandpa said to be the backbone. I never thought I was going to be a victim, and there were times I did think that Suicide was the only way out.. But, I had to be strong, I had to prove to my family and myself that I will make a difference.

I grew up in a small town in NC. Relatively unassuming and predominantly Southern. Most of the school was in fact, white and most everyone was related in some way. Everyone went to the same churches, attended the same functions and were otherwise branded /normal/.  While although I was raised in the same area, my folks were quite different in my upbringing. My mother was a witch as well as my grandmother. I personally attended church, but it affected my outlook on social limitations and the fact there didn't need to be any. 

I always knew I was a little different. Even in my younger years I hung out with the teachers more than the other students. I excelled in my studies, particularly art and due to a very eclectic exposure of rock music and art, I found similar paths myself. In the transition into high school I finally found some kind of identity for myself. I found my own music (mostly a combination of punk and rock). I started dying my hair. I found my own friends (most of whom had giant mo-hawks or liberty spikes), but we were /good/ kids. We went to Christian punk concerts and skateboarded around town. We weren't getting into trouble. We weren't drinking or doing drugs. We were just a handful of weird kids in a small town bound together by common interests. 

For most of my school years, I was protected. The upperclassmen football players had adopted me as a mascot. They were kind to me, looked out for me. I could roam the halls in polyester or plaid with my multi-colored hair without fear of torment. There was mild teasing here or there, but it was hardly considered bullying from my end. 

My senior year, that all changed. The football players I'd come to know were gone and I had no real protection from anyone in my own grade. There were little to no newcomers in the classes after me and my final year there was a year of Hell. 

There was a new wave of 'rednecks' at the school. Those guys with rebel flags on their trucks and the horns converted into the dixie anthem. Every morning there was a group of about 12 them waiting for me at the entrance I had to come in. They'd pace the halls waiting for me. It was a game. Some were people in my own grade that I had tutored in other classes. All bets were off, I was a target now. 

They'd chant names at me as I passed by. Freak. Devil worshipper. 'Rainbow' (as if that were some kind of proper insult). They'd call me bitch on my way to my car in the afternoons. If they saw me on the street skating, they'd throw things out the window at me or act like they were going to hit me with their truck. At lunch, they'd throw things at my small circle of friends. We tried leaving the main lunch area to eat, but they'd hunt us down. 

It's easy to slip into a victimized state of mind. Into fear. I went home crying one day and my mother came back with me demanding some kind of retribution to the principle. He told her that I had it coming and that I deserved it for calling them rednecks. (Keep in mind that's what they called themselves, and proudly.)

It damaged me, I think. Stole away a portion of youth I couldn't get back. I started getting violent panic attacks that year and they lasted for ten years after. There's a sense of dread, getting up in the morning, that goes along with being bullied. A distraction in school. A longing to quit. 

There's a loneliness in knowing that no one is going to help you and that everyone would rather turn a blind eye than get into the confrontation themselves. It's what I lived with and it wasn't until some years later that I realized I didn't have to be a victim. You /choose/ to be a victim to bullying with submissive surrender. We always have the option to fight it. 

It started in July, I was working my new job as of then. A group of girls that I knew came in and started taking pictures of me, throwing things at me, and laughing. I later got off my shift. I went to my truck and in red lip stick they wrote "slut" on my truck. They tweeted about how funny it was and how funny they were and how I deserved it. They didn't stop there, I asked them to stop they told me no, I deserved it. In august we went back to school. Every week it was something new. The first week it was them making a twitter page for people to talk about how much they don't like me. Then when I called them on it they told me, "it's not our fault the school hates you". The next week it was them telling people on twitter I was a "bitch" and the "devil". I took it to my school. The disciplinarian told me since I commented on a tweet calling them pathetic, it was a verbal fight. If I want them suspended I will be too. I walked away from that. The next week my house was paint balled and the one girl tweeted about how colorful her day had been. The next week my truck was egged. At school the next week CarMax was rubbed all over my truck by their new guy friend who then told me if I told he would "kick my ass". The next day they rubbed pizza all over my truck then threw it in my bed. That same night my truck was egged at home. All day everyday these kids call me names, shoved me into things, and laugh at my dispense. The next week I took my eleven year old sister to dinner, I got up to use the bathroom. I came out to this group of kids surrounding my sister, telling her I'm a whore, I have std's, and I shouldn't be alive. That next weekend the kids made "home made bombs" and threw them at my house. Then the girls started in on twitter calling me names. I went back to the school. My disciplinarian told me we will do a mediation everything will stop. So my parents, me, the main girl, and her mom sat down with the disciplinarian. We both got to talk, I explained my side. She said I was wrong none of that was happening anymore. I showed her mom the texts, the tweets, and the pictures. She told everyone it's not her fault I'm so hated but she will ask her friends to stop. Then a week later I'm being called names, pushed out of the halls, laughed at in the bathrooms, and being told I'm not worth anything I'm not good enough. Last week I walked out to my truck and there was a spit cup from chew on the floor by my tire and frozen chew all over my window. She was parked right next to me.  This weekend I was at the mall an this boy was calling me names, throwing things at me, and whispering die every time I walked by. My school doesn't care enough about my safety and I'm to scared to go to school..

When I was 7 years old i moved to a little hick town in the middle of nowhere, it was the beging of the 2nd semester, I was in second grade. The first few weeks weren't bad, I got a lot of attention, being the new kid and all. But the began to change very quickly. I got made of because how much I ate. They would call me names like, fat cow, halliburger, overweight. It was awful, as the years went on it got worse, the names got really harsh, I was excluted from every birthday party every sleepover, I had no friends, I was so alone. By the end of 5th grade, I found out that we where moving, my dad got a new job. So when I moved I went into middle school, the first few months where awesome then, 2nd semester came around, the guy I was dating broke up with me, it was my first break up. A few weeks later I decided to change my style, the first thing on my mind was is that I need to go out and completly change from this small town girl to this kinda rocker chick. After I did that I got bullied by my ex and his friends. It's so hard to realize that someone who cared about you, now is just hurting you so bad. Him and his friends never stoped. The school year ended and 7th grade began. I was really excited for 7th grade, and it was good up until 2nd semester.( I don't know why all the bad things happen during this time). Basically I was in a really good relationship with this guy, we had been dating for 2 and a half months. And we loved each other and I can still say to this day that I love him. But anyway, we stared to grow apart, we didn't have that "relationship high" anymore so we broke up, I was devistated. So i started hanging out with my friend Chris, and a week later he asked me out, I said yes. I told my self that this is good for you, to get over him. At the time I didn't realize the kind of things this boy I was dating did. He parties, he drinks, he smokes. He did everything I promised myself I wouldn't do, but i told myself who cares, date the bad boy you always wanted to, so I did. One day after school, I was saying goodbye to him and we where kissing behind the school, and these to guys walked by right after he left and started calling me a slut and a whore. I didn't know why, I didn't know either of them. This continued on for a few weeks. I just ignored it, but after a while you stop ignoring it at start believing it. And I started to believe it. About a month in Chris broke up with me. I was heart broken, and I didn't know who i was anymore, before I knew it my feelings started to take over me, and the bullying got to me, I started cutting to take away the pain cause it was to much to handle. I only had one friend I told only her about it and she told the entire school. Eventually the news of my cutting got around to the school consular, she called my dad and told him, he was furious. He started to somewhat yell at me witch made me want to cut even more. The next few months where living Hell, I didn't have any friends, I was still getting bullied. There where days where I wanted to end it all, because obviously nobody cared about me. I hadn't been to church in 6 months, I had no faith in God at all. I got into fights with everyone both physical and verbally. And then finally summer came and we moved again and I started going back to church I made some awesome friends. I have been bullied since this summer up until late November, but I'm happy now because I'm not bullied anymore😊

I've known since I was little that I was different... And I always stayed to myself. I was always shy and quiet. When school started I was constantly harassed about the little things ranging from how I look, my style, to what music I listen to, and how only faggots listen to screamo. But honestly I got used to it. I got over the fact no one cared about my feelings. It was forth grade when I finally realized I was gay. I got bullied and taunted about this as well. I didn't know how to tell my parents so I didn't. It took me two years to finally accept it myself. And to be honest, screw the people who disagree with who I am. Don't talk to me, don't look at me, don't walk in my direction since it's obviously that big a deal to you. I'll keep to myself, so keep to yours. I'll continue loving my beautiful perfect girlfriend. With or without your approval because you, are irrelevant. Stay Strong