Between the ages of 12 to 15 I was bullied pretty bad by one particular person. I was fat, shy & very meek. A natural target for bullies. This one kid would spit on me, call me gay, and punch me sometimes. I really felt I had no one to turn to and I missed a lot school through 7 through 9th grade. I would feel emotional and physically sick. When I did go to school I prayed this kid would be out. With all the school shootings in the news now and it seems like guns everywhere I think I would have killed him today in this climate. I believe this sorry son of a bitch was eventually killed by his own father. Those were some dark times. I wouldn't go back to those days for billion dollars.

The anti-bullying project story

By Madison D Small (Student)

October is bullying awareness month. 
Romulus High School has made a choice to take a stand against bullying.

Tuesday, October 22, classes united to use yellow flags & signs to give a visual to the school & community.  There is a growing epidemic in schools nationwide.  Students are bullied every day because of the color of their skin, religion, sexual-orientation or just being who they are on the inside. Each day 160,000 students skip school because they do not feel safe.

Here are some of tips to put an end to bullying:

Step 1: Be confident. Tell the bully to stop!

Step 2: Brush your shoulders off and try to ignore the situation.

Step 3: Walk away.  As hard as it is to not use your fist take a deep breath and keep walking.

Step 4:  Tell someone, the teacher, your parents or someone you trust.

Bullies can be mean, infamous, and cruel but most of the time the bully is insecure about him or herself. 

We are all different and we all the same.
We are all human beings.

With student and adult help we can change the problem of bullying and turn our school into an anti-bullying place for you & me.  Those of you who are bullying you can stop.  Apologize to those you have hurt and start the change.   If you have been bullied my advice is forgive and forget.  People care about you and want to help!
                                                              

 

Sign the Triple S Petition:

By signing this pledge you agree to:

1. STOP being a part of the problem.
2. STAND up to people that are making others feel uncomfortable.
3. SUPPORT people that may be a victim of bullying.

-         Jawann Gaskin (Student)

 

 

 

By the time you read this another student will be BULLIED

Maybe you have seen this display outside RHS, if you haven’t I encourage you to drive by.  The visual is made up of signs with facts provided by the National Bullying Prevention Center.  Inside the rectangle are numerous yellow flags.  As students placed the flags in the ground on Tuesday, October 22, they took time to reflect on the idea that one flag represent 3,000 students who are bullied in school each year. 

October is bullying awareness month and the amount of students bullied in schools continue to increase.  This display put up by RHS students is to help raise awareness and begin conversations among students, staff, parents and the community.  Please join in our efforts to put an end to bullying so that every child feels safe, respected and wanted.

- Mrs. Kuhatschek (Teacher at Romulus High School)

It started when I was 9 years old there was this one girl who managed to get 25 people to gang up on me and hate me, it got so bad that when I was in year 5 I attempted suicide but got caught. Throughout high school I used to fake sick so I could go home because I couldn't be around people. Although I am now 16 and it hasn't stopped the repercussions of this has left me with severe depression and anxiety I now can't go or be around people at all. Over the past years I have progressively gotten worse, as I'm now going into year 12 I want to get my life started soon and go and do things but all my hope disappears in a matter of seconds within thinking of a goal for myself but the worst thing is these people have no idea what they have done they believe they were nice to me or it was just all one big joke.

I was bullied throughout primary and secondary school, it did just happen at school thought the bullies sometimes followed me home and continued their bullying there, too a point where i left school when i was 15, it made me feel low and worthless to a point where i thought i had to do things to become more popular I then lost a lot of confidence. I am now 29 years old, have 4 children and a wonderful husband I am training to be a Police Officer, I have eventually gained my confidence back and I am now stronger than i ever was before. Bully's degrade people but they should never get away with it, Bullies need to be stopped and taught how to be nice, we all have struggles in our lives and bullies are no different we need to find why they are bullying and help them stop. we also need to be there for their victims and support them, I never got that.

last year i got bullied a lot. i was a new student. iwas afraid to go to school. kids made fun of me and called me names every single day. it was horible. i wanted it to stop. i told my parents they contacted the school.. nothing happend the kids still do this but i just think they dont know who i am and they will get caught sometime and be sorry for what they did.

Since I was born, my family haven't been happy. I'm the second oldest out of four siblings. All girls. Which makes me one of the middle children, who get forgotten about. My older sister told me that my parents were happier before I was born, which was true because they've never smiled when I'm around. I was protected by my uncle until I was three when he died. After that, preschool and school until I was ten consisted of going there early in the cold, being there all day and then going to someone elses house until my parents could be bothered picking me up or the people got sick of having me and dropped me off at home. Usually the front door was locked when I got home and had to climb through the window. My parents fought a lot, usually taking there anger out on me. No one talked to me when I was at home, except to yell at me or hit me. One day my parents gave me a black eye and I had to go to school with it. If anyone asked about it I told them I ran into a pole. I didn't want anyone to know about the abuse. When I was ten, we moved into a bigger house. My parents had a fight later that year which they almost divorced. My dad took it out on me, trying to strangle me and saying it was all my fault and that how everyone wished I was dead etc. I kicked him in the nuts so he'd let go and ran away for the night. I went to school hungry and had no food during the day. I never had friends over because they didn't know what to say and how to act around my parents. I started middle school. Everyone started bullying me saying I was poor and that they would call me before my phone got disconnected and making fun of me because I was underweight, weird, had no friends etc. The principal talked to me in private saying how she was going to make people be my friends because I had none and that the teachers see me crying. I did have friends, they just weren't in my class. I'm not sporty or smart which was another reason people didn't like me. I spent half the time "sick".I had to see a counselor, which I never told her anything. Having nowhere to go after school, I started teaching myself to sing and listened to music. I saved up and brought myself a stereo and cds. My best friend moved to another country. I started emotional eating and got bullied at high school too. My best friend came back a few years after she left and now doesn't talk to me. The bullying was worse at high school. The teachers made fun of me, everyone else made fun of me. At home, my family still yelled at me and abused me. My mom threatened to set fire to my room while I was asleep. I got a boyfriend who stole money from me then left. I got another one who abused me everyday. I was sent to a school I didn't want to go to. I had no friends and skipped school most of the time. I dropped out of school. I got death threats and people wanted to beat me up. They took photos of me getting changed and sent them around the school. I had people laughing at me everywhere I went. They still make fun of me saying things like oh look its fatass and why are you still alive? don't you know everyone wants you dead. My parents said if I was "normal" no one would've bullied me. I have depression, anxiety, panic attacks and possible social anxiety disorder.

One year ago today, October 17th 2012, my daughter was assaulted at school by a girl she barely knew. Another girl video-taped the assault and shared it with other students moments afterwards, because it was the “cool” thing to do. As we pieced the details together, we discovered that a third girl, my daughter’s former best-friend, played a significant role in this event, as well. Apparently, there was a barrage of bullying and cyber-bullying events prior to that day. One of which included a pizza box with obscene language, directed at my daughter, being delivered to her in the school cafeteria during the lunch hour. I had no knowledge of the bullying by this group of girls, which apparently had begun three months prior. The first I had heard about this harassment was the day I picked her up from the nurse’s office at school. My daughter kept it from us, for fear of creating more drama and the embarrassment of having her parents get involved. She also knew the former friend’s parents most-likely wouldn’t do anything about it, as we had previous issues with this individual. Since the summer of 2012, when the cyber-bullying began, my daughter has experienced severe debilitating migraine headaches, insomnia, depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Her grades took a nosedive and she was in jeopardy of not graduating on time with the rest of her class. She has been hospitalized twice, once for cutting and once for a suicide attempt. My husband and I have spent an ungodly amount of sleepless nights wondering if we were going to be among those parents who have “lost a child”. None of this has been shared with many people outside our tight-knit family and close friends, until now. The reason? It’s time to take a stand, and it takes a village to do so.

Unbeknownst to us, during the months prior to my daughter’s assault, a recent graduate from my daughter’s high school began following her on a popular social-networking site. She started to pay more attention to my daughter’s online discussions as they started to turn and now continuously included her desperate pleas to end the “blasting” by this group of girls. Reading the vile comments directed at my daughter generated a hurt so deep inside my heart, I wept for days… “stupid ass girl, they never learn”, “but you mean so f****** little and I know you’re way below me”, “a worthless piece of sh**”, “I hate you with everything inside me”, “everyone thinks you’re a stupid b****, it’s great”, “I hope only bad things come to you”, “just die”, “I should f****** kill you”… When the cyber-bullying escalated, this young lady sent my daughter a private message letting her know she had also been the target of bullying before and if she ever needed someone to talk to, she could call her. My daughter had taken this girl’s phone number and began to talk to her about her problems. They eventually became very close friends, despite the scrutiny this girl experienced by her peers because my daughter was younger than her and apparently didn’t meet their “standards”. The day my daughter was assaulted, after leaving me a message on my cell phone, this young lady was the next call she made. Without hesitation, my daughter’s friend came to be with her while she waited in the office for me to come pick her up. During that time, my daughter’s friend gave a very detailed statement to the campus police officer regarding the bullying that occurred prior to the assault. For at least an hour, she scrolled through the online posts and took screenshots of all the cyber-bullying and emailed each one to the officer. The girl who assaulted my daughter was immediately arrested. Since I was not directly available, the school’s Vice-Principal took it upon himself to press charges. After the video of the assault began to make its rounds, the girl responsible for recording it was also cited. Since there was no proof that the third girl played a role in the assault itself, other than being heard during the video laughing and supporting the assault, our hands were tied, and she was not cited for anything. That wasn’t good enough for us.

My daughter wrote out a formal complaint and took photocopies of the screenshots to the local courthouse. Within 24 hours, temporary restraining orders were issued for all THREE girls. Shortly thereafter in court, permanent restraining orders were issued for the maximum time allotted – three years. The restraining order against my daughter’s former friend is a tricky one, as she is also our next-door neighbor. During the time she had the temporary restraining order and prior to court for issuance of the permanent one, her family also began to harass my daughter and our family (the apple does not fall far from the tree). They blasted a radio on their side yard during the night and pointed it towards my daughter’s bedroom window, they installed high-wattage bulbs in their side yard light fixture and left them on all night to annoy her, they egged our home and cars and they made erroneous claims to the city about a supposed illegal shed in our back yard. Because of this, and since it could not be proven which family member was doing the harassing, the judge decided to add the rest of our family members onto her permanent restraining order so that we could all be protected. Since the time all three restraining orders were issued, two of the girls (our neighbor being one) have violated theirs and were subsequently arrested for it. They both continue to test the waters, and it’s only a matter of time before another arrest will be made – we’ll see to that.

In the meantime, my daughter is healing. The hurt, betrayal and cruelty have taken its toll on her, though. She is a changed person – once cheerful, optimistic and outgoing – she is now guarded, fearful and isolated. She has a very small handful of friends and doesn’t socialize much. Her “best friend” at school is a former teacher and coach of hers. She doesn’t eat lunch with everyone else; she prefers to eat inside with an adult, where it is safe. I can’t tell you she won’t hurt herself again – neither can she. While she does use her newly-acquired coping skills, there are times when her feelings are so overwhelming, these methods of coping still occasionally fall by the wayside. She struggles with the emotions that led her to hurt herself EVERY DAY. She still has sleepless nights, now has to take a handful of medications to prevent her migraines and combat her depression and anxiety and prefers to sleep on the pull-out bed in the family room, rather than her bedroom, because it feels safer and less “invaded”. She attended summer school and an extensive outpatient recovery program for her psychological issues, rather than doing “normal” fun summer activities with her friends this year. She sees a psychiatrist and psycho-therapist on a weekly basis, attends bible study and youth group regularly and requires tutoring in her most basic of subjects in school. Her grades have begun to finally come up and, at times, we see the “light” in her eyes, but these are too “few and far between” for our comfort level. We realize it takes time, and I have faith, but when she is not well, it is gut-wrenching to witness. She is forever different.

I am sharing this publicly for two reasons. One – bullying kills. So far, and I say this with trepidation, we have been graciously spared of that fact. But at the very least, BULLYING HARMS PEOPLE TO THE CORE. It needs to end. There need to be tough consequences for this cruel behavior AS WELL AS preventative education. We are fortunate in that our daughter attends a high school that instills and strictly adheres to a no-tolerance policy for bullying. She has always felt supported by the teaching staff and school’s administration regarding her assault and prior bullying incidents. More needs to be done, though. There are non-profit programs available for schools to tap into, and not enough of our schools are taking advantage of these resources. Programs such as The Bully Project, Stand for the Silent, Kind Campaign, and stopbullying.gov need to be explored and utilized by our educators. Much in the same way we need to be advocates for our children’s physical, emotional and spiritual health, we need to stand together and advocate for our schools to see these programs through. Start a dialog with your local schools’ administrators regarding school climate and student morale. You may find that all they need is ONE parent volunteer to champion these efforts. BE THE ONE. And two, encourage your kids to “BE THE ONE” friend who is willing to stand up against bullying and peer-scrutiny to offer the support needed to ANYONE who is being bullied and needs a friend. It is not “getting involved in other people’s drama” where bullying is concerned. It is different than it was when we were kids. We can no longer ignore the bully, hoping that he or she will stop, or pretend we didn’t witness someone else being bullied. Bullying doesn’t end when school lets out and kids walk through the front door. With the inception of cell phones and social media, it runs rampant 24/7. Just as I would never encourage my children (or ANYONE, for that matter) to turn a blind eye on an obvious crime being committed, I will NEVER encourage them to take a back seat and “mind their own business” when they witness this cruel behavior. I challenge all parents to take this approach and instill it in your children. Despite all surrounding efforts to thwart her actions, all it took was ONE person to reach out to my daughter to offer her a soft place to fall. ONE. It could save a life. It saved hers.

As a child I was awesome great to be around had tons of friends but as I got older and bigger I became shy and very to myself. In the 6 grade I was 160 pounds extremely over weight and people starting making comments about it. I was friends with the boys just because they saw me as one of them. The name calling started to surface with me and it started to effect me more and more. Girls just didn't talk bout my weight i was also picked on for always having a running nose. I actually got feed up and demanded and bagged my mom to let me get surgery. I blamed most of It on it was getting harder to beath but it was mainly because I was tired of the consent bulling I got. When I hit the 8th grade I started playing sports I lost tons of weight. I became popular because my parents had money and now I had the body to match. When I hit high school I was noticed a lot for my body and being athletic and bring on the principals list. I have to be honest I started to become the bully. Thinking I was better and wanted others feel the pain i went through. I didn't quit understand what could result from bulling. My wake up call was when I read bout about my best friend in 6grade committed suicide after being bullied everyday. He never became popular after like I did he had to deal with the consent bullying for years. When I talked to his parents they read me his suicide note and it explained his pain. And how he didn't want to be in pain anymore. I thought to myself how can I become one of those people how could I become a monster. I wanted to share my story because A lot of times the people who are bullied usually become the people who bully. And I want everyone to know it is not okay at no means !

Growing up in one the wealthier families in the small town of Greeley Colorado, everyone thought I had a picture perfect life. Girls and some boys thought they had to put me down to feel better than me. In late elementary school I was teased for being an early bloomer, for going through puberty earl, the first one to start my period ect. In middle school I was the ugly duckling, pizza face girl, and fattso. And then high school. High School easily was four years of hell for me. From being bullied by vicious girls on my cheer team my freshman year to people telling me to get the hell out of Colorado because no one liked me there by my Senior year. People always asked how I was so strong. After having my new car get egged, rocks thrown at it, keyed having ,my driveway syruped numerous times, getting COW written on my car and being told I was ugly, fat ect on social media. There was at a point where someone tried to set my house on fire by setting fireworks off right by my house by our dead bushes. I never understood, I was nice and always just wanted to help people. My parents were always in the principals office but nothing was done. Everyone though I was just a privileged white girl. I was blessed with the life I have been given. But getting treated like an object and getting used to feeling of being worthless and no one liked me, I never want anyone to go through feelings I felt through the four years of high school. 

My 12 year old son was born with a heart of gold! He was so funny and always wanting to make others smile. To him, everyone was his friend. Unfortunatly his peers at school did not feel the same. And as early as 3rd grade, he was ridiculed, mocked, and pushed around. I started losing my boy:( He began shutting down and soon I bagan receiving calls that "HE" was getting into trouble. We would attend meetings with school officials stating that our son has "claimed" the others were calling him names and pushing him around and when he told an adult they said to ignore it, to avoid it, to stop provoking them. Basically saying "your on your own til someone catches it happening." 6th grade was the breaking point! The bullies grew in number and my son got tired of authority not doing anything. He began to fight back. And the rage he bottled up opened. This led to several fights, getting suspended, failing grades, mood swings, and finally the "straw!" My bright and happy boy, wanted to die! This was the breaking point for us as his parents. So we pulled him from school and pursued online courses. But as his mother, I knew taking him out of society was not going to fix the problem. So we prepared for the 7th grade. And the day of registration, we got another blow. The principal of my sons school said he felt he didn't have a good future outlook and that he probably wouldn't graduate.......I left in tears! I have only EVER wanted my kids to succeed. And here is someone saying its very unlikely! There is NOTHING like someone saying you can't, that makes you want to quadrupal the "I CANS!" We found a new school for our son. But the scars run deep and he is still healing from all the years of suffering at the words and hands of other kids. I will always stand behind every single child who is being bullied! To my son; You are my inspiration to help "Stomp out Bullying" and make a change!