As a person who did not speak fluent English, making friends was very hard. 

But, of course there was always a way where someone can be friends with at least one person.

There was a girl who was new to my junior high. She was tall, I think pretty, and she was active.

I liked her personality and everything but, i felt that nobody really liked her.

I had a best friend, my first friend in Arizona, who did not like the new girl at all!

But... i wanted to be friends with both of them, and they didn't want me to be friends with one another.

So, my solution was to only hang out with one of them at a time.

My best friend was out-going, pretty, nice, popular and everything, so I knew she didn't really need me.

But I knew the new girl needed me, because I was her only friend.

I saw some things where the kids were talking mean to her, and trying to fight her,

But I wanted to stop the fight and protect her. 

There was nothing wrong with her appearance, she was just a normal kid.

Even normal kids get bullied by others, but how bad would someone's life be if they had a handicap.

I really wish this bully project will go world wide up to where the bullying will be not found anywhere!

 

When I was in 3rd grade I was a bystander but now I'm in 6th grade I'm not the bystander I'm the bully stopper that's part of THE BULLY PROJECT!

For me the bullying started in 4th grade. That is when kids started splitting into "clicks", leaving me and a few others the odds ones out. It started with words being whispered that I could hear and continued from there. No one really wanted to talk to me except if they needed help with something. Fifth grade came and I thought maybe it would stop but it didn't. Every day I wished I would get a stomachache so I could go home. Instead, however, I decided to just keep working hard at school and try to ignore it. 6th grade was the first time I actually started standing up for myself. Some made a rude comment about dancers and what they stereotypically wear (I take dance lessons) and I simply turned around and told them they were wrong and proved it by telling them my Halloween costume that year was a dance costume. They were shocked, but it didn't stop them. 7th grade came and went with similar taunts and teases. 8th grade things seemed to get better but it was not to last. We were at our 8th grade dinner dance. All the other girls in my class were dancing in a circle together and my few friends called me over to join them. The others girls pushed them out of the way and blocked me so I could not join in. I was happy to graduate. Finally high school started. I was very scared the bullying was going to start again. Thankfully it did not and the few incidents where it almost did were quickly resolved. At the end of my freshman year I was told I was chosen to do a three year independent research project on a topic that challenged the status quo of society. I immediately chose the topic of bullying. When asked why I told them my story and how not only I was bullied but my friends and now my younger brother. I worked for three years on that project and now am almost done. I am doing presentations about it and trying to spread the word that Bullying is WRONG and it’s not just “Kids Being Kids”. I still have the memories of what I went through years later and though it is all behind me I know it has affected me. I now have a voice I did not have back then and now I try to spread the word and stand up for those who are and have been bullied.

For me the bullying started in 4th grade. That is when kids started splitting into "clicks", leaving me and a few others the odds ones out. It started with words being whispered that I could hear and continued from there. No one really wanted to talk to me except if they needed help with something. Fifth grade came and I thought maybe it would stop but it didn't. Every day I wished I would get a stomachache so I could go home. Instead, however, I decided to just keep working hard at school and try to ignore it. 6th grade was the first time I actually started standing up for myself. Some made a rude comment about dancers and what they stereotypically wear (I take dance lessons) and I simply turned around and told them they were wrong and proved it by telling them my Halloween costume that year was a dance costume. They were shocked, but it didn't stop them. 7th grade came and went with similar taunts and teases. 8th grade things seemed to get better but it was not to last. We were at our 8th grade dinner dance. All the other girls in my class were dancing in a circle together and my few friends called me over to join them. The others girls pushed them out of the way and blocked me so I could not join in. I was happy to graduate. Finally high school started. I was very scared the bullying was going to start again. Thankfully it did not and the few incidents where it almost did were quickly resolved. At the end of my freshman year I was told I was chosen to do a three year independent research project on a topic that challenged the status quo of society. I immediately chose the topic of bullying. When asked why I told them my story and how not only I was bullied but my friends and now my younger brother. I worked for three years on that project and now am almost done. I am doing presentations about it and trying to spread the word that Bullying is WRONG and it’s not just “Kids Being Kids”. I still have the memories of what I went through years later and though it is all behind me I know it has affected me. I now have a voice I did not have back then and now I try to spread the word and stand up for those who are and have been bullied.

It all started because of my Friend. She came into me skyping with my best friend (who was also the most popular person in my school.) she came in almost jokingly and stared staying "Rey's a lesbian Rey's a lesbian." It was true, I am. She was the first I told, and I had trusted her with my life. Not anymore. My friend hung up with me almost instantly, and she wouldn't answer my texts or calls.

The next day I walked into school and almost instantly someone shoved me into the wall and said, "you're not welcomed here, faggot." My heart just dropped. I walked into gym the next day and when I was changing people threw tampons at me. I walked up to the library and my ex-friend and her group pushed me down the stairs and said, "don't let the emo fag near us!"   

My parent's noticed the bruises and didn't say anything. I liked soccer, so I usually came home with new bruises.  I was walking to school the next day and the ex-friend pushed me to the ground and started kicking me while laughing and said, "I'm killing your sins." The people walking by just stared and laughed. 

I started cutting and my facebook page started being flooded with comments like, Bitch and slut and fag and whore and cunt. The worst was from the ex-friend, and it said go hang yourself. 

So I tried.

My mom walked in and stopped me, but she called 911 and my sister looked at my still running facebook page. She was crying and so was my mom.

I walked into school the next week. My ex-friend approached me and said, "aww, too bad you failed at death. You're just a failure to life." I just stayed silent and the group just walked past me. After school that day, things got worse. I talked to my teacher about it and she just got a disgusted look on her face like she hated me. It seemed like every person in the world hated me right now, and I hated myself, too. 

Every time I looked in a mirror I saw something that looked like it should not belong in this world. I finally told my mom what was going on. She went to the principle that suspended the girls, but they came back and just acted worse. Tripping me then stomping on my back, pushing me into walls and slamming my head into lockers. 

Then one of the girls moms stepped in. She said she didn't want me around her daughter. She said I was the bad influence. Se also said that if I tried anything with her daughter she was calling the cops. I couldn't take it anymore. I made my mom switch me to a different school. I took down my facebook. They won. They still texted me, telling me they are going to burn me and i'm going to rot in hell. So I threw my phone away.

This is still going on and they still find ways to contact me, to threaten me. But I took care of it, and I ignore it. I have friends that don't judge me on what sex I like, and I still get bullied at my new school but almost 95% less bad then it was at my old school. 

I had always thought of myself as a kind, loving little girl. I was all my teacher's favorite, I never forgot my homework or blurted or anything. I thought that those qualities kept me out of the bad person category.

It turns out, I was smack dab in the middle of the bully category. Why? Because of Austin. He was a pudgy boy, who could never seem to tell the truth. We all teased him and were so mean, even the teachers.  he lied about everything to try and make himself more popular. He ate Mcdonalds, where we all ate organic all-natural stuff. I remember one time he left class to go to the bathroom, and when he got back the teacher told him he had missed this giant party we had, where we ate popcorn and watched star wars. He burst into tears and ran away, and we all laughed. 

The saddest thing was, Austin lied about everything because he wanted to be somebody else. He had to eat McDonald's because his mom couldn't afford anything else. He had been living in New Orleans during the hurricane, and hid Dad and brothers were killed. He told people, "when my dad comes home.." and "when my brother gets back from college.." all the time. And we knew they were gone, and we laughed at him and told him that. We were so mean. I am ashamed of my elementary school self for cheering with everyone else when he announced he was switching schools. I now know he was moving because of me. And I wish I could talk to him now, and tell him how sorry I am.

I was bullied. When I was a kid, for most of my childhood I was bullied. Kids find something to pick on and if they see they are getting a reaction, that’s all they need. With me they got a reaction. My childhood was a textbook case of knowing who your true friends were because my true friends stood by me and those who were not either joined in or did nothing. Most of the time, emotionally I managed to deal with the bullying. Along with my friends, I had a supportive loving family and a real creative talent for art and music that gave a focus to my life and brought me real joy. But there were times when the bullying was still just too much. When I finished junior high school, the school held an eighth grade graduation ceremony. All of our loved ones were there, we had caps and gowns, we all walked in to Pomp and Circumstance, and I was so happy, not happy I was graduating, happy it was over, so I thought. You see someone, and I don’t know who, spread some rumor earlier in the year that had something to do with me and masturbation and possibly involving being gay. All I know is that there was a group of kids who as I would walk down the halls would make a “swish” noise with their mouth, over and over again, referring, I guess to masturbation. Often they would do it on the bus on the way home and sometimes they would just call me gay or a fag, which I found odd and frustrating because I wasn't gay. The kids were relentless, cruel as kids can be, and unfortunately they knew it bothered me and that only gave them more of a reason to keep it up. I was an easy target. I was little, skinny, I had huge crazy curly hair, I was terrible at sports, and I let them get away with it. I had no idea how to deal with it, how to handle it, how to get them to stop, or at the very least, how to let it just not bother me. So when the principal called my name at that eighth grade graduation I stood up to get my diploma, looked at my parents with a smile on my face, then realized that every kid on that stage, quietly was saying, “swish, swish, swish…” over and over and over again until I sat back down and the next name was called.

I didn’t go to ninth grade with those kids. I just needed a break from them. I needed to go somewhere where no one knew me and I could start fresh, where I could let the last few years of school and all the bullying and teasing wash away, where I could have some time to be in a more positive place, to deal with this. So I spent my first year of high school at a small private school on the North Shore. In that time, without the constant teasing and bullying I was able to learn about myself, I found my confidence, my own self-worth. I still wasn't any good at sports but because it was required, I was on the soccer team and even though we only won four games out of ten, we had the best record in four years, and I had a blast. With some help and guidance I was able to realize that a bully can’t define who I am, that I define who I am, and I realized that one person’s opinion doesn't matter unless you let it matter. I was lucky. I had parents who I could go to, and a father who was like having your very own motivational speaker. And when I was ready to go back to those kids, to the high school where I knew they would be, I did. A week after 10th grade started I told my parents that I don’t want to be at this little private North Shore school anymore and I went back to the public high school knowing that no matter what was thrown at me, my reaction to it would be different. The teasing, the bullying didn't stop, but this time it was different, because I was different. I was a geeky artist and sat with four football jocks in English class who tried to find every way they could to get under my skin, but they couldn't. There was one kid who for some reason that I still can’t explain would follow me out of school every day and just scream names at me. He was crazy. Some kids laughed at him, no one from the school ever did anything, and I just kept walking and never let him get to me. Then finally, one night, about a week before I was to graduate from High school, I was walking down the street, just around the corner from my house with my friend Doug, when a huge Cadillac convertible pulled up with the entire football team piled in the car. They were following us and yelling all kinds of things at us, but at that moment I realized I had had it. This was over, high school was done and I was going away to college and no matter what was about to happen, I had survived and life was about to get a whole lot better. This one act may get me killed but it will be with a smile on my face. I stopped walking, looked at that car, raised my arm high in the air and gave the entire football team the finger. It seemed like it was happening in slow motion and I as I yelled the words “F**K YOU!” I was thinking to myself, “What the F**K are you doing?!” The Cadillac stopped, the entire football team piled out and me and Doug ran for our lives, and even though I know there was no way I was going to out run these huge a**holes, and I was about to get the crap beaten out of me, it was the greatest feeling in the world. I ran as fast as I could but eventually ran into an area I could not get out of so I fell on the ground covered my head and waited for it to end. When it did, I was bruised, but I stood up to them. I said f**k you to the entire football team and made it out alive, but I know that it was not really the football team I saying f**k you to, it was all of the people who at one time or another thought they could get to me, it was to the school system who had no clue on how to deal with bullying, and it was to the person that I was before, before I realized that if you are confident it does not matter what others think, if you are true to yourself, nothing can keep you down, and that a bully only wins if you let them.

The thing is, no matter what I had to deal with as a kid, I never had to deal with Cyber-Bullying. Technology has brought bullying to a completely new level and the things that make Facebook and Twitter, Tumbler and texting so great are also the things that for our kids can make bullying deadly. According to bullyingstatistics.org:

 

• Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year, according to the CDC. For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts. Over 14 percent of high school students have considered suicide, and almost 7 percent have attempted it.
• Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University.
• A study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying.
• 10 to 14 year old girls may be at even higher risk for suicide, according to the study above.
• According to statistics reported by ABC News, nearly 30 percent of students are either bullies or victims of bullying, and 160,000 kids stay home from school every day because of fear of bullying.

 

We are our children’s advocates and they must know that they can always come to us if they have been bullied, and we must never turn a blind eye if our kid is accused of being the bully, thinking that my child could never do that or writing it off as he or she was just playing around. They must know that we will not tolerate bulling in any form, and that just because someone is different, bullying is never alright. We live in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic world. We live in a world where being openly lesbian, gay, bi, or transgender is becoming more and more accepted. And whether a kid is straight, gay, black, white, Indian, Asian, Hispanic, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, fat, thin, short, tall, athletic or artistic or whatever, differences are something to celebrate, to learn about, to experience.

Talk to your school. Find out what there policy is on bullying. Ask if they talk to their students about bullying. Ask if the students are aware that they can anonymously report bullying so that they have no fear of retaliation. If your kids have a computer, a smart phone, monitor their activity and tell them you are doing so. Get there passwords and let them know that they can only have their devices if they share there login info with you. This is not about snooping on them, it is about protecting them. Never let your children have a computer in their bedroom, but always in a public place where they can’t lock the door, and you can see if they are being harassed online or not. If they don’t like this, well that’s OK  It’s not about being popular it’s about protecting them, and one day when they have kids of their own they will understand why you did what you did.

And one last thing. If you have not seen the movie Bully, (it's available on demand as well as Netflix) watch it, then watch it with your kids, then tell everyone you know to watch it. Then go to thebullyproject.com and purchase The Bully Project Educators toolkit that includes a copy of the movie Bully and give it to your child’s principal so that they can watch it and share it with every teacher and student in their school. I just did.

The day I wrote this was October 17th which is Spirit Day, the official day to take a stand against bullying. But we shouldn't need a special day to take a stand. Our kids are too important to only do something on one day. I was bullied. Chances are you were too, or you were a bully, or you knew someone who was bullied. Bullying is not just kids being kids. It is not just a phase. It can be life or death. It is serious. It is your child.

 

 

You can read more from Brian Dann at www.NorthShoreDad.com.

When my son was 15 back in the early 1990's, I found him in the basement with a knife in his hands and a strange look on his face. That's when he told me he was contemplating Suicide because he was tired of being bullied at school. After my wife tried taking him to school to let them know, she came home intimidated herself after being harassed by the school bullies herself, and no one at the school seemed interested.  Maybe they were afraid themselves, we don't know. When I found out about what happened, I called the school myself telling them that I am pulling him out of school. They said, "You can't do that" and I said, watch me. Well, he never went back and nothing ever became of it. When he turned 16, he got his GED and he has been a success ever since.

I wasnt always this popular kid. From 1st-6th grade i had no friends, i was called fat poor and pizza face. It was an on going thing for a long time until about the end of sixth grade. I was called names so bad i started starving my selfeverytbjng i could to make my self pretty. Well seventh grade stadted anx i was popular and liked, i was like all other seventh graders mixed in drama, i had boyfriends and everythjng a girl could ask for. There was about 2 months left in scho when l my friends decided to turn there backs on me, i coukdnt even walk through the hall of answer a question in class with out being called a whore or a bitch. I couldnt do anything but tell the school but did they do anythjg abiut the kids bullying me? No. So buy the last 2-3 weeks of school i couldnt take it anymore so i wfote a suicide note in math and asked the teacher to go to the bathroom. I sat on the balcony from the second floor i stood up crying about to jump when an eigth grader came out to tell me im a whore and i ahould jump because no one will care and i got down grabbed my stuff and left my school the cops later found me and i was sent to the hospital. Ever since thwn i havent been very happy, stable. Nothing. And it breaks my heart to know fhat the schools out fhere dont care.

IM SO SICK OF THIS