Hello everybody! My name is Destiny Summers. I always had a problem with bullying. It all started when I was just in 3rd grade. I moved from Manchester, England to Trinidad, Colorado. It was absolutely horrible switching schools. When I got to my new school everybody made fun of my accent. It all started with that one little thing. Finally, I was getting followed home by bully's. I rode the bus so I couldn't really do anything about it. I told the principle but nothing ever was put into place about my problem. I was being followed, made fun of, simple things like that really hurt me. Finally, I got into a physical fight when i was in about 5th grade. I WAS ONLY IN 5TH GRADE! Kids do NOT need to be going through what i went through. I am in high school now and I showed all the bully's up. I am not afraid to be me. Some people do still want to TRY to bring me down because my hair is blonde, i like wearing what i wear, but I am classy. I want to be known for that, and when people try to hurt me i just kill them with kindness now. It doesn't even bother me anymore. I know i am better than them. That's what all the kids being bullied today need to know... they are not the one with the problem, the bullies are. You all have people that love you. Stand up to the bullies, kids! Hang out with the people YOU want to hang out with. DO NOT try to fit in! YOU ARE BETTER THAN THAT! And the people that don't believe so, show them you don't do drugs, show them you don't drink alcohol, show them you have good grades, because once school is all over with, none of that will matter. Show them you are not afraid to be you. Confidence is a bullies weakness. Show them you are strong. Love others and treat them how they treat you.. I love you all and I respect everyone that has been through what I have been through. Show them what you are made of and where you can go in life. ♥

Hey Ya'll, my name is Callie Chili. My history with bullying has been treacherous and enlightening. At first, I was the kid everyone wanted to be friends with, even if I was a bit dorky. Because I had the dad that everyone wanted. But when I was 7, my father committed suicide. My "friends" quickly turned on me, and I became the girl whose "daddy was too stupid to work a gun." By the time i reached the 6th grade, my lisp, pre-adolescence awkwardness and slight stutter ranked me to the "#1 dorkiest girl in school," where i was bullied and hazed daily. My sister, who was not outgrowing her boyish figure, began getting tormented for being a "dyke," "she-man," and "lesbo" around the same time, and being related only increased our peers' hatred for us. During the summer of 11th grade, my ugly duckling self became somewhat of a beautiful swan, and my entrance into Junior year was different. However, after my repeated denial of love to my male peers became annoying to them, the bullying began again. This time, it was more sexual harassment. Why I didn't report it at this point, I can only say this, I did not have the words to explain it. No one talked about bullying really to us. I thought the harassment was "normal." As the severity of my bullying escalated, it became clear how non-normal my bullying had become.  Before the opening night of my senior year drama club production, I was raped in the basement of a male friends home. I was a virgin. When I finally came out about what happened, my peers reacted with denial and anger towards me. They blamed me for what happened, said I asked for it, and supported my rapist. After, I learned that he was bragging about it, and there were several others "in" on it.  When i felt that there was going to be no escape from my hell and was several weeks late on my period, I attempted suicide in my bathtub. Luckily, I survived. Becoming so close to death, i realized what I could have done to my family. I realized what I could have lost. My mom always had told me after dad died that suicide was a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and she was right. I began looking for out-of-state university, but I knew that I needed a new power to make it until graduation. I began pressing myself to help my friends get out of their depressions, and spent many nights on the phone talking peers down from suicide, panic attacks, or just needing to talk. I was thrilled to be accepted into DePaul University in Chicago. As of this year, I am officially a graduate from the Peace, Justice and Conflict Resolution double major with Women and Gender Studies programs. My concentration is in Youth Nonviolent Intervention and Outreach (focused in sexual violence, LBQTQ issues, and class). My time at school has given me the words to address my history of bullying and overcome it with the label of survivor. In addition, I have helped my beautiful sister overcome her history of bullying and take pride in her LBGTQ identity. She has been out and in love for several years now, and has continued the path of helping by getting her partner out of a gay-hating environment.  Together, we have created COPE: Critical Outreach Protection and Empowerment. Although we are still in our formative stages (awaiting my return to our Michigan HQ for full lift-off), our mission is to create a nonviolent network of support through workshop education, social networking, conflict resolution training, individual and collective empowerment, fitness motivation, and creative identity exploration. The Bully Project is an inspiring organization doing necessary and great things, and we hope that one day we will be able to add to the strength we have here and end violence for all. 

I went to a private/charter school and my best friend told her older sister that I hated her and that I was mad at her when I wasn't and she got all her sisters friends to say stuff to me like "You got her in trouble" " this is your fault" when I told car mom what happened she called my school and told them the whole story. They said they would let it go but, they kept saying that it was my fault that I was just working myself up when finally i came home crying for the last time and my mom called the school again and said "you need to do something about this" the school said , they would let it go again. The next day i was at lunch and the girl ran up to my table and screamed in my face banging her hands on the table at me just watching me cry. she got her friends to laugh at me and joke about it. My mom tried everything she could when finally the school suspended the girl. When I thought everything was okay I went hone and got on the social media website and saw how she said " oh yeah you can get me suspended but, when tea sister gets home ill teach her how to throw that little girl to the ground." I was traumatized. I showed my mom and she printed the status off line and took it to the police station and to the school. The police station went to the girls house and gave her a warning but, the school said , well ill give you a designated area that you need to stay in. They treated me like I was the bully. Later, I moved schools and much to my surprise the sister went on the cheer team that I was on . She dropped me , wrote all over social media websites that I was an elephant and told the whole cheer team that I got her a demerit. Later, that season she got kicked off the team for bullying and I haven't seen or heard from her ever since. 

When i was in the sixth grade i was one of those girls that were over weight...like way over weight.  My mom always said that "Oh it's just baby fat, it will come off in about two years."  But i didnt take in what she said...I stopped eating because the kids at the middle school would make fun of how over weight i was.  It came to the point were me not eating got so bad that my friends didnt even know what to do.  A couple months after i stopped eating i began to see a difference in how i looked.  All i ate was basically a piece of bread in the morning...maybe.  Once 7th grade came along i started getting into a bad crowd.  I thought they were all my good friends because they were worried about my weight so they would make sure that i ate and stuff like that.  They got me to a healthy place in my 7th grade year:)  That wasnt that problem anymore though... i found out that year that i was dyslexic, schizophrenic, i had adhd, depressed, bipolar....and a lot more.. but i look like a normal teenage girl.  i just didnt act like one.  Once i told my friends they supported me all the way...But they all had a side i didnt know of.  They were all pot heads and drinkers.  They got me started on that stuff (but i dont do any of it anymore) once i got started on that stuff i started liking this guy and so we went out for awhile but once he broke up with me i didnt know how to handle it so i started to cut.  Than it got worse because the guy would play with my emotions and the friends would tell me lies and i would end up making a fool out of my self over and over again until one night...i couldnt take it anymore.  I tried to kill myself from this because after all the tormenting, the pulling of my feelings, the embarrassment i did over dose and cut my wrist down to the vein so i was on my bathroom floor crying with my hands over my head while lying down on the floor wanting to die.  I passed out and i woke up in a hospital with one of my closest friends from elementary school growing up.  I have to say that this story is missing a lot of details thats only because it would be too long and too much to type sorry about that.  After this whole experience i realized that i had to choose my friends more carefully...but than after i told that to myself it wasnt that i chose them and they were bad it was that i let them get the weak side of me and that i let them use me as a punching bag.  Now i know that im strong in my own ways.  Nobody can ever take control of your own life so don't let them...be strong...

I used to be the one who always thought that bullying was wrong in my group of friends. One day we just got out of school and a 15 year old punched a 12 year old because he was on his "turf" . My friends laughed and started walking away. I went over and asked, was that worth it For you? Did you get enjoyment out of that? I said do that again and there is gonna be a lot more coming from me than you've ever seen. The kid that got punched? We are now best friends. Nobody messes with him anymore. I've never had a more loyal friend. And the girls who laughed? They are now scared to say anything because they know I'm not afraid to stand up.

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I consider myself to be some form of the "ugly duckling" story. I haven't quite grown to become a model or actress, and I doubt I'll ever be in People Magazine for that sort of thing. But I've grown and matured, physically and emotionally. 

Going along with that "duck" metaphor, I was cute when I hatched, then slowly degraded into ugly pre-adolescence. Curly hair, glasses in second grade, braces. I was born in New Jersey, moved south, and moved back north for 1st grade, so I returned with a southern accent. But worse yet, I moved in with no friends, in a small town where everyone had known each other since they were toddlers. 

At first, I thought I had friends. I joined Girl Scouts. Soon, I realized that since the beginning, I was out of their circles. And not just that - I was awkward. I wore old clothes, was (and still am, though with much more awareness and much less self-pity) fat, and didn't know how to socialize properly. 

I tell most people the bullying started in fourth or fifth grade, but in retrospect, I started seeing signs easily in second grade. 

It starts with something small and silly and seemingly unimportant. They always tag you. They make you last in line, or cut in line, for the slide, or for kickball, or the swings. And it slowly becomes worse as time goes on. You can't approach your friends, or they ignore you in conversation. 

And at that point that I mentioned, in fourth grade, was when "Germs" started happening. It was like cooties, except specifically for myself. And I literally couldn't do anything without some sort of outcry. And being socially awkward, I had to prove myself to be better, and that caused more teasing.

In that year, I would say my depression began to root itself.

I couldn't sleep at nights. I almost missed Field Day because I hated school. I missed homework. I would spend hours upon hours online, playing video games, just anything. I had a grand total of one friend, and otherwise, I could only get along with the boys, playing their games.

It took a psychologist to figure out I was bullied. It took months after it was reported, and it took my father coming in and yelling at the administrators for something to be done about it.  

And it's still taking me years to heal. Forget scars, because that would imply the wounds have closed. I'm clinically depressed now because of the experience. The loneliness, being outcast, having nobody to turn to... all of that changed who I am as a person. I still have very few friends, very little trust, an ego but very little confidence.  

Worst yet was that they don't think these sorts of things hurt kids. My depression went under the radar because, heck, a kid in fifth grade can't be that heavily traumatized by such petty things. Right?

It built up over the years, taking form as addiction to Internet-only socialization, which affected my schoolwork. I did artwork for a while, and today I still look at my work and am impressed, but the pressures of growing that suddenly brought that to a halt. I let my health go as I became more aware of my conditions, because I didn't mind fading away. 

And here I am today. I'm undergoing therapy I should have gone through years ago, but am glad I'm doing before things got worse. I dropped college for the semester in order to heal. Before that, had I not had my one companion I met in college, I would probably be dead.

I shouldn't have to rebuild my life like this. I told myself I was fine for years. I really wasn't. I was scared of asking for help, scared that adults wouldn't understand why I was hurt, when I knew all the students in my class had been talked to, and my family had moved, and I had this new life in a new town.  

What people don't understand is that these things affect children more than they think. We're so young, so pliable, so vulnerable, and to go in and ruin childhood is to truly ruin the mind. Plus, there are people who have gone through what I have, except at a later age, and the consequences are much more dire. My favorite metaphor is the crumpled paper: no matter how much you try to straighten things out, the damage is still there. 

Bullying is a lot more serious than people make it out to be. When you're bullied, your self-view changes. Your view of others changes. Your friends change, your moods change, where you sit at lunch and what sports you enjoy change.

Everything changes when you're bullied. 

And it's not simply enough to tell the kids to back off. They need to understand the pain of being excluded and teased, ignored and mocked. 

And the victims need to understand that they're not alone. There are others, and there are people willing to help. And they need to know that it's okay to feel pain, but not to ignore it. We need to help these people as well. 

Anyone who understands this pain needs to speak out. Anyone who knows what it's like to have someone lost in their pain, or to lose someone from their pain, needs to speak out. 

Bullying never truly ends when the teasing stops. 

As a freshman, my favorite time of the day was 1:36 p.m. Every time my watch struck 1:36, I was happy because I was now liberated from the torment, the misery. It was at that time that third period ended.

During that year, I gained a total of 21 pounds and four girls in my Physical Education class made sure I knew it. The girls’ locker room became a battle zone. Each day as I changed into my P.E. clothes their mouths would begin to chatter, their eyes would begin to stare. Quickly, their tortuous words would escalate. They made fun of my clothes, my intelligence, my voice, and even my laugh. After two weeks, the idea that what was going on was my fault became engrained into my head. Something had to be wrong with me that invited this punishment.

Every day as I dressed for school, I would worry about whether my hair or clothes would satisfy them. I would think: Maybe just today they won’t pick on me. I would tell myself to keep my loud, boisterous laugh to a minimum so I would not be heard. I would tell myself day after day to not be myself, because myself wasn’t good enough.

Living a normal life after that semester was not easy for me. It would have been easy to resort to the ostrich syndrome and walk across campus wearing all black, muting my laugh, and eating away my sorrows. It would have been easy to bash my school and blame it for my suffering. It would have been easy to have just given up on myself. Often, I felt the need to cut and hurt myself to feel comfort. Gripping onto a pair of scissors, I couldn’t bear to do it.

I expected more from myself. 

My name is Rick Daniels and I would like to tell you a story about me. When my mom died, my sibling took advantage of my poor health; they bullied and viciously attacked me. I was in therapy for over a year. The pain was so great that I wanted to retaliate on my siblings; I also wanted to commit suicide. The sad thing is, my siblings and I are all over 60 years old. Over time I asked myself how could I overcome this horrible experience. After I decided to tell my story to the world it happened. I've decided to help others that may be going through the same thing as I. One of the things that impressed me the most was, the response that I've received from kids from all over the world telling me how my story and website has helped them. I will continue to speak out against bullying for people of all ages. Please remember, if you need help don’t be afraid or embarrassed to ask for help. To see my whole story, watch my YouTube video “Rick Daniels Bullied at Age 61. Also visit my website “The Friends of Rick Daniels”. Thank you and may God protect you.

I see bullying happen everyday. I see it when I work as an Aide in the playgrounds, or in the classrooms, and I make sure I stand up for the kids because I was once bullied myself. The first time I was bullied it was in elementary school, I was always teased about my glasses, my height, but i never let it get to me. I always thought, "they are just teasing you, just smile and act like you don't know what they are trying to do to you." Well I was wrong. I started having problems with one boy in my school, he wasn't in any of my classes, but we both went to the same after school program. One day he snapped at me while I was playing with my best friend and he began to choke me. Thankfully something was done. I never saw the kid again in the school or in my life. I had a friend who stood up and told someone I was being endangered. My parents were glad I was okay. Then the bullying just stopped after that, but ONLY in Elementary school.

Once I started middle school things changed. To me it was my roughest year. I moved from school to school and town to town. I didn't mind. I made friends quickly, but I never really had a bond with them. In sixth and seventh grade I would say was a nightmare. I hated the school's I attended. I had a group of girls bully me for my looks and called me horrible names that I do not wish to repeat. I was once called a lesbian even though I am not. I am straight I just happen to be very shy with guys around me and a little scarred from boys bullying me as well. I also had someone steal from twice. All from the same girl I had never meet, but claimed to hate my guts and everything about me. I got bullied also for being a friend to someone everyone did not like. After 7th grade things dimmed down, and I moved to a better city, and school. From then on I was never bullied again. I made great friends at my high school and till this day they are considered my best friends. They are the ones that help us stand up for ourselves, and give us courage. My dream is to become a teacher that is caring, kind, loving, and fair to all of my future students. There is only one thing that I can not stand, and that is bullying. It is not okay to harm anyone in anyway. I'm glad someone made this movie. I know I'll fight to stop bullying. I have been for many years, and I will continue doing so.