Hi my name is Mariana Hurtado my bullying started in 8th grade when 20 teenage boys started making fun of my color. Than it went into my freshman year with them calling me Border Hopper, you Dirty Mexican, & we are going to report you to the INS. I reported them to the principles and one of the assistant principle wanted to kick me out because i was lying, my family didn't believe me in any way. It got to the point where i actually had INS come to my house an point taser guns at the age of 15 years old. To that point i was in the verge to hurt myself because i was so unhappy with my life. But no one did anything so I finally decided to stand up for myself, every time they called me names or push me to the ground i would get in there face and try to fight back. 

Life was going good till about 5th grade and then my dad got cancer... people noticed i was weak they started to talk about me (yes i am and i was over weight) they said things i just kinda blew it off.  Then 7th grade came and my dad still had cancer and it was getting worse i didn't get bullied a lot yet, but people started talking more and more they where saying it behind my back and my "friends" started saying stuff behind my back. Life at home wasn't so easy i had a older brother and a younger sister  and they where perfect... my family noticed what i did wrong. They compared me to them.. that when i thought about killing myself.. it hurt i cried almost every night. I got past 7th grade but then 8th came and people didn't rlly mess with me but my dad got rlly sick and he passed away.. then this group of girls one of them was my best friend they all started messing with me over Facebook  i was kinda done at tat point. But summer came and somethings got better but i made the huge choice to got to a trade school and i had to start over and people made fun of me i mean its high school im in ninth grade and it has been getting better i still think about hurting myself and i feel like im becoming depressed and i feel like i have no where to turn.

I was always the girl on the outside. I was bullied throughout high school and intermediate. I got called every name under the sun. No one understood. I had a few friends in intermediate but they faded quickly. I always had trouble making friends. I met this one girl in intermediate  her name was Nikita, she became my best friend. We journeyed onto high school together.
I was a slow breeder. I took time to develop and people bullied me for that. Nikita felt helpless. I got nicknamed "flat chest" it was horrible. Everyone teased me. The teachers did nothing about it. I turned to no one because I felt like I had no one. Nikita then got a boyfriend who hung out with the people who hated me. She hung out with me sometimes but being the good friend I was I told her she could be with her boyfriend and I would hang out with my "other friends".
I hung out alone. I liked it sometimes. I would walk past people and they would throw stuff at me. Class was worse. People would tell me to shut up or just go kill myself.......I started cutting...I wanted to die.....everyday...I wrote so many suicide letters. I told no one.
I dropped out of school at 16. I had had enough!

Whilst being at home I wanted to take up modelling which my dad encouraged me to do. So I did and put it as a facebook status....bad idea... people from high school saw. They made a page saying "Chante just shouldn't model" got almost everyone in school to like it. So it went on social bullying. I reported the page and it was taken down. Thank God. That didn't stop them mailing me and still giving being so horrible.

I couldn't take it...

I put myself in hospital and my father and sister both just broke down.

I hated everything in life. 

I still have scars on my arm but they now remind me everyday that I am now stronger than that.

One girl at my old school was constantly picked on and bullied. Her name was Marie. Marie was in a foster care, so things were already bad. I thought she would appreciate a friend, so I gave her one, me. Marie was a really great artist. i remember all of her pretty anime drawings. Once we had become good friends, I lost all of mine. They thought I was stupid, ugly, and fat. They constantly picked on both of us. Anyone that even thought about hurting Marie physically, emotionally, and mentally would hear a piece of my mind. Then, I got tired of being bullied, so I stopped talking to Marie. She was once again bullied with no friends. I turned into the bully. I take back every breathing moment of that. I realize that bullying is infectious. It is like an evil disease. the school that I am in now, when I started, I had no friends. I knew no one. I didn't make any friends. I had finally made one, but she stabbed in the back. I was also dealing with my parent's divorce and moving to the opposite side of the state from my dad. I felt so unhappy that I started cutting. i am not proud of it at all. I felt like I was put in Marie's shoes at the time. I had changed my classes and made a bunch of friends. I now still have them. Do I still deal with bullies? Yes. Do they hurt me anymore? No. I learned from my new friends that my story isn't as bad as a lot of people's story. I learned to stand up. It is a scary thought to stand up if all your life you've been sitting down, but I achieved it. Once you stand up, no one will ever affect you again. My name is Shayla Tamblyn, and I am against bullying!

It started when I was 5. My life was going great, well for a 5 year old. I was liked a lot, well at least at school. I was a bully. I bullied these two girls physically. I regret it everyday I live. I stopped when I was 7 which was 2nd grade. The next year was great. Fourth grade came and things got bad for me. Everyone started hating me. I don't even know why. I didn't change over summer, my personality was the same. The whole 4th grade hated me. They started spreading rumors about me. I would speak my mind and always got into arguments. I would always be the one to get into trouble because I didn't have the knowledge or self-control I have now. The teacher was even on their side. A new girl came and it was a chance for me to make a friend. I befriended her and all was well for about a month. We were both dominate when it came to friendship. Let's just say our friendship didn't work out so well and she became kind of my enemy.

The next year school wasn't the problem. It was home. My cousins and sisters would harass me every time they came to town. It was always 5 against one. Fair right. I could never be myself with out doing something wrong. I figured my whole family hated me. I didn't think about suicide until sixth grade. It was pretty stupid actually. I got into trouble and everything that happened came back to me. I was standing against the wall and I started to hold my breathe. Couldn't do it. I have been seeking for someone who cares. Someone to tell me they are glad I'm here, so far, nothing. I befriended another girl which was a mistake.

She was cool until about a year ago. She seeks attention from the wrong people. She has problems at home and I help her with them but it seems she is never genially concerned about me. I've had suicidal thoughts but never been to the point where I wanted it.

I was just searching for someone who cared. Someone to be there for me when I needed them. Someone who won't judge me, but except me for who I am. Worst part is I go online to vent. Horrible when you have nobody to turn to. I'm such a horrible person that nobody would want to befriend me or be friends with me. Right.

Not you. You are beautiful and you should know I care. ever need to talk, message me. [email protected] If I care then I'm pretty sure someone who actually knows you personally cares.

#Staystrong

When I was in 6th grade I thought I had everything. I was friends with the "cool kids" and I had the popularity that I had always wanted. To me I thought the world was prefect at that moment, even though I was very unprepared for what was to begin. 

One day I was going about everything just like I did every other day. When I went to school it was the exact same, except there was some big news on the block. One of the girls I had been friends with was having a birthday party. Even though I was invited I knew my mother would never allow me to go, since the party was an over night one about an hour away. So I lied and told them I was just busy that weekend. After the weekend was over, on that Monday, I heard the news of what had happened at the party. Let's just say they did some inappropriate things for 6th graders at that time. Once, I found out I had told another girl who had not gone also. Eventually it came back that some how I was apparently the leak of who told the whole school of what had happened that weekend. Who knew telling one person meant the whole school knew.

Eventually, things began to get worse. Everyone in the group of people I was friends with had turned on me. Everyday was constant torcher. I was called names and pushed in the halls. It just started to become a daily event and so I assumed that it would never end. I began contemplating suicide because I thought that was the only answer. I had no one to turn to. No friends or family, no one.

One day though I finally saw the light. I realized if I continued to act the way I did that would mean they would win. So I turned my life around and found some new friends and things I am passionate about. Now I am a college student with the right people around me and the love of my life by my side. My dream is to become a social worker so I can integrate and improve the quality in which schools prevent and handle bullying cases because no child deserves to go through what I did and feel they have no voice. So I am standing up to bullying because I want to see an end to it. Everyone deserves a voice!

at the beginning of the school year people called me names and some people still call me names but now I stand up for my self  

I struggled a lot in High School with my sexuality, not whether I was gay or not, I knew that I was but whether it was worth revealing.  I was already bullied a great deal, never physical which I suppose can seem lucky in a way but the verbal abuse was also mentally damaging.  I always had a few solid friends and they were a good foundation so I felt strong and like I could handle it, I was always saying "I am fine" and "It doesn't get to me" which I genuinely believed myself.  It wasn't until I left High School and realized that when faced with the real world it had really taken it's toll.  I had zero confidence, I almost believed what everyone had told me, that what I was, was something to be ashamed of.  And this was a huge 180 from who I am.  I have always been strong, and opinionated and up for life and these select few kids who had troubles of their own and decided to turn it into something negative were ruining that and taking something from me that I loved.  So I just stopped it, I went to college and I forced myself to socialize even if I was uncomfortable and today I stand so proud of myself because I am back to who I was, and I am so blessed to have realized that.  I want to help though, I know that although my pain felt real it is nothing compared to some out there so if you read this just know you are so beautiful and loved.  I don't know you and I love you.  There is always that inkling of hope that you never know, might be right round the corner.  Just stop and breathe and think about where your life can take you if you just give it a chance.  I know its hard to believe this all if you are in pain but I beg you, take the time to let life surprise you. 

I came across my fair share of bullies while I was growing up. I was always able to tolerate them, to a certain degree. On occasion there'd be a few bullies that just try to push things to a more violent degree. That happened on this one occasion which, I feel, was a turning point in my life that gave me more confidence to stand up to bullies.

The occasion occurred on a school day morning at the neighborhood bus stop when I was in the 6th grade. The bully in question was both the neighborhood bully and the school bully. He was one year older than me. He walked up to me and slapped me across the face. A seething rage built up in me and, with all the force of that rage, I punched him in the stomach. His eyes popped open wide, he turned, walked away towards a tree on the front lawn of the house we were in front of and he leaned against that tree and stayed there…even after the bus pulled away to head to school.

That bully did not go to school that day because I humiliated him and put him in his place. And he no longer bullied anybody else from that point on.

Word got out about what I did and I become somewhat of a folk hero. It gave me a reputation that I am not to be messed with.

From that point on a certain confidence was embedded in me that, I feel, threw up a bully force field of a sort. But any bully that did try to break that force field was just stared down by me and backed away.

I feel it's important, if at all possible for the bullied to take care of the bullies themselves, because adult authorities will and can only do so much.