Ever since I was a little girl I was around bullying. However, I was fortunate. I attended a private school; so the bullying wasn't as severe as it could have been if it were a public schooling system. But I'm not here to talk about my story, that's for another day.

You see, I have always found the internet to be a safe haven. I have my entire life on my laptop. And so it's safe to say that I love meeting new people online, despite the whole "stranger danger" ordeal. One day on my blog I came across a message in my ask from a new follower of mine named Robbie. I started talking to him, one thing led to another, and before you know it we're great friends. We really cliqued and bonded over the few months I had gotten to know him in.

Robbie and I told each other everything. He confided in me how he was depressed. When he was younger he was bullied really badly, and it was just getting worse as time went on. His foster parents didn't care. He tried killing himself 3 times before. Then one day in May he just about succeeded. He downed an entire bottle of pills and went to sleep. But he wasn't dead. His mom found him in time to get an ambulance to get him to the hospital. He was unconscious during the whole thing, and ended up slipping into a coma. The doctors told his parents there was nothing they could do to bring him back, so they took him off life support later that night.

Robbie had his whole life ahead of him, and it was brought short by a few idiots. Robbie is someone that I will always look up to. He put up with so much in his life. He stayed strong through so many years of abuse. He's truly an inspiration for all. It's a shame that he isn't here today to see how happy he could be. If he found this website I'm 100% sure it would have changed his perspective to know that people really do care and are doing something about bullying.

Robbie may not be here anymore, but his story will remain strong for now and many years to come. ♡♡♡ I love you Robbie.

Ever since I was a little girl I was around bullying. However, I was fortunate. I attended a private school; so the bullying wasn't as severe as it could have been if it were a public schooling system. But I'm not here to talk about my story, that's for another day.

You see, I have always found the internet to be a safe haven. I have my entire life on my laptop. And so it's safe to say that I love meeting new people online, despite the whole "stranger danger" ordeal. One day on my blog I came across a message in my ask from a new follower of mine named Robbie. I started talking to him, one thing led to another, and before you know it we're great friends. We really cliqued and bonded over the few months I had gotten to know him in.

Robbie and I told each other everything. He confided in me how he was depressed. When he was younger he was bullied really badly, and it was just getting worse as time went on. His foster parents didn't care. He tried killing himself 3 times before. Then one day in May he just about succeeded. He downed an entire bottle of pills and went to sleep. But he wasn't dead. His mom found him in time to get an ambulance to get him to the hospital. He was unconscious during the whole thing, and ended up slipping into a coma. The doctors told his parents there was nothing they could do to bring him back, so they took him off life support later that night.

Robbie had his whole life ahead of him, and it was brought short by a few idiots. Robbie is someone that I will always look up to. He put up with so much in his life. He stayed strong through so many years of abuse. He's truly an inspiration for all. It's a shame that he isn't here today to see how happy he could be. If he found this website I'm 100% sure it would have changed his perspective to know that people really do care and are doing something about bullying.

Robbie may not be here anymore, but his story will remain strong for now and many years to come. ♡♡♡ I love you Robbie.

My name is Ryan Cooke and I am special and I have autism I was different than boys when I first started school because me at school was different everybody has a different taste in music well when I started school I used to think about my favorite singers all the time during break time and other boys made fun of me because I always liked Celine Dion, Trisha Yearwood, Faith Hill, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Aaliyah, Mary J. Blige, Queen Latifah, and Destiny's Child and those boys made fun of me and I always like song Part Of Your World from The Little Mermaid and the song from FernGully A Dream Worth Keeping by Sheena Easton and I always like Sheena Easton and the song A Whole New World from Aladdin and boys were making fun of me and I was telling them "Please Stop" and I just walked away and just spent time with my friends and my friends stood up to me and then a few years I met a nice boy named "Tyler" Tyler was special and he didn't have any friends because he got made fun of and got teased and I stood to him and I became a good friend and a bully was picking on Tyler and I told the bully to stop and the bully who was a boy that called a brown hair blue eyed idiot and I did not like that and when I got called that I slapped the bully so hard in the face and he said "Don't Ever Hit Me" and I said "Well Leave Me and My Friends Alone" and then the bully pulled my hair so hard and I slapped the bully's face to get him off and then I punched the bully in the face to get him off and the bully fell to the ground and the bully started crying and I said "Well that's what you get for messing with me and my friends" and then the next day he was at it again and when the bully was gonna pull my hair and he tried to so I grabbed his arm and he said "Let Go Of Me" and threw him down on the ground and I kicked the bully while he was laying on the ground and he was screaming in pain and I told the teacher about the whole bully situation and things got settled because I was so mad and I had to calm and I got a drink of water from the fountain and I calmed down and the bully was not gonna bother me and friends anymore. A Few Years Later I met a boy named Ian Chernoff he was something when I first met him I was 6, 7, or 8 years old when I first met him he was a bully to me years ago and he pushed me into a wall in the boys' bathroom and I started crying and he pushed me to the floor and I started crying and Mrs. Delfine put him in Time-Out and he never pushed me again.

When I was in High School on my Junior year I was bullying Ian Chernoff so bad me and my general ed friends were making fun of him calling him names me and all my friends hated Ian Chernoff so much and that was in the year 2012 and it was in the spring time and I was 17 when I started bullying Ian Chernoff and the bullying him was a persistent routine and I was a member of The Pack and I was The Pack Leader and the bullying would not stop and I was letting my general ed friends torture that poor kid and we would not leave him alone and they were punching him and kicking him and it would not stop and my general ed friends that were chasing him after school I ignored it and went to my play practice and I had to stay focused on my play practice and I did and when the play was all over I went to Special Olympics Bowling and I was told if I bully Ian Chernoff again I would not be able to go to the movie theater with my aunt and uncle or any of family members or any of my friends for a while and when I got told that I finally learned something and the bullying Ian Chernoff never happened again.

Then When I was a Senior in High School my bullying days were finally over and I started taking choir classes and I did perfect in my vocal music class and I was in two plays on my senior year and I did two concerts in my vocal music class and the choir concerts were awesome and most of my general ed friends were part of the audience and they loved it and I've been thinking about my singing events for all my friends and my bullying days were over in September 2012 and stayed focused on singing and I was in Drama Club on my senior year and I graduated high school in 2013 the year my last play came and my last concert so I'm in post-secondary now which is a program for adults with autism ages 18-26 and I get to go there till I'm 26 and I've been thinking about going to college and I'm being nice to everybody and treating everybody with respect and even though I like Katy Perry, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga, Shakira, One Direction, One Republic, Pink and other kinds of music everybody is not making fun of me about it all and things are getting better.

This story is to let everybody know not to be a bully and not make fun of others and treat others the way they want to treated and have confidence in your self and stay focused on something that you're supposed to focus on and the bullying is never good and bullying is not acceptable and bullying can get somebody nowhere so don't be a bully and always stand up to somebody.

My name is Ryan Cooke and I am special and I have autism I was different than boys when I first started school because me at school was different everybody has a different taste in music well when I started school I used to think about my favorite singers all the time during break time and other boys made fun of me because I always liked Celine Dion, Trisha Yearwood, Faith Hill, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Aaliyah,

My name is Ryan Cooke and I am special and I have autism I was different than boys when I first started school because me at school was different everybody has a different taste in music well when I started school I used to think about my favorite singers all the time during break time and other boys made fun of me because I always liked Celine Dion, Trisha Yearwood, Faith Hill, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Aaliyah,

 

            When I was in preschool I remember getting teased on a regular basis by one specific girl. In her mind there was nothing wrong with pinching me over and over, making my arms red, and yelling at me. It was all fun and games for her and a nightmare for me. All I ever wanted was to make others happy and be friends with everyone. She made it impossible to come to school and not worry about whether I would be pinched or not. I would come home crying trying to figure out what it was that I had done to deserve getting pinched every day. Why did this girl not like me? Was I such a bad kid? What confused me even more was being pinched by someone who on some days would act like my friend, wanting to play together. Did she really think that she would gain a friendship by being mean? Years later since seeing this girl, I ran into her at a day camp and she continued pinching, each time telling an adult that she wasn’t pinching me.

            Back in elementary school I got teased more. I wore glasses, usually had my hair in a braid, and was quiet, all of which meant that I was a target for teasing. Certain girls hated me and would tell me how they hated me. I would come home crying, not wanting to have to deal with them again. I wanted to be friends with people not a target for name-calling. I remember coming home after school one day and my mother calling up the parents of the girls who were making me cry and feel hurt. Interestingly, the parents denied their child ever doing anything to me and said that I had made up the whole story to my parents. When my mother got off the phone that night, I recall saying over and over “Mommy they DID tease me, they hurt my feelings!” and my mother would completely understand and know that I wouldn’t make up a story that was so hurtful to me.

            As an adult looking back on these experiences, I can’t help but still wonder how people could be so hurtful to others and not see anything wrong with it. What do they really get out of hurting others and making others so upset? Why can’t everyone show kindness towards others? When I was 11 my grandpa passed away and left each of his grandchildren a letter of wisdom. What stuck with me the most, besides hearing the compassion of my grandpa through his words, was his choice to explain how important kindness is to the world: “Be friendly and polite to everybody. Never wait for people to say hello. You say hello to everybody, your friends, relatives, whoever you know.” This is how I have lived my life: with kindness. Treat people how you would like to be treated; don’t wait for others to show you kindness instead show them kindness.

 

~Sophie 

when i was six my daddy started drinking and beating us when i was 7 my mom left us, when i was nine i gave my first kiss, i learned how to skate, and i was taken into foster care.   i was mad and sad all the time. when i was 10 i became a bully

i had a brother i loved him so much, he was my everything, one second i had to take care of him and the other he was taken away from me we were split and sent to different places

three years ago when i was 12  On a sunday morning , my caseworker came she had bad news : My brother had killed himself he was only 10

My whole world came crashing down, i was struck by pain it dragged me to the bottom of the darkest ocean and i didnt came up

I had to be pushed to the limit of humiliation, to that place where the mute pain finally becomes a scream. to be taken to that place where I could not escape myself. bring me back  from cruelty towards pain. forcing me to empathize. I had to scream.
  shouting and yelling, angry, sick of my own sickness. Transform pain into a cry of liberation. i had to shout very loud, loud enough to silence that inner voice that tortured me, insulted me, that inner voice that hated me. I had to push my own limits. Until i could give that cry that put a stop to the abuse. I had to scream i am here and you can go past there. I had to be broken. So i could shake myself free from that reality. I needed to be filled with the anguish that is an ally, that anguish which becomes help, a cry for help.
You had to make me scream to bring me back from the numbness.

  and so i yelled.

Because a cry is a variation in tone is an accent on the intention, it is a change of pace and strategy.
It was important to make audible the despair and the pain, and the helplessness cry again. It was important to help them become visible by yelling
My soul needed to be touched, and sometimes the soul cries and in that cry its cured and saved.
Sometimes mutism is cured with a shout . And sometimes a whisper has the power of a thousand screams that need to be shouted.

Sometimes I think that everything around us is a mirror. When we look in the mirror, do we do it to see how others see us? Or to see if the mirror gives us the image we have of ourselves? Sometimes what we hate the most in others is a reflection of what we most hate about ourselves. Mirrors can be tricky. One can get lost in a mirror. Like Narcissus, who so in love with himself, so lost in is own reflection in a lake, drowned. There are mirrors in which we want to reflect ourselves. There are mirrors in which we see what we want to see , but also what we dont . There are mirrors in which we do not want to look at ourselves. There are mirrors in which we cant recognize ourselves. If you do not like what you see in the mirror, you win nothing by breaking it. We choose what to see in the mirror. You can see that trait that you hate or you can see it has a beautiful smile. Who has not ever looked in a mirror image of himself that he did not like? Do not fight the mirror. It's a losing battle beforehand, meaningless. If you do not like what you see in the mirror, put a smile. You'll start to like it a little more. The mirror does not lie. The mirror shows things as they are. It shows us what we have ... and it also shows us what we're missing.
Three years ago I broke a mirror, now I know what I saw ... I saw the monster that lived in me. Did not want to see it until today, the monster i seek in the outside was living inside me.
with our eyes we can see everything except ourselves, for that, we need a mirror
As long as we look in the wrong mirrors, we will just get a lot destrucción
we need to have the courage to look in the mirror and accept what we see.
there is No mirror to show us what we want to see, we have to just look in the mirror and accept what we see ... because that, like it or not, is what we are

now im 15 i woke up from my numbness and im sorry about all those mirrors i tried to brake, all the hurtful word i ever said, and all the pain i caused

dear  brother my sweet angel  i love you always , and i  wont forget your smile with that adorable gap that according to you must have made the tooth fairy rich 

always yours your sister

My name is Ashley Vasquez and I am 24 years old and I have so much I would like to write but I would also love to share to anyone and everyone.  When I was in middle school I was verbally bullied everyday for about two years about having hairy arms and for being too tall for a girl.  Yes hairy arms, it may not seem like such a big deal but I would be called gorilla or someone would grab my arm and be like "look you guys" in front of the whole class or something.  At that point in time and at the age I was I was very vulnerable and fragile to it all.  Even on the hottest days I would wear long sleeves or huge sweaters, I would have severe stomach aches and would have anxiety attacks going to school sometimes and even before going to the class that had the people who bullied me most in them.  Also I was bullied most by boys because I was so much taller than them at this age, and I would be called names like big bird or jolly green giant.  I would go out of my way to wear shoes that had the most flat bottoms just to feel not as tall.  I remember having a huge crush on this one boy in the 6th grade and when I finally had the guts to mention it to someone and when he found out his reaction was "oh no she's way too tall."  I would fake sick a lot and my attitude and personality began changing and my family, but mostly my aunt, noticed because I was around her the most.  I remember it got so bad that my aunt (without me knowing) went to the principals office after she finally got me to spill the beans on what was going on.  After that the teasing stopped for a little while to my face but began to happen in a more subtle way, such as rumors and gossip.  It was honestly one of the roughest times I've been through because I began to feel very insecure, sad allll the time, missing school a lot etc.  But what I've learned and as cliché as it sounds, but is very true, is that pain does not last forever and in every situation no matter how bad it is people always move on with their life, learn from it, and become better because of it.  I remember the day I began noticing that I was not the only one who would get teased at school, this was about the 8th grade now and I had finally hit my limit of living my life that way anymore.  Instead of violently standing up for myself or letting myself be thrown in the dumps (what it felt like) I began to embrace what they thought was fun to tease me about.  I am a Latina, so yes I will have hairy arms, all the women in my family do and they are happy people, most of the other Latinas in my school had hair on their arms too, it didn't define me, but who I was as a person is what defines me.  I remember the first time I came in confrontation with one of my bullies who made a comment about arms and I made a joke about it saying "yes it's what keeps me warm on cold days," and they laughed but not at me but with me.  I wanted them to know that them talking about my arms isn't something that hurts me anymore cause I know who I am as a person.  As for my height I learned all the advantages I had such as being able to reach things in high places or earning "best offensive player" on my basketball team.  Once I began to show confidence on my own instead of fear and being shy it slowly but surely stopped.  Stopping bullying isn't something that can happen over night and to be honest it's something we notice everyday, recently I was my own bully, why? Because the media is probably one of the biggest bully's we encounter or personally deal with today.  They tell us everyday what's sexy, what you should look like etc.  Men and women struggle with this and honestly I struggled and sometimes I let myself still struggle with it.  The advice I can give you is way easier said than done because it took a lot for me to finally know that no matter what way I look or what size I am, I am a beautiful human being.  Surround yourself with positive people, happiness and good vibes.  My friends, my boyfriend and I are on the journey of the pursuit of happiness.  Having them in my life and surrounding myself around their vibes really has helped me on this journey.  I dropped anything negative, I've distanced myself from negative people, I'm following my dreams, I meditate now, I make happiness a priority for myself and for making others happy, and I view the world in a way I would have never viewed it a few years ago.  You really only live once, so feel and know you're beautiful, be happy, stand up to yourself because you ARE strong enough so let yourself be, to put it simply... just let go!

Growing up I became close friends with a girl named Toby Anne, but she moved away to go live with her aunt and grandmother, so I was unable to stay by her side physically. But we kept in touch and she told me about the bullying she was being put through. This is her story of bravery. Toby was diagnosed with cancer at the age 12, the cancer eventually spread to her lungs heavily effecting her breathing.

But this story isn't about how Toby had cancer- the cancer is only a small factor.

Toby came out as pansexual when she was 15, and she was proud of herself, but her peers were not. She had just recently received her oxygen tank so she was a bit slower going through the halls which made it easier on her bullies. They would shove her in the halls, shoot spitballs at her, stick notes that said "fag" on her back, and scream about catching "the gay" when she walked past them. Even so, she did let them bother her.

When she turned 16 she started dating her best friend and the two were happy. Yet Toby received notes saying "Get lost faggot You're not welcome here" and death threats occasionally. But she didn't mind, she just keep wheeling her oxygen tank, whom she fondly named Edgar, around, sending emails to me and kissing her girlfriend happily.

She turned 17 and her bullies got physical. They threw her backpack at the from a balcony, destroyed "Edgar", shoved her down the stairs, and threw both her and heir oxygen tank into a pool. But despite my desperation to get Toby to tell she waved me off, telling me that she was fine and that these kids would remember she was dying and feel bad eventually. She kept telling me that, over and over, saying it would be fine and those kids couldn't hurt her. Even her girlfriend expressed her worry, but Toby laughed it off. She said the teachers wouldn't care anyway; she said they never do.

Two days before she was 18 Toby stopped suffering from personhood, passing on with a smile on her face with her hand in her mother's and her head resting in her girlfriend's lap. After her death her girlfriend told me kids made jokes about her, whispering about how they were glad she was gone.

It's been two years and I am sure all those kids have forgotten Toby, but I remember her and her crooked smile she showed in the face of adversity. The main boy who bullied her did receive karma as I came to learn when I was visiting her grave. He approached me and asked me if I knew Toby and told me what he did, he told me he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and remembered my friend. He told me he was sorry, though he was much too late.

I was diagnosed with autism on December 2000. I was three years old. Since then, my life was never the same. Autism is this brain disorder that affects how your brain and sensory system work, and some have it worse than others. I have it very mild, where I almost don't even need my medications. Yet I still take my medications, since it's better safe than sorry. Little did I know that I would go to school and get made fun of, insulted, threatened of life, and even beat up; just because I have autism and I have a strong will to serve my country, preferably in the US military. Every day, going to school was hard for me. I have been to three different school districts so far, and I currently reside in Winfield, Iowa. Everyone seemed nicer there at first, so I got more involved and had a lot of team spirit. I even have a Spirit Award hanging in my house. Then, I lost almost all my friends (and my dearest friends moved to Florida), so I had to resign from all sports and restart my friends list from scratch. I have had 23 suicide attempts in my lifetime, 20 of them after January 2012 when I had serious depression for all that happened. I even asked God several times why he gave me autism, or even put me on this Earth. But I realized that there is a reason why we're all on this Earth. I could've easily succeeded in one of my suicide attempts. I should've dropped 30 feet on a noose and died of a broken neck, but I kept going, knowing God gave me this plan- this lifelong dream of mine- to serve and protect my people and my country. My ultimate plan is to go to Sam Houston State University (Huntsville, Texas) for a major in Criminal Justice and a minor in Military Science; become a Military Police Officer in the Army (and serve for 20 years), and retire, writing books and owning a multi-million-dollar ranch in Texas. My alternative plan is to become a PE teacher, and I would be one that stood up against bullying instead of just watching it happen.