Tuesday, December 6, 2011

I'm backkk!

So, I am back! I decided to re-launch this blog and share some more stories.  One girl really inspired me and has actually done some YouTube videos and had an article written about her.  She struggled with her weight at an early age and did something about it and she really inspires me and I hope she inspires you too!

Here are the links to the videos!!
http://videos.nj.com/star-ledger/2011/10/new_jersey_teen_goes_to_weight.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BXBK76bx84&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW3-iNcp36A

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Story 4: Back-stabbers and Fear.

I know it has been awhile, I apologize for that, but this is the second story to go along with humiliation at a young age and a vulnerable time in life.  This story came from a girl who I know personally and it really broke my heart when I read it.  She was not only made fun of, but she was tormented and became traumatized because of it.  Here is her story,

        "I've been pregnant twice in my life once my fault, and once out of my control. Once at the age of thirteen & once when I was in high school. The first pregnancy is what started my bullying. I had a best friend who lived next door to me, we met when I was 8, her 9 and became inseparable. She entered high school and I was still in 8th grade. She made new friends, girls who were scene/emo/hardcore girls from our town, who introduced her to girls from another town. This girl was my bff, knew my passwords to what was then my Myspace, my email, my aim, my everything. Her & her friends began to torture me about "peeing out a fetus" which never occurred obviously. The girl and her new friends hacked my myspace and email, changing all my passwords so I could never change it back. Made my Myspace page layout about me being a fat pig, and pictures of actual fetuses. They changed my pictures, my "about me" and everything to talk about my fatness, or fetus, or anything else they could think of. They would stand outside my house when they were chillin at my friends next door, they would stand outside screaming for me to "get my fat ass out here". 
      Because of them, I had people from all surrounding towns hounding and harassing me. Months of private phone calls and voice-mails on my phone, nasty mean voicemails. I was afraid to leave my room, let alone my house. I was traumatized, mostly because it was someone who was my best friend for so long and she turned on me so quickly. Those girls spent months torturing me and years talking about it with others, its something that has made me a better person but has left a scar. They would threaten to find me wherever I was, come to my friends houses, or kill me. They ruined my life for those few months, they'll never know or understand the true trauma they caused me, even from the beginning when it was just calling me names over the phone or through texts or myspacecomments/messages."

She then wrote to me saying, " I hope this helps you & other girls, I should have gone to the police like my mother wanted, I was afraid I would get jumped."

This is a horrible thing that happened to her and I just sit here and ask myself why would someone ever turn into such a bully like that.  One reason, peer pressure.  The other girls probably knew how close the girl and the bullied girl were and used that to their advantage.  
But, like she told me, she should have done something about it and if this or something like this is happening to someone you know or yourself, you need to get help.  Do not let something continue that can be stopped by one phone call.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Story 3: Camp Humiliation

The next two stories I will be writing about deal with very serious types of bullying.  I will write about one today and the other one hopefully by next week.  This first one brought tears to my eyes just thinking about the humiliation this girl must have went through.  Here it is.

I was bullied at my sleep away camp when I was 8 years old. A girl in my cabin had a game called Gum-Of-Fortune. She had so much gum, and at camp, gum was a prized possession since it was the only thing we could eat in our cabins. She had tons. So, she told me to win a whole pack of gum I'd have to do the macarena with just my underwear on. And as an 8 year old, I stupidly did it. She and all of the girls in the cabin pushed me to the ground took my underwear off, pushed me out the door and I was completely naked for anyone outside to see. They wouldn't let me back in for about 5 minutes, but it was the most humiliating 5 minutes of my life. I've always had body image issues and so this was a horrifying experience for me.”

She also told me that along with this story she has many more because she had been severely bullied at this particular camp.  If you or someone you know is or has gone through this, you need to tell someone.  If you don't it most likely will never stop. BUT!  Even if you do not tell anyone, most of the time we all know who the “mean girls” are and who the ones who are getting harassed are.  We need to wake up people! Wake up and realize that this kind of bullying especially at such a young age needs to stop! There are ways to recognize when someone is getting picked on or tormented and people need to stop ignoring it because they do not want to get involved or because they do not want to deal with it.  One word, one action is all it takes to stop these kind of people from harassing and humiliating innocent kids.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Story 2: Shaping Who We Are

This next story is not really me telling it but the person who told it to me.  It was so well put that I don’t think I could do that much better of a job describing it and describing what bullying does and how it affects certain people versus others. So, here it is,

“My brother and I were both bullied in elementary school for being nerdy and different. Everybody pitched in: boys, girls, jocks, geeks, even other bully victims. We handled it in different ways. My brother was more submissive and eventually caved in to society's view of how he should be, which I'll get to later. But I was more stubborn and headstrong, and refused to change because I thought that was exactly what the bullies wanted. Eventually that led to a point where I would fight back both verbally and physically, and I had to transfer to a private middle school. This is where it gets interesting, because from this point on I was the main cause for my own bullying. I was so resistant to bullying that I became resistant to any kind of criticism at all, and often caused fights just because somebody didn't like how I viewed a certain issue or what kinds of video games I played. For high school I transferred back to the public system, and my resistant nature continued but was also intensified by rumors about me stemming from my violent defensive tactics in elementary school. In short, I was hated by everyone for a million different reasons, even by people that have never spoken to me.
My brother decided to cave in and change to become more popular. He's still a geek at heart, but has taken on an appearance and level of arrogance similar to the people that used to bully him. As for me, starting fresh at college has helped tremendously but I am still somewhat resistant to criticism. Looking back, I am starting to wonder if I would be more calm and careless if I was never bullied. I guess the moral of my story is that bullying is not just something that's part of growing up. Bullying shapes who we are as adults and even the most innocent happy little kid can be turned into a nervous defensive wreck under what would seem like the least significant conditions.”

Wow, how true is that?  I don’t think many people realize this but bullying truly does shape who we are as people just as anything does in life.  Bullying is just another life experience and whether people want to accept that they are the way they are because of how they acted towards someone, or how someone acted towards them, that is their decision. 

Another thing that this person mentioned was how his/ her innocence was basically taken away.  This is something bullies do not realize and if they do, it is just part of their malicious plans.  If you are a bully, you are taking away a child’s innocence, pride, dignity, everything.  As I mentioned before, we need to start standing up to these bullies and you need to show them that they are no longer in control.  You need to stand up and show them that you are and always will be the one in control of your own life. 

Monday, April 4, 2011

Story 1: Cyber- Bullying

Cyber- bullying has made a huge rise within the last couple of years. The first two stories sent to me dealt with this type of bullying and they both really show that even something that could seem so subtle can really leave a scar.  The first person wrote saying, “This one time there were these girls who were pretty much mocking me on facebook by taking my profile picture and putting it as their own as a joke for them to laugh at. it wasn't funny, and it was humiliating.”   The other person wrote saying, “These guys photoshopped my face on a fat ugly chicks body. Not only did they pass it around the school but also put it on this "RateMe" site. I was constantly emailed about the ratings i got.”  Both of these situations really show that some things that people do that may be “funny” or meant to be a “joke” are most of the time not taken as a joke.  Put yourselves in their shoes for a second. Think about if someone did this to you.

These situations can especially leave a mark if a person has a problem with their appearance.  I am not saying these two people had appearance insecurities because I do not know them.  But, if someone does have insecurities about how they look, this kind of bullying can affect them for the rest of their lives.  From my own experience, I was constantly getting told I was fat on the site “formspring.”  I laughed it off a lot, though, because at this point in my life I did not care what other people thought about me.  BUT, I told myself that I was going to prove them wrong and really try losing weight.  So even when laughing at it I was still beating myself up, especially when I wasn’t losing the weight. 

If I were in those specific situations or if you are one now, I would do one thing.  Kill them with kindness.  This is worst thing to bullies.  Being nice and cheery will kill them because their point of doing what they do is to hurt you, make you feel bad about yourself.  If you act like nothing is wrong, that will stand out more than anything and hopefully they will get the point that what they are doing is a waste of time and pointless.

Quote of the day: "Hate the sin, love the sinner" --Mahatma Gandhi

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Unbelievable Media.

Before I start the stories of other people, I wanted to talk about something that is currently in the news.  Jenelle Evans from the MTV hit show “Teen Mom 2” was recorded as she punched a girl repeatedly and pinned her to the ground.  While watching the video, you can hear all of Jenelle’s friends encouraging her as she beats this girl.  This is a girl that kids watch on TV probably every week on this show, and now this video is all over the internet to see, yet it is okay.

This is so extremely frustrating to me.  How can people expect children not to resort to violence and how can we tell them it is wrong when it is so highlighted within the media.  Not just this video either.  You can go on YouTube or any other video site and see people having a brawl and many times people are standing around and watching. Bullies do not come by themselves.  They will always have a crowd behind them.  All it takes is that crowd to go away, or for one person to jump in and stop what is going on or to get help and all of the power of that bully goes away.  But, so many people are so worried about themselves that they don’t think about that, all they think is that if they try stopping it, then they are the next target.  WAKE UP! If you don’t stop it and you think someone else will, nothing will ever change!  Those people who are beating the hell out of someone will never stop because they know that they have so much power over everyone.

Think about something. These kids or teenagers being beat up could be someone’s child, grandchild, niece/nephew, mother/father, cousin, etc.  Now, think about this, all of you out there who think this is entertainment, if it was your child, or any other family member, how funny would it be then?

Quote: A lot of people are afraid to tell the truth, to say no. That's where toughness comes into play. Toughness is not being a bully. It's having backbone. ---Robert Kiyosaki

Monday, March 28, 2011

My Story.

Growing up I was constantly the target of people’s cruel words and acts.  Middle School was probably the worst time of my life.  I was shy, had some friends, but not a solid group, and most of the time got along with the teachers better than with my peers. I had my lunch stolen from me for a month before I finally broke down at home and told my parents what was happening.  Obviously it got taken care of, but I probably can’t even count the amount of times I was in and out of the guidance counselor’s office for the next couple years. I will always remember the group of girls that made my life a living hell those 4 years. I also had an incident where two boys came up to me after school, one held me and the other one punched me in the stomach.

With the exception of that incident I was never physically hurt, but it is often said that words can be a lot more hurtful than a punch in the face.  At least to me they were.  I got blamed for things I never did or participated in, I got my personal belongings destroyed, and my pride went out the window.  I used to have a “stomach ache” almost every day in gym when the one girl was in my class because I was so terrified that if I participated that she would make comments about me.  Eventually those girls got over themselves and I got a lot of help from teachers and my family.  But, then there was high school.

High school is the ultimate test of how strong you can really be and how far you can be pushed.  Because of everything that happened in middle school, I was extremely self-conscious and was always beating myself up about how I looked and how “fat” I thought I was.  I was always just looking for someone that would care a little bit about me.  I had friends, I had best friends, some of which I am still really close with, and of course I had boyfriends.  The boyfriends cheated, or got what they wanted and then left.  The friends talked behind my back, and ganged up with other people and I would sit by myself at lunch for weeks at a time.

After all of this, I came to the conclusion that girls are vicious beings and most guys are pigs.  High school really gave me a chance to see people’s true colors and who my real friends are.  At this point in my life, I put on a front as if I don’t care what people think, but really I do but I am so numb to it by now, only a really big thing will bring out all of the emotions I hide inside.  But, even with those occasional breakdowns, I now have a boyfriend who loves me no matter what and I have friends that are always there when I need them. Bullying can be extremely traumatizing for people.  For me, I stuck it out, and I realized who my true friends were and who I couldn’t trust.  Others can’t handle the stress of it.
 
For my next couple of blogs I will be sharing other people’s stories of when they were bullied and I am hoping people can comment on them about their feelings about it as well as how you may have dealt with a situation like the ones shared.  I am really hoping people will read this and we can start eliminating, little by little, the nasty words and acts that people do and say towards each other.

No one is perfect.

So I am planning out a bullying post that has people's stories about when they have been bullied coming up sometime this week.. But I just wanted to make a post to say that I am not perfect.
I had someone message me on Facebook how was it possible that I was against bullying when me and my cheerleading squad bullied her throughout high school.
Let me make something clear.  I am not perfect.  And I explained to her that I am truly sorry if she felt as if she was being bullied but I really do not remember any vicious acts that we did to her.  I am doing a bullying blog with people's stories, so they can let it out, and let people see what they have gone through. Although I will not be using names, those people who told me their stories know who they are and I am here to basically tell their stories and to help people who have been bullied and have not gotten over what they have gone through, or for people who are currently being bullied.
So once again, not only to this girl but to anyone who may think how am I possibly against bullying, I don't remember being a bully but if you ever felt like I, or anyone I associated with, was to you.. Then I am truly sorry.  But, I would also like to mention, that many of you that may have felt like that, look back because you probably haven't been too perfect yourself.

Quote of the Day: Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. ♥

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Life is Precious

So today is the memorial mass for one of my good friend's dads birthday.  Unfortunately I was not able to make it, but she and her family know my deepest condolences go to each of them.  He passed away suddenly about a month ago at only the age of 50.  This really made me open my eyes and realize life is so precious.  At any given time ANYONE can have an accident or have a heart attack or anything and you could have never seen it coming.  So what am I am trying to tell you is, live your life to the fullest, love your parents, love your kids and realize at any time, they can be taken away from you.
I wish more people could realize this. I can't explain how many times I have heard someone say, "Ugh, my dad is so annoying I wish he would just get out of my life already," or "I hate my mom, she is so mean."  Well, I can tell you one thing, no matter how "annoying" or how "mean" they may be... my friend would love to be in your shoes to just be able to see her dad and hug him one last time. It makes me so angry when I hear people talk about their parents so badly and I just bite my tongue, because life is so unfair that they can lose that parent so suddenly, but they just think it will never happen to them.
So please. Take advantage of the fact that you have your parents, both of them if you do because there is someone out there that wishes they had that.

RIP Ricky Rudick. You are missed and loved by so many people... and Happy Birthday.
This post is dedicated to the whole Rudick family because they have been so strong in the struggle of Ricky's loss. Sami, I love you, girl!!

Quote of the Day: Life's not always fair.  Sometimes you can get a splinter even sliding down a rainbow.  ~Terri Guillemets

Saturday, March 26, 2011

First post :)

Hi everyone!
Today marks the first time I have posted on a blog... EVER.  After speaking to a woman today, I thought maybe I should start something.  For a little background, I am 19 and am in college as an English major and hopefully I am going to be an Elementary teacher, and I am a so-called "Social Worker" as people call me.  I absolutely love helping people.  Personally, because of the experiences I have gone through, I believe I am pretty good at giving advice. I also love singing and taking pictures!  People who know me know I always have my camera with me to capture any moment that might need remembrance. I will also be having an inspirational quote of the day or a song of the day after each of my posts.
Well, that is it for now! Check back in tomorrow to see what I may have in store :]


Song of the Day:  Who Says by Selena Gomez