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.

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. 

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