Bullying! Just Imagine!

Imagine running home from school every single day of your life in terror, hoping that you manage to make it through your front door before your attackers find you.  Imagine how it would make you feel to not have anyone listen to your cries for help and suffering in silence 365 days a year.  Imagine your dreams being filled with monsters that taunt you telling you how worthless you are and looking in the mirror when you wake up and seeing nothing but an endless future of pain and humiliation.  Imagine wishing that your life was over so you wouldn't have to deal with all the feelings of inadequacy that have you living in fear to the point where you're unable to breathe.

Stop right now and imagine that you are this person and there was no way out from the constant fear and humiliation and that no one was willing to step in and make the pain end.  For hundreds of thousands of young people around the world this is not something they imagine, it's what they deal with on a daily basis.  How do I know?  Because I use to be one of them.  I was the girl that got picked on because she had a funny last name.  The girl that ran home from school hoping that the much older girl wouldn't be able to catch me before I made it through my front door.  I looked in the mirror and I saw nothing but this useless waste of space called my body and felt unlovable.  I wondered why I bothered getting out of bed in the morning when it was going to be another day of being tortured and no one caring enough to make it stop.

No one should have to live this way.  And there were days when I wondered why I lived at all.  This type of mental pain doesn't stop when the bullying ends either, it remains locked in your subconscious for years to come.  If you are strong enough to live through the horrible years of bullying it still taints your soul and you find yourself fighting against the images these tormentors have put into your mind.   And what about those that don't have the mental strength to suffer through the daily pain, have you looked at the suicide rate of children that are victimized by bullying?

My question to you right now is what are you doing to stop this from happening?  Stop imagining that there's going to be a solution without people actually caring enough to change the laws against bullying.  Stop imagining that if you don't add your voice to protest against this mental and/or physical form of abuse that anything is going to change.  Stop imagining that you really care about these young people suffering if you're not willing to take the time to help find a solution.  Stand up and show that you are against bullying!  If you are a parent, teach your kids how wrong it is to make another person feel inferior.  If you're a teenager refuse to hang out with people you see bullying others and turn them in to your teachers.  If you're a lawmaker, help make the punishment for bullying stronger.

Bullying should not be a fact of anyone's life, if you see it happening get involved.  And if you think that bullying only happens in certain economic classes or against people who view things differently than others, you are sadly mistaken.  Bullying can happen to anyone, for any different variety of reasons.  The real question you should be asking yourself, right now, is what are YOU going to do to help put an end to bullying?  I encourage you to share this article with every person you know with the hope that one less child has to suffer because we weren't willing to stand up against bullying!

Michelle Hughes, Author of  A Night at Tears of Crimson