You’ll Be Glad You Did

Posted: 9/8/2015

Hello. Like most of you reading this, I have been bullied. It all started in kindergarten. There was a bully named Angelica who would pull my hair and steal my lunch, and threaten to do worse things if I told anyone. So I didn't. I was naive and young back then, so I didn't. Eventually, she got caught. She has never bullied me again, but it's not like we're best friends either. For the next 3 years, there were all of these programs claiming they'd "stop bullying " or "stomp out bullying forever". Well, they did a good job. Until the 4th grade, when everybody started to figure out little loopholes in order to "poke fun with their fellow classmates", which really was bullying. All of the adults didn't really deem it as "bullying", because what kids would do is they would make fun of one kid and toss a few insults at him or her, and then move on to the next kid. It wasn't repetitive, and it wasn't "bullying" in their eyes, so the adults really didn't do anything about it. This would go on in the playground, in the bathroom, in the cafeteria, and occasionally in the back of the bus- the only places where us kids weren't supervised and could pretty much say what we wanted to say, as long as it wasn't too loud. In the 4th grade, I was bullied again. I was one of the rare cases- not the one where they just insulted you a couple of times, then moved on while another kid did the same to you. There was this kid named Maria, who would insult my friend Maddy just because her mom was gay. I didn't have any problem with it, but apparently Maria did. I tried telling adults, but since they never saw the bullying themselves (it often happened in the 'secret' places I mentioned) they kept on saying they couldn't do anything about it. I told my parents, who said they'd keep an eye out for any more bullying. One day they installed a security camera in the playground, which pretty much took care of that problem. Then I stayed bully-free until the 6th grade. I turned out to be one of the smallest kids in the whole bunch, and so were my friends, Polly and Diana. This band of 8th graders would parade the school like it was their own school, and would pick out the smallest kids and bully them. You get the picture. One day, though, the group got a little too overconfident, and started yelling at us loudly. Then the Tech and Ag teacher saw the whole thing. They asked what was going on, and the whole thing was cleared up. I know there will be more bullying to come, and I hope that the odds for another episode will decrease. What all of this has taught me is, not everyone will like you and the programs that claim to stomp out bullying forever really don't stomp out bullying forever. If anyone is reading this and stuck in the same situation as I was, don't wait. Talk to an adult now. You'll be glad you did.

By: Julia