Standing Up

For as long as I can remember, I have been a victim of bullying.

When I was a young child, my father was my bully. He teased me to the point that I cried. He abused me in every way to the point that I cried. And then he yelled at me for crying. I remember he used to have nicknames for me and I constantly told him to stop calling me them but he never listened. Each time I told him to stop abusing me, he laughed and kept doing what he was doing. I can't even count the number of times I told him to stop. He never listened to my pleas for mercy.

When I was in elementary school , middle school and high school, I had bullies as well. I remember being called midget throughout both schools. I was smaller than most of the others my age. I attribute that to not having a lot of food in the house due to my family being poor.

Others around me teased me to the point that I cried. Much like what my father did. Actually, I guess I got used to it. I guess being abused as a child made me an easy target.

A few years I Googled my name, like they say you should, and I came across a blog that someone had written about me. They said I looked like a chipmunk, that I was ugly and that it was so funny that they made me cry in gym. I cried again when I read their post.

Bus rides were never fun. There was one particular bully on my bus who taunted me on most days. He once gave me a piece of paper that said that I was “flat sh**” and “ugly.” Another day he hit my face with an umbrella.

Being bullied throughout my life, pretty much since I was 3 years old, has not been easy. I’ve been trying to stand up for myself and move forward. Although I cried a lot to my mom growing up about the bullying, she never really taught me to retaliate or “get even.”

I did stand up to one bully who was teasing another student. Along with me, he taunted another student on the bus due to a medical condition. One day when he was teasing him, I told him something to the effect of “It does not make you cool to make fun of him. Please stop making fun of him.” Surprisingly, he stopped teasing him and, eventually, me.

Bullying doesn’t make you cool. It doesn’t make you funny or hilarious. It damages the soul of the person you’re bullying. Words really can break you inside.