Today I watched a show where a sweet, quiet high school girl committed suicide because of constant, mean, nasty bullying and harassment by a group of girls. They did this because this girl started dating a boy one of the other girls liked. They called her slut, bitch, whore, and other horrible names. And now that the internet and social media are part of everyday life, they were able to post cruel memes, offensive photoshopped pictures, and senseless videos all over the internet to ridicule and shame her. And thanks to phones and computers these days, the kids in their school and thousands on the internet saw these posts and laughed at them. They got enjoyment from her pain and heartache! These horrid girls did everything they could to drive her completely over the edge, and they succeeded.
When I was a junior in high school, a group of girls began to viscously bully and attack me, because a boy one of the girls liked, liked me instead. I was constantly called bitch, slut, whore, and other horrible names by these girls. When I walked down the halls at school, I was shoved against lockers and pushed into walls. I was kicked, punched, tripped, and spit on. They would savagely yank my hair from behind. If more than one of them caught me in a hallway or a restroom by myself…well, let’s just say, it was scary.
One night, while I was walking down my street after visiting my friend, I was attacked and beaten up by one of the most malicious of these girls. She was taller than me and out-weighed me by at least 70 pounds, so it was kind of hard to fight back while she held me down and pounded my head into the sidewalk. I cried a lot that night.
These girls would wait for me after school and then they’d block the way so I couldn’t get past them. They would threaten, taunt, ridicule, and shove me around. If they were in a car and they saw me walking or riding my bike, they would pull up next to me and yell obscenities and throw things out the windows at me. It got to the point where I couldn’t go anywhere around town by myself. And the longer the bullying went on, the worse it got. My mom and dad began to fear for my life. So, we finally packed up and moved.
The one thing I am just SO thankful for, is that the internet and cell phones didn’t exist at that time, because what those horrid, HORRID girls put me through would’ve been a thousand times worse if they would’ve had today’s technology and social media at their fingertips. Maybe they would’ve sent me completely over the edge, and I wouldn’t be here, writing about this dreadful and painful experience that even now, when I think about it, upsets me so very much.
So if you know of any kid or teenager who is being bullied and/or cyber-bullied, please don’t ignore it. It could mean saving a life.
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Words are awesome. I love obscure, weird words. J.K. Rowling used the word ‘snogging’ in her Harry Potter series, to describe couples who were engaged in prolonged kissing, or as we sometimes say where I come from, ‘canoodling.’
Welcome back to another Monday of writer’s links from No Wasted Ink. This week I have a nice assortment of general writing tips and a few about the editing process that I found to be above the fold. I hope you enjoy them!
maliaann