My Bullying Story
Me at Walt Disney World, February 7, 1997. A rare happy memory from my middle school days.
I'm very touched that a minute of silence was dedicated to all victims of bullying today. The outpouring of support for bullying victims in the aftermath of Amanda Todd's passing has actually inspired me to open up publicly for the first time and share my own story.
While my elementary school days were wonderful and filled with good friends and fond memories, middle school was the polar opposite and a total nightmare for me, 1998 in particular being the worst year of my life. I was severely bullied at the age of fourteen, both physically and psychologically, and it wasn't long before I lost all hope and attempted to take my life (the afterlife seemed a far better alternative to the pain I was constantly enduring on earth). I was fortunate enough to have one kind and very observant teacher named Mrs. Dean who intervened, and it's thanks to her that I'm still here today.
The road to recovery was a slow and rough one, though. My parents were afraid to leave me unmonitored, I required lots of therapy and medication, and finished grade 8 through one-on-one tutoring because I was too terrified to be in a classroom setting again or around other teenagers (I received my middle school diploma in the mail). Bullying had left me the human equivalent of an abused dog trembling with its tail between its legs. I couldn't pass groups of teens anywhere without suffering extreme anxiety that they'd gang up to attack me, and began high school at Danforth Tech sitting behind a cubicle.
It's very difficult to trust your fellow teens again after suffering such horrid cruelty at their hands, but my high school years were surprisingly good ones, and over the ninth grade I managed to emerge from my shell, regain faith in humanity, and make some very good friends there (I still remained guarded and skipped extra-curricular activities and my prom).
It's true that the scars left behind from bullying are permanent, and I'll never again be the same person I was before middle school. Bullying changes you forever, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and my experiences in middle school shaped me into the man I am today. I'm no longer a victim but a survivor, scarred but not broken.
I think it's very important for my fellow bullying survivors to speak up and raise awareness to what we went through. It wasn't easy for me to reveal such painful moments from my life just now and I honestly never thought I'd do so, but it's important that we all band together to put an end to bullying once and for all, and who better to lead the charge than those who've personally gone through it and know what it feels like?
Many of you are parents to young children, and I want to see them grow up in a world where they'll never have to experience what I went through. We need to educate all students on the seriousness of bullying (the crumpled paper experiment is a fine example) and form harsher punishments for bullies such as criminal charges that will make it crystal clear to them that such behaviour won't be tolerated.
I don't say all of these things for sympathy, to be an "armchair activist", or to gain a bunch of likes, I say them because bullying and suicide awareness and prevention are the two causes that are closest to my heart and I don't want to see anybody else suffer the same fate as poor Amanda Todd and countless other kids around the world. I want these children and teenagers to know that they're not alone and are loved, and that suicide isn't their only option even if it feels like it in their darkest hour (I thought the same way at the time). There is support and hope out there, and we need to make that clear to them. Sorry for the length of this post, and thank you for reading.
Previously posted on my original Blogger blog, The Ranting Zone, on Friday, 19 October, 2012.