Teen Bullying: A Story of Overcoming and Preventing

In the United States, more than 30 percent of teenagers are victims of bullying.

160,000 children stay home every day in fear of going to school due to being bullied. In a conductive SAFE survey, sixth-10th graders were the most likely to be involved in bullying activities–30 percent being on a regular basis. And in 85 percent of those bullying cases at school, there is no intervention, prevention or effort made by the staff and school administration.

Bullying is a very serious topic; one that shouldn't be taken lightly and should be addressed more in our homes and schools.

So what is bullying? It's a form of action made by an individual to make one feel inadequate, embarrassed, physically harmed and to bring their self-esteem down. There are four major types of bullying: physical, verbal, emotional and cyber. They are each used in separate ways to be harmful and hurtful to those being the victim, but sometimes the situation can be so extreme that they are blended together and used as a destructive tool.

Before I give you eight short and sweet ways to talk about bully prevention, I want you all to hear my somewhat-lengthy background story to help you understand where I am coming from and how I overcame the hard-ships and obstacles I was faced with being bullied.

I am currently a 22-year-old college student working towards my bachelor's degree in child and family development. I have a good head on my shoulders, I have great friends, I am confident in myself and I hope to one day help the next generation grow into the hard working, confident adults they will become.

I have to admit that I wasn't always the girl with a smile on her face, holding her head high and moving forward pasts the scorns and cruelty. I started being bullied in second grade. I was that 'weird' girl who had blue lips every time I got cold and I had a huge scar down my chest and around the side of my back. Due to being in second grade, I found it hard to explain to my bullies that I had a heart condition and my scars were from several previous open heart surgeries. I dealt with being laughed at, sitting alon, and being pushed down on the playground–after all, I was only 7 years old and I didn't understand what was going on.

As Elementary school went on, I went in and out of being bullied. It wasn't that big of a deal to me. I didn't care about being laughed at, I was okay with being the victim as long as someone else wasn't. Out of school I found being bullied tougher; I have an older sister that all the little kids on the block wanted to play with and I always felt like an outcast. I remember one day all of the neighborhood kids locked me outside and proceeded to laugh at me through the windows. This is when I realized that something wasn't right; I was the victim of child bullying.

In seventh grade, I faced all of the typical challenges of a kid in middle school, I tried to find different ways to fit in with the eigth graders and still keep my friends that were my age. I found a group of friends that were all molded together from different elementary schools around Ramona. This is where I also found that it wasn't just my elementary school that had bullies.

In middle school we see a large amount of cliques, mine was only a small portion of that. Within my seventh grade year, I dealt with some really rude, catty girls. I took a science trip to Catalina Island and the whole week of being there I remember crying myself to sleep. These girls would throw my sleeping bag and pillow on the floor, dump my suitcase over and purposely talk about how much of a "nerd" I was, knowing I could hear them.

The rest of the year I kept to myself and tried to stay out of the spotlight of rumors and jokes. In eigth grade the same group of girls decided to make me their target again, this time it got out of hand. They started throwing trash at me on the bus, calingl me names and physically pushing me whenever they could. I never said anything back or gave them a reason to keep doing it–which I think is why they kept doing it to see if they could get a reaction out of me.

On Valentines Day-weekend, I stayed home and spent time with my parents and I ended up going to bed early at around 10 p.m.. Later in the night I was woken up by voices and footsteps on my front porch. I quickly opened my blinds to see this group of girls toilet papering my house and writing profanity about me on my window. Of course I laughed it off but the next day, our neighbors from down the street said a few of their vehicles were vandalized and my name was being sent around as the one who did it.

At school the girls proceeded to push me and bully me in admitting that I had done wrong and tell everyone they had nothing to do with it. After a week of being bullied I finally went to my parents to tell them about it. All of the parents were contacted for a meeting, which didn't set nicely with the girls, one of the five girls tried to fight me after school one day. She pushed me up against the bus with a large crowd of middle and high school kids around us, luckily the bus driver came and broke it up. Once we got to our bus stop, which happened to be in front of my house, the girl yelled at me as I walked home telling me to come back so she could "kick my butt," in which I got the odd confidence to turn around, stand up to my bully by looking her in the eye and saying "If you want to hit me, that's fine. But I am warning you I will hit back and it's going to hurt." She obviously backed down and went home. A day or two later our parents had a meeting and this is where she came forward admitting the toilet paper and vandalizing incident was her.

Now I am not the one for violence, and if I resorted to that then it would mean I, myself, am a bully. But I needed to learn how to stand up for myself and not let her threats get to me. I wasn't bullied again until about 10th grade, and this was my last and final encounter with being bullied.

In 10th grade I had good friends, good grades and I was active in musical theater. I wasn't aware of anyone being bullied or feeling suicidal, until one of my classmates committed suicide later in the year. I started looking around me and tried helping those who were being picked on and with this my friends started turning away from me. I realized that I was hanging out with a group of bullies, and in this mix I was told to "go commit suicide, nobody will miss you when you are dead."

This hit me hard and I changed a lot about myself. I wore sweatpants and sweaters to school even though it was 80 degrees out and I was depressed. I admit I faked being sick plenty of times so I didn't have to go to school and face my bullies; and I even thought about what would be the result if I did try to take my life.

My best friend saw that I was going through this hard time and sent me a little "random acts of kindness" gift bag. She wrote a note to me, one that I believe saved me from doing something stupid. She told me that I was beautiful, worth it and that many people in my life would miss me if I was gone.

After this I retired my black, baggy clothes and went back to curling my hair and wearing my cute jeans. I made a promise to myself to never let the words and actions being done affect me. I was no longer going to let anyone make me feel inferior without my consent. I was strong, beautiful, important and best of all, I had overcome being bullied.

After overcoming my obstacles I tried to step in any chance I could and stop someone from being ganged up on and bullied around at school. I started to research how to prevent bullying in high schools and now that I am well aware and educated I thought I would share my knowledge with you. The facts are pretty straight forward and don’t need much explaining, but if you have any questions about something I didn't cover, be sure to leave me a comment.

Bully Prevention and How to Talk to Teens About It:

1. Encourage kids and teens to talk to an adult they trust if they are a victim or see someone being bullied.
2. Talk about tips and strategies to staying safe if they around a bully.
3. Give them tips about how to walk away, or stand up for themselves by confidently saying "stop."
4. Have open and honest  ommunication
5. Encourage them to do what they love and keep their mind off the hurtful words or physical actions.
6. Tell them they aren't alone and that they can find friends to help them through their problems.
7. Compliment them and encourage them to compliment others.
8. Remind them that it gets better.

Stay tuned, because with Facebook and I-phones on the rise, I will touching upon the topic of "cyber-bulling" and how this form of bullying is even more popular then physical threats.

If you are having thoughts about suicide or hurting yourself, please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255. There will be someone on the other end for you. You aren't alone. You are loved and you are meant for a beautiful life.

- Ashlee