Don't judge me

In my life I have been bullied many times. I'm not going to sit here and recount them all for you but know that the effect of that bullying on my psyche and the way I view myself and my life has been profound. I think that we can all admit to having been bullied, and I think that we have, at one point or another been the bullies. It's an unfortunate fact of life that has gotten so out of hand recently. The media has glorified it, social networking has given it a new and more devastating avenue and all over the world we are feeling the effects of the aftermath of bullying. Parents are having to withdraw their children from school because the bullying has gotten to be too much, bullied children are taking matters into their own hands and retaliating violently, and sadly, children and adults are taking their own lives because they are unable to deal with the torture and negativity that bullying can heap on you.

Here is what I would like to say to anyone who is feeling badly about themselves due to bullying... People who bully only do so because they are insecure. There is something, or many things about themselves that they are unhappy about and in order to make themselves feel better, they put you down. What you have to realize though, is that the only way their words, their actions can hurt you, is if you let them. YOU hold the power. YOU decide how you want to feel. When you give away that power, when you let their words hurt you then they've won. It's not easy to do, i'm not going to lie. When you feel buried by the negativity it sometimes feels like there's no way out, no hope. But, and a very big but, there is ALWAYS a way out. It's called tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day. A day when things can be better, different, where you can choose differently and make the choice to not give others the power to hurt you. Today is just a page in a book that is chapters and chapters long. Just because the story is a little hard to get through now doesn't mean that tomorrow it won't have a happy ending. You just have to keep reading and have faith that it will turn around and get better. You have to find the strength within in yourself to stand up and let the world know "I am special, I am strong and say what you will about me but it doesn't matter. I know who I am and you can't hurt me." No one person has the right to judge another. Remember that.

On January 24th through the 28th the 8th annual No Name Calling Week will take place in thousands of schools across the country. The No Name-Calling Week Coalition aims to create safer schools by making bullying, harassment, and name calling unacceptable through public education campaigns that motivate students and educators to take school based action around the problem of name calling and verbal harassment. Please join GLSEN, Barnes and Noble and many other sponsors in helping combat one of the biggest threats to our childrens' well being . For more information on how to get involved and what you can do please visit http://www.nonamecallingweek.org/cgi-bin/iowa/home.html

Thank you for taking time to read my rant.