Bullying is Never Right

Jana

Personally, I think the people the media effects most are kids, teenagers, and young adults. I remember being 8 and looking at these people thinking that I just wasn’t good enough, and never will be. I cried every day because of the way I looked. I hated going to school, and it was hard to look at myself in the mirror. Now, at 16 years old, I still find it hard to look in a mirror. That is what I grew up around. The people on the magazines never left my head. At 8 I hated myself, at 12 I became depressed, and at 13 I started cutting myself. It’s been 3 and a half years and I find it a struggle each and every day to try and look like those people on TV or in the magazines. Now, at 16 years old, I’m looking back thinking why I ever thought any of that was right. The depression, the cutting, the self-hate has never left me alone. Every day I wonder if I am going to be able to make it. Every day I wonder if this is going to be the day where I relapse.

No, I’m not perfect. There have been times where I have relapsed. There have been nights where I didn’t think I was going to make it through the pain. But, guess what? Those feelings don’t last forever. I made it through those nights. I struggled and I cried, but I made it through. Nothing can take that away from me. The feelings come back. They do. I’m not going to lie. Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve any of this. Sometimes I wonder why this is happening to me. Other times I think I deserve the things that have happened to me. Coming from a broken home, having 2 sisters pass away, having my cousin, who was my best friend, pass away, and being bullied constantly at school because I have never been skinny. Ever. It runs in the family. We can exercise and diet all we want, but we are still going to be bigger. That’s okay. As I have gone through all of these things, I have begun to realize that I’m not perfect. I never have been, and I never will be. And that is okay. That is what makes me who I am. An imperfect, struggling, bigger girl, and a loving person that is going to fight like hell. That’s what we as humans do. We fight. We win. Nothing can ever hold us back.

A lot of people ask why? Why are we here? Why is this happening to me? Why is this my life? What a lot of people don’t know is that you aren’t given anything you aren’t strong enough to handle. Each and every person has strength they didn’t know they have. We live in a world where crying is supposedly a sign of weakness. Where if you break a bone, everyone wants to know how you are doing, but if you have a mental illness, everyone thinks you’re crazy. Having a mental illness isn’t crazy! It happens to millions of people across the world every single day. Sadly, it can start at such a young age. A huge cause of something like depression in kids and teenagers is school bullying. It is so damaging. Especially when someone already has depression. It just makes it worse. Bullying can happen at any age though. In is world, some people are just mean and rotten. The most common reason of bullying is that the bully has something bad going on in their life. So, they feel they need to make other people suffer just as much as they are suffering themselves. Another big reason is because they are being bullied them self. It is so horrible that people feel the need to tear other people down to make themselves feel better. Bullying is never right. Ever!