The bullying for me started in the second grade when we moved to a different side of town.  I was plucked from my friends and everything I knew to be constant and stable.  About that time I had been diagnosed with an eye condition that caused me to have to wear a patch over my right eye to strengthen my left eye.  I also had to wear glasses and they were not pretty looking either.  I was soon starting to get called three eyes and one eye.  I was rather small for my age and was picked on as well as punched and called names.  I was almost always last to get picked in PE as well as by groups in the class for class projects.  One year on my birthday two of the girls in my class told me they could not come to my party because they had to stay home and watch Saturday morning cartoons.  The teasing and bullying only got worse as I went through the various grades of elementary school.  In 5th grade I was bullied by my teacher in front of the whole class.  I had one of those locker back packs and kept it next to my desk like everyone else kept their back packs.  My teacher decided that she was going to kick it across the room.  I never brought that back pack to school again.  In middle school life got worse for me, I had no friends except for a few of the teachers.  I got into several fights that caused me to get out of school suspension and in school suspension.  About this time I retreated into my own world because that is where I knew I would be the safest.  I could not tell my parents for fear of them being ashamed of me for not standing up for myself.  My parents approval was a big part of my life.  Around seventh grade I would have people coming up to me calling me the girl with "AIDS" or the girl that is "gay".  In seventh grade I had no idea what AIDS or gay was, but I knew it wasn't good.  I grew up southern Baptist and being gay is considered a deadly sin and you would go to hell for it.  At that point I was not interested in boys or girls for the shear fact that everyone scared me.  I started coming out of my shell at the end of high school where I was continually bullied but mostly hid in my mother's office for lunch since I had no one to sit with at lunch.  I made it to college and found some friends that I could connect with.  Life after college has been pretty good except for one of the jobs that I had where the manager was a bully and constantly picked on me.  I went to HR about it and was threatened to be fired.  It was a miserable 3 years at that job.  I have finally found a job that is awesome.  Looking back I missed out on a lot of good things due to being bullied and letting them win.  I realize now that it is my job to stand up for those that can't.  Everyone deserves a chance to live the life they were given.  No life should be cut short due to being bullied so badly that there is no other way out.  "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" - Edmund Burke