my little sister was bullied from pre-k all the way through the fifth grade. seeing as I never was bullied, I would just tell her that it wasn't that bad and that she should just ignore it. easy for me to say up until the seventh grade. seventh grade was when my own bullying began.

in seventh grade I was new to the school and up until that point I had been a very happy child, but I was a preteen and I, like a bunch of kids my age, was dealing with crushes. that's always fun...until you begin liking girls... my family isn't outright homophobic, more like just not agreeing with the lifestyle, and coming out was very hard to me. I held that part of me inside for so long, and I was getting more and more depressed. I didn't know where or who to turn to...so I turned to the razor.

I began cutting and I got caught by my parents and sent to the hospital. when I got home and news of me in the mental ward got around...people of course teased me for it. so I cut some more to deal with it. cutting became like a drug to me, and I was doing it so often.

high school came around and I made a few major mistakes over summer, and they somehow carried over to the new school year and I was being bullied from the first day of school. they taunted me for losing my virginity, they teased me for 'acting white', they teased me for liking girls, they teased me for having dark skin and being Haitian. Anything they could say about me... they did. many of the things they would say about me wouldn't even be true... but the funny thing is, is that they hurt just as bad.

so anyways I just turned sixteen, and I guess with that comes a new found sense of maturity, but I felt something in me and that something told me ' you're wasting your life away worrying about what people think about you. people will talk about you until the day you die. if you want a change, be the change and stand up to make a difference.' and I told myself, 'you're right'.

so I made a pledge to myself that I would stop feeling sorry for myself and that I would take my bad experiences and make good out of them. I feel so strongly about so many things and I know I can make a difference in somebody's life, maybe even the world if I put my mind to it. in fact, anyone can, they just have to be brave enough to take the first step...and determined enough to follow through the rest of the way.