My high school experience was terrible. It was beyond awful. I had gone through a lot of terrible experiences, but the worst I would have to say is bullying. Considering all of the terrible stuff I have been through, that is definitely saying something.

   I was always a little socially awkward and I had dealt with my fair share of mental problems for years. When I was in 7th grade, I had started to receive emails and texts telling me to go kill myself and that I am a "worthless piece of shit". The minute I joined Facebook, things got so much worse. Messages from people came in telling me the same things and worse. Being attacked and called a "whore" and a "waste of space on this earth". This happened throughout middle school and high school. Unfortunately, it wasn't only cyberbullying. Almost every day of my high school career, I had been subject to bullying.

   I used to be a pretty small kid. My freshman year of high school, I was locked in a band locker and someone took a picture of me. He then proceeded to put it on Facebook with the caption of, "Animal In Her Cage". That was a terrible way to start my high school career, and a horrible punch to my self esteem. During school hours, people stabbed me in the back, spread rumors, snickered about me. But I was also shoved around, put down to my face, and treated absolutely horribly. I understood that I had my own struggles and that I had been dealing with a lot of things, but the last thing I needed was to be treated so horribly by my peers to the point that I just wasn't comfortable being at school anymore.

   The big breaking point was a couple of weeks before I was hospitalized for an eating disorder (which bullying contributed a lot to). I was offered a seat to sit in at lunch in the band room. I sat down thinking they were just being friendly. I was then held down, duct taped to the chair, paraded around school with what could have been a hundred students taking photos. After that humiliation, I was turned on my side while still duct taped to the chair, left to fend for myself as I struggled to get out. It was until a male student came up and ordered people to cut me loose, that I was finally set free. That night, photos and videos were posted on facebook with comments like “Bound and gagged, that’s the way we like it” and “That skank was finally left alone on the ground”. It was cruel and terrible. I considered hurting myself because at that point, I was just done. I wanted to give up on everything until I was reminded that all pain is temporary. The next day, I ordered the girls that put the video up, to take it down. They didn’t.

   I was bullied into self destruction. I have a long history of self harm and had developed Anorexia because I felt so out of control of everything. I hated myself, but I had to suck it up and deal with it because life goes on, and people will be people. I work now to advocate for bully victims and for people who are recovering/recovered from eating disorders. The first step is taking a stance and talking about it, the next step is to take action. We have to STOP bullying!

IT STARTS WITH US, IT ENDS WITH US.