There is not one difficult experience I have gone through that I can write about because honestly, you do not just go through something difficult and then it is over. You go through that experience everyday and carry it with you in every moment, sometimes in your consciousness and other times in your sub consciousness. And there isn’t just one thing you learn because it teaches you something new everyday.
My entire life I have struggled with bullies. No matter what school I attended, I found myself a target. I experienced a lot of different forms of bullying from having accounts of mine hacked to harsh verbal confrontations. Even though I have no bitterness or hatred towards those people, the things they said and did are things I have to heal from everyday. But going through the healing process has taught me things about people and myself that I could have never understood had I not had to deal with those situations for such a large amount of my life.
Being a victim of bullying has taught me to always be kind. I carried the feeling of constant loneliness with me for most of my middle school experience and that made me never want to make other people feel that way. In later conversations I had with those bullies, I told them things that had been going on in my personal life during those years. They often looked at me with amazement and a common response was, “I had no idea.” They would tell me of the things they were going through and believed that I had an easy life and used me as a way to express their anger. It was through that, that I realized we are never able to comprehend all of the pain in the people around us. I learned that through kindness, there could be healing for both of us and so, I try to make the effort everyday to find people who just need to feel loved.
It later taught me that we have a responsibility to make other people aware of their actions. My senior year I will be able to direct a one act and I made the decision to write my own. It tells the story of a girl who was bullied and committed suicide. I wrote it to be uncomfortably honest because I want people to become aware of their actions. I want people to understand what I learned from bullying. I hope that through my one act I am able to inspire people to be better once they learn that even what they believe to be the tiniest of parts in someone’s life, they might actually be playing a major role.
Most recently, it had taught me that I have a lot of trust issues. I constantly ask people to be completely honest with me and to be open but I struggle immensely with that myself. I am working on becoming a more vulnerable person again because that is when you are able to help people.
Bullying has taught me so much of who I am today. I realized that when I thought I had no choice but to give up, I found strength to keep going. I know how to recognize when someone is hurting and I have been given the ability to help them. Even though I have no bullies in my life today, I will never be done with that experience. It is something that I wake up every morning knowing but I never wanted it to make me bitter so rather I let it form me to become someone better. Everyday that I spend healing, I spend learning too. And so, even though it is not over, I would not have it any other way.