Unfortunately, people face bullying, and I am a prime example of being bullied. I am hoping that by the time my kids are around, and their kids are around that bullying will be a non-factor in their lives and not affect them badly as it has myself. I am pushing to see an end to bullying and hope this is the start of that journey.

I am in my early 20’s, and I live in the suburbs of Long Island. For as long as I can remember I have been bullied for many reasons. Some of them include my weight, my religion, and my kindness. What is sad about the whole situation is that the people who are bullying me are people I know. Some of the examples of what I have gone through are not stuff that people need to go through and essentially adds on unnecessary stress. There were times I have been bullied because I was overweight and in all honesty, it made me eat more and gain more weight.

However, being that I have been out of high school for five years, the bullying has gotten much worse and in some cases has turned into verbal abuse. With the verbal abuse, I had gone through times when I wanted to do harm to myself. I am happy to report those thoughts are long gone. I started having these thoughts because I felt that no one cared about me and at some points, I thought people would be happier if I were not around.

While there were times when the bullying and the verbal abuse was bad, there were other times that it fueled me to do better. But for a majority of it, I have had a terrible run with bullying. There were times when I was younger, and I would go to my room and burst out in tears. I have also been told I am a whiny prick, and I know there will be people who read this and think that.

Let me make this clear right now; this article was not done for me to get sympathy. I wrote this to talk about what I have been, though, how to handle bullies, and how I want this to be done. There was one thing I have learned during the times I have been bullied are that it depends on the person who is bullying you that will determine how you should handle it.

The mature way to handle getting bullied is by not giving them your attention because if they don’t see you getting a reaction, they will move on. Another way you can handle it is by standing up to them. I have realized that sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. The times when it doesn’t work is when by you standing up to them, you are adding more fuel to their fire. But the best advice I can give to people who are dealing with bullying is you should choose. There is no right or wrong way to combat bullying, but you can not let it affect it because it can do years of damage to your mind.

I am hopeful that bullying comes to an end. If you have never been bullied, then you may not be aware of the pain it puts you in, but it seems that there are many people who have been bullied. No one should be put through being put down and being called names. I am hopefully for this article to be the start of putting an end to this horrible thing that affects many people. I think the best way to wrap this up is from a TV show.

There was an episode of the show 2 Broke Girls where Han, who is the manager of the dinner. He made one line in this episode that can summarize bullying. When you get bullied, you get a piece taken out of you. When you have been bullied for over two decades, it takes a lot out of you.