UNFILTERED.

So I was going to write a mini blog series about all the things I went through in school. I was going to tell you all about the abuse and neglect I received not only from my peers, but from my advisors as well. However, I have decided not to release that series. Maybe ever, maybe I will someday. I was thinking about it, and why I wanted to post my story, and  I realized that the details weren't really relevant. It's WHY that is relevant.

 I started my blog because I felt like I had no voice. I felt incredibly small, and my blog was a way for me to put my voice out there. It was pretty much no risk, because my mom and a few of her friends are really the only ones that ever read it.

 Today, I am hoping that will change. I feel like for the first time, I am addressing you as a woman, not just a little girl who's trying to get her voice out there. I had it rough in school, but I am not alone. I felt like in my mini series, I sounded so weak, scared, and hopeless. The truth is, that is exactly how I felt while writing it. I have a strong message to convey though, and I do not want to stutter in my delivery. I am sick and tired of seeing these heartbreaking stories on the news about suicide, and everybody looking around wondering why. I'm tired of hearing about violence's at school and everybody blaming the weapon. There is a serious lack of accountability in our school systems today.

 I was harassed daily. I was tortured. My grades were awful. Teachers saw it. I asked for help. I wrote letters, desperate for somebody to hear my plea. Yet all my attempts to get my head above water were ignored, or worse. I was blamed. I had a label that read "problem student" in big fat letters, stamped all over my body. If something happened to me, it had to have been my fault. I asked for it. Do those words sound familiar to you? She asked for it. Hmmm. 

My story is old news, but there are thousands and thousands of stories similar to mine that are occurring right now. Bullying doesn't even feel like an appropriate word to use to describe what is going on. Bullying feels like such a childish word. This is mental torture, isolation, harassment, abuse. It was a phycological war of terror and I was just out there, trying to survive.  What are our schools doing to stop it? They claim to have a "zero tolerance" policy, yet they still pick favorites?

 I did what they told me to. They said to report things when kids get hurt, so I reported when things got bad and I got hurt, yet somehow the story was twisted and I was the one inflicting the pain. They said "shake your arms and say 'stop bullying me'" and all it did was attract more bullies. So tell me, schools. What ARE you doing? When kids report sexual harassment, when kids are dragged into your office almost DAILY, being accused of something. What are you doing about it? The school system I was in told me to sit down and shut up. Those are our star athletes you're accusing. Even the teachers were in on it. Even the adults in my life were fine with attacking and bullying a little kid! A bunch of this stuff happened to me when I was 8! But you can't fire a teacher who has tenure, right? Even for the mental safety of your students. 

What do you do when a kid doesn't feel safe at your school, so they get bad grades, and their GPA brings down your school's overall GPA. Oh, that kid makes you look bad. Right? So you have to banish them to a school you have been threatening them with for years. That is correct, folks. Threatening. I was told that if I went to this school, I would need the protection of the main teacher. That I wouldn't be able to get a job, that my diploma wouldn't be the same as the other kids, and that I could never go to college. Maybe you're thinking "wow I would have gotten my act together if I was threatened with that" and the truth is, I tried. I was so mentally exhausted. There was nothing left in me by the time I got home at the end of the day. I would try so hard to do my homework, to read my books, to study and do well on tests. Big shocker, I was so distracted by the race to stay alive, that I hardly had time to do homework. 

No, I wasn't scared that anybody at the school was going to kill me, except me. I know I am not alone. I hear about kids who take their lives, and my heart just breaks because I can imagine how they felt. Yet, everybody is looking around and wondering "how could this happen, why did this happen" and then maybe they hold a school assembly and build a little shrine for that kid, ignoring the blood on their own hands. Nobody sees a gun and just thinks "oh I am gonna shoot up the school today" They are pushed there. Nobody wakes up and thinks "wow. My life is so worthless it would actually be more beneficial if I was dead" our bodies have a program in them. It's against our nature to take our own lives. You have to really be feeling that with conviction. 

I wonder where those kids got the conviction. Something to think about.