<p>It’s been gaining momentum over the past years, growing, evolving into a new species and branching out into other countries. I’m talking about the infamous qualities of bullying. In my short years of living I’ve seen bullying taking new shapes and forms and affect the population like a plague. There are many types of bullying, such as verbal bullying, cyber bullying, physical bullying, prejudicial bullying, having a family member, friend and/or even a teacher harass you. I’ve also had some up close personal experiences with bullying that I will never forget. It can beat you down or make you a stronger person. Whatever it does do to you, it will make a definite effect on you.
Physical bullying has to be the most detrimental to one’s self. It’s a permanent scar and horrid memory to live with for the rest of your life. I have been affected by physical bullying and still have not recovered from the awful events. In 7th grade as I was waiting in line for lunch, I hear a very loud boy making some astonishingly offensive references about big lips. To my surprise it was my friend poking fun at me, I immediately began to cry and instantly hurled towards him but was flung directly into the corner of a refrigerator and thrown to the floor. I lay on the floor clearly hurt clenching my back, but that didn’t seem to stop him because he threw himself onto my hips and began to repeatedly throw punches at my face. I fought back and was given a 4 day suspension. My mind goes blank whenever I remember that he was given a 5 day suspension as his only punishment. For the next 2 weeks I felt down and lethargic, this didn’t last very long because I kept myself busy and got involved in school events for the first time. It seems as if every person who was ever bullied physically had their lives rearranged around the time it occurred. I remember watching a transgender woman give a speech on the traumatic abuses she went through as a teenager. She spoke in depth about how degraded she felt after this occurred. I can vividly remember a 14 year old stand up from the back of the auditorium and yell, “God doesn’t believe in this, therefore, I don’t”. This is one of the few moments where I was completely unable to grasp why a person behaves the way they do.
Although awareness to this sort of bullying is being heavily conducted and monitored, I can’t help but think of cyber bullying as our most relevant forms of bullying to the youth. Cyber bullying is basically antagonizing individuals through, texts, photos, or videos. Basically anything that would be considered bullying in the real world, but done online; the not so real world. The not so real world because half the things these people vomit out would never be something they’d actually say in person. It’s like these bullies turn into their viral selves and very evil selves as well, for the pleasure of their own ego. What these people don’t realize is the impact they are making on the victims. These tormentors wouldn’t be able to grasp what they have done to me. When I was 15 years old I made my first social media account on Facebook, for a good amount of time everything was perfect, I loved Facebook and I am completely sure I was considered an addict, putting in a good 4 hours a day. Everything was perfect till about 5 months in when I was chosen to be a part of a superficial freshmen Facebook contest. This virtual contest involves 2 opponents, your classmate and yourself, where you will be tossed into a category and learn society’s hard truth about yourself whether you like it or not. I was thrown into the “■■■■■■” category as the called it. I was put against a close friend of mine with the caption “Who is the better ■■■■■■?” I lost this contest and was completely torn, not because I lost the contest but because I was humiliated in front of hundreds on a social media outlet I used on a daily basis. It came to its most mortifying peak when my mother confronted me about my odd behavior and what she had seen online. I was sentenced to 3 months of what I considered at the time, grueling psychological therapy. Looking back at it these sessions, I know they were all for the better and my mother only wanted to see a happy son every day. It is frightening to know that this was all caused by what my fellow peers had posted about me online. When a bully sends a hate letter to an individual, it’s all fun and play for the bully who shows zero remorse towards the victim, on the other side the victim sees another hate messages pop up, they tense up, read it, and believe every lie told. I think what has people caring so much about what people say about online, has to do with the fact that we judge people based off of what’s posted online. If we have no other form of knowing about the person, we judge their twitter account or their Instagram photos. This makes the average American human feel uneasy.
And now verbal bullying; It’s without a doubt the most common and ancient form of bullying. I remember this one morning during junior high, I was on my private bus headed towards school. At these very moments it would have never occurred to me the impact of what was about to happen in front of me. That morning I witness 5 young women attack an innocent girl because of the way she appeared and spoke. They hit her with “Why is your back like that?”, “Why is your voice so deep?”, “Why do you have more mustache hair than most guys here?”, and "Are you a boy?” It was clear that the victim was very upset about this; she wouldn’t speak for the rest of the school year. But would eventually speak out to administration, whom barely punished the girls. They merely received a slap on the hand and went on with their days, not caring one bit about their wrongdoings. To this day, I can clearly picture everything these girls said and still cringe. How is change possible if you’ve got administration treating situations like these so lightly? Along with this, I to have been bullied verbally on countless occasions - I can remember being bullied verbally back in pre-k all the way to my senior year in High School. The accusations and insults I experienced leave me with an empty and hopeless feeling whenever thought of. It is these feelings that propel me to treat others with respect no matter the situation I am going through.
In the many years of witnessing and experiencing nearly all types of bullying, I believe that harassment laws should be more heavily enforced. And till this day I am still cursed with the anxiety and depression caused by the 12 years of bullying I endured. These teens and even adults are being belittle and made feel worthless. Some contemplate suicide, some go through with it. Bullying leads to great deals of other negative outcomes for everyone. Its effects will become very apparent many years from now. </p>