It's still brain week and I want to touch on a subject that is very important to me.
All through school, if I saw someone being bullied, I stood up to the bully for that person, often times it was someone with a differability that was getting bullied. I've always been drawn to people who were "different" people that most people thought weren't normal... to me- these were the best people in the world, the ones with all the secrets of how the world really should be. They know contentment and happiness on a level that most people will never understand. They know how to find the joy in the darkest times...because most of the time they know true love. The unconditional love of SOMEONE in their life has touched them to a point that they have the purest of hearts. And it urks me when I see someone else try to take that pureness from these AMAZING people.
Those with differabilities, know more than just the happiness they know heartbreak, and they know rejection. Often times they can overcome that, because they have SOMEONE to help them...but sometimes... they dont.
Recently I had a conversation with my best friend...I'd hid something from her ALL through high school. And most people from my high school and even middle school don't know this but I was bullied. I was the girl that stood up to the bullies for someone else, when they started picking on me I'd come back with a smart alec remark or just ignore them... but after my 10th grade year... I begged my mom to put me on homeschooling. The bullying was getting worse (this was in the early 2000s before "cyber-bullying" was a big thing) but people were getting online and messaging me telling me it was my fault my dad died (of cancer) they said it was a good thing he died because he'd have hated having a daughter like me... stupid, ugly... you name it, they said it. So I begged to be home-schooled changed my name on messengers and pretty much disappeared for a year and a half while I grieved on my own. I went to hang out with my best friend at football games sometimes but mostly I just stayed away.
While I was getting bullied I had suicidal thoughts, I know what it's like to be in that point of life, feeling like you have no one. Thankfully people I was close to helped me get out of that part of my depression.
When I returned things had calmed down... the bullies mostly left me alone, we were in our last year and all just trying to graduate.
Then I went to college, I thought that things would be different, that I wouldn't be bullied...then I got my ACC diagnosis and reached to the point of not being able to hide it. The bullying started again. This time REALLY attacking my intelligence and because I wasn't sure how to handle ANYTHING that was going on, emotionally... I was called a drama queen despite trying to just walk away... people didn't understand me at all and that didn't help how I handled things. I had overcome the suicidal thing in high school and didn't return to that at this point... I went back to doing my best to ignore the bullies.
Something about ACC though... when you insult an ACCer that stays with them (this can be true about ANYONE that is bullied though) Their words, the things they said, the way I was treated... that has stayed with me. Even now I have to fight off the words of my bullies. I was bullied from kindergarten to my last year of college. I was able though to confront some of my bullies through the years and when I did, when I told them "You are hurting me, you don't realize what your words do to people...especially someone that doesn't have much control over how they react... please stop. Have a little compassion." it wasn't an over night change but things DID change.
People don't like anyone who is "different" it's human nature to disrespect differences in others. But instead of mistreating those with differences, show compassion, show love... chances are if you love those that are different they will teach you amazing things about life! And you will have some of the TRUEST of friends.
Stop bullying.
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