Bullying

I just found this video on another blogging site, and I cannot express how blown away I am.  This woman's strength inspires me to be strong and comfortable in my own skin.  

I've been bullied throughout a huge chunk of my life.  I've never been skinny, nor will I probably ever be skinny.  My body is built differently to where I most likely never will be a size 1.  I'm not ashamed to say that I'm bigger than most girls, and I've always struggled with my weight.  Bullies don't see that, though.  Bullies are attracted to fear and insecurities.  The feed off of the hurt they subject people to.  The hardest time of my life was, by far, middle school, along with millions of other girls and boys.  I knew I was "chunky," I just didn't really pay attention to it, until a certain boy decided to point it out.  I'll keep his name under wraps and just call him Ben.  Ben made it his personal mission to deteriorate every speck of self worth that I had in my body.  He banded together with numerous other boys to complete this task.  I had tons of different "nicknames," but my personal favorites were "Elephant" and "Boom."  (They thought it was really witty to create "Boom," stemming from the sound that I would make if I fell.  Naturally, they also said that an earthquake would follow.  Clever, huh?)  This bullying went on for most of my 6th grade year.  Don't think I didn't complain to teachers and faculty.  They blamed the bullying on ME.  It was MY fault that I was being bullied.  It was "character building."  Keep in mind that I went to a "Christian" school, using the term Christian very lightly.  There was no Christ in that school.  This bullying lead to something that I struggled with for years and will never outgrow/be cured of.  I decided that since they were going to call me fat, that I really must be, so I decided to do something about it.  I stopped eating.  I started dropping weight, and people told me how wonderful I looked, so I continued with my nasty habit.  I blamed my weight loss on puberty, and people bought it.  Every day at lunch, I ate a potato.  That was my meal.  And for dinner, I would move my food around to make it look like I ate it, and I'd get the smallest portions possible.  I'd say that I had a "big lunch," or "just [wasn't] hungry."  This went on through my 7th grade year, and finally my parents decided that they'd had enough of this school, so they took me out.  That's when my happy ending started.  I transferred to a school in Gatlinburg known as Pi Beta Phi Elementary.  My whole world was changed.  People liked me as me.  I didn't have to hide anymore.  I actually felt pretty for once.

My story is probably like many others out there.  It breaks my heart to think that someday, my children or nieces and nephews are going to be subjected to the pain and hurt that I was subjected to.  We need to take a stand against bullying.  We need to make a drastic change in America, and the world.  We need to be strong like this news anchor in the video.  We need to love, because: