Struggle.

Definition: a forceful or violent effort to get free of restraint or constriction. Some people in the world are constricted by health problems, others with finances. In my case, my struggle for a good portion of my middle school life was with bullying. Bullying is a controversial struggle that many people face today and in some cases cause people to feel like they are worthless and take their own life. I had to deal with it for a great deal of my life, but it gave me the experience I have today with life. When I now look back on those experiences from middle school there is one word that comes to mind “jealousy”.

I was bullied throughout elementary school for my weight problem, but the worst case of it came in middle school. During this time, people would tell me I was worth nothing and when I would play the guitar they would say that I couldn't play to save my life, it made me feel very down. It even came to the point where a group of girls pretended to like me in an attempt to completely crush me as a person. I honestly think that they bullied me because I had a quality in me that they didn’t and it made them angry. It could have been anything from my personality to my talent with writing music. Which is why now I realize bullies make people feel bad to make them feel better about themselves because they are insecure about their current life status and they need to bring others down in means of envy to make themselves feel satisfaction in a way. Which is why bullying doesn't only affect the person on the receiving end it destroys the families involved.

We as human beings all have fatherly instincts and motherly instincts, we understand that we need to make sure that our children grow up to be good people that we can be proud of. For families seeing their children growing up to bully other people, based on their attributes, really affect the parents as well and not just the people being bullied. Bullying affects parents as well because they feel like they failed in their ways of raising good children and it really crushes the bully’s family as a whole. Now for the victim’s side, I can talk from experience, when they are bullied they feel like everyone hates them and they are worth nothing to the world. In some cases, such as the Megan Meier story where a girl was cyber-bullied to the point where she committed suicide, people lose hope and it affects the entire family because they have lost a loved one in their lives. This is just one of the reasons why I believe there needs to be more effort in ensuring children are safe in schools and not just there so others can make money.

When parents send their kids to school they are expecting that their kids to be safe from anything. They want their kids to learn which is why they are sending them to school. They are not sending their kids to school to get victimized by others. Then when faculty gets involved nothing is resolved in the end. I remember vividly when I was being bullied, the faculty knew and they actually let it happen believe it or not. Which further contributes to the degrading of the person.

Statistics for bullying are very scary and sad in many ways. Approximately 4,400 young people commit suicide each year, 14% of high school students have considered suicide and 7% of high school students have actually attempted it. This makes me feel very sad based on the fact that these are beautiful human beings who could have made such an impact in the world in their own way taking their own lives. The fact that other people cause it is so sad because we are all human beings and we are no different.

Bullying makes me think how different we truly are and the answer is, we are no different than anyone else. Which is why I truly supported Bernie Sanders this year when he said, “we are one, we are the human race.” We truly are one, rather than you are Latino, African-American, Asian or anything you are a human being first and deserve to live this beautiful life that you are given. Everyone has the right to live life and be happy and bullying does not make people feel happy. For my experience with bullying, I try to do as much as I can for victims and make them know they have someone by their side because to see another person added to the statistics that I knew would be very tragic. To everyone who has ever gone through bullying like I did, I want you to know that you do have someone by your side rather you may not think it you will always have someone by your side.