This is a remix, but I do have my own message about bullying, as well as a personal experience. All I'm going to say is bullying does NOT make you any cooler, and being bullied is a traumatizing experience. My one worst and most painful personal experience with bullying happened back when I was in elementary school, sometime in 1st grade. Many of my friends didn't show up to school that day because it was close to a long weekend, so I was alone. During my recess, I grabbed my diary and went to the bathroom to go wash my hands. When I walked in, I saw a bunch of white girls (I'm not trying to be racist, that's just the best way to describe them) standing by the sinks, talking. I asked one of them- as kindly as I could in my tiny little first-grader voice- to move over so that I could wash my hands since she wasn't using the sink and was blocking it. She looked me up and down, and I saw her friends smirking. She pushed me back and called me a nerd and then said a bunch of curse words and insults that I didn't know the meaning of back then. Her friends forcefully grabbed my diary and threw it on the ground; and all that time there was one girl just watching from the side, but she did absolutely nothing to help me. She stood and watched as I was insulted over and over again. She watched as the girls dumped water on me. She watched them make fun of me for not being like them. She watched as I stood there, sopping wet and about to break into tears. I was trying to tell myself that it was okay, that it would be alright and it was over. I picked up my diary, tried to dry myself off as best as I could, and walked out of the bathroom. I don't remember what I felt about the girls, but I do know that the girl that watched me was just as bad as the ones who bullied me. She didn't do anything; and that's what made her as bad as them. She did nothing to stop the bullying and hatred that was being directed at me. Maybe if she helped me, I wouldn't have ended up with trust issues. Maybe if she helped me, I wouldn't be constantly freaking out every time someone touched me. To this day, I'm still affected by something that happened 8 years ago. If you're witnessing someone being bullied and you don't help the victim, you're just as terrible as the bully. I realized how terrible it is to be a bystander after that incident, and at such a young age. What I hope you take away from reading this is that helping someone that's being bullied can impact them a lot. It would ensure that the victim won't have to constantly worry about being harassed again, and it would ensure that they would be able to trust people. Always step in and help if you can. This is one of the biggest and best ways to stop bullying; to act and defend people who can't defend themselves at the moment. Thank you. ~ Rose
