Bullying

Was just talking about our experiences of being bullied. I started being bullied in first grade, and was continually bullied through twelfth grade. It is not something we all experience or something we all grow through. It's something that a few people never experience, and some people occasionally experience, and visibly-different people are likely to experience day after day and year after year. That can break you. But the most toxic thing is the pecking order. I learned I would suffer a little less bullying if I turned that bullying onto someone even more bullying. That was wrong. I wonder if it was the price of my survival.

Some teachers and administrators turned a blind eye to the bullying. Some punished the bullied and bullies alike. A few punished the bullied and encouraged the bullies.

What else bothers me is when people with political and religious influence support the bullying. They tell people that being different is 'immoral' and they forget that hurting people is the definition of immoral.