Bullying. It’s cruel, it’s wrong, and it hurts.
For the past few months I’ve been assisting with a collaboration of works by several poets and authors to create an anthology designed to bring to light the horrors of bullying.
It can happen to people of any age, race, sex, religion–anyone, really. And as anyone can be bullied, so too can anyone become a bully.
It’s up to each of us to be aware of how we treat one another and to stand up for those who are mistreated.
If your life has been affected by bullying, or if you just plain think it needs to stop, there are a lot of good charities out there to research for ways to help. Kidscape is a British charity, and the US has Stomp Out Bullying and Stand for the Silent (to name a few–Google your local city, state, country, whatever to find the charity that speaks to you).
Assisting a charity doesn’t necessarily mean spending money. Sure, that may help at tax time for some of us, but money isn’t the only thing that’s needed. Make up signs, donate clothes, offer support however you can.
People have killed themselves over being bullied. Hundreds, thousands… Beautiful, smart, wonderful people who for whatever reason became targets for someone’s sick amusement.
This brings up another group I’d like to mention: the Izzy Dix Anti Bullying Memorial Fund (another UK group). Izzy killed herself because of what bullies put her through. Her sad yet beautiful poem–one that we hope to include in the anthology–helped drive me to take on this cause to try to prevent others from feeling the need to take such drastic measures to escape.