"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" said the Queen from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. To which, the Magic Mirror responds that the Queen is the fairest in the land. What if each of us had a mirror that told us we were the most beautiful and fair, ignoring obvious flaws i.e. fat, moles, glasses and any other physical flaw that is seen as ugly or undesirable? Hopefully, we would leave our houses feeling beautiful and proud.
In Junior High, I was a victim of bullying. I struggled everyday with other kids calling me fag, faggot, queer, fudge packer, cocksucker, etc. You name it and they called me anything that equated with being gay or being a sissy. The students hurled the barrage of cruel and demeaning names. Most of the time, I didn't have any idea what they were talking about. Through all of the name calling and bullying, I suffered and suffered.
While the bullying was mostly verbal and psychological, the emotional toll, those years took on me, has stayed with me and the wounds fester. The memories are a constant scab I continually pick at and make them bleed. No matter how much council I seek, I find the memories too strong and painful to always overcome.
What I wouldn't give to have my own Magic Mirror to tell me how fair and beautiful I am. Perhaps, the daily positive verbalization would help to destroy the negative memories that are always inside my head telling me that because I am gay, I am a second class citizen and deserve nothing this world has to offer me or that I deserve to be called names. If I had the Magic Mirror, the religious me would stop saying, "You're going to go to hell if you kill yourself and you're going to go to hell for being gay, so you might as well get it over with and kill yourself."
Bullying is a modern-day warfare tactic that is not waged with guns and bombs, but with words that could kill by bringing the bullied to take their own lives. It is a plague that emotionally and psychologically damages and destroys. It is amazing how many types of bullying there are today. Schoolyard bullying was the only bullying that I experienced, but today, I fear for the youth because of all the social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) that allow kids to bully from wherever they are. Zero tolerance in schools and on the social networking sites needs to be implemented, so that people understand that it is not okay to make others feel like they are unimportant and that life is not worth living. Stop the hate. Stop the violence. Stop the bullying.
In Junior High, I was a victim of bullying. I struggled everyday with other kids calling me fag, faggot, queer, fudge packer, cocksucker, etc. You name it and they called me anything that equated with being gay or being a sissy. The students hurled the barrage of cruel and demeaning names. Most of the time, I didn't have any idea what they were talking about. Through all of the name calling and bullying, I suffered and suffered.
While the bullying was mostly verbal and psychological, the emotional toll, those years took on me, has stayed with me and the wounds fester. The memories are a constant scab I continually pick at and make them bleed. No matter how much council I seek, I find the memories too strong and painful to always overcome.
What I wouldn't give to have my own Magic Mirror to tell me how fair and beautiful I am. Perhaps, the daily positive verbalization would help to destroy the negative memories that are always inside my head telling me that because I am gay, I am a second class citizen and deserve nothing this world has to offer me or that I deserve to be called names. If I had the Magic Mirror, the religious me would stop saying, "You're going to go to hell if you kill yourself and you're going to go to hell for being gay, so you might as well get it over with and kill yourself."
Bullying is a modern-day warfare tactic that is not waged with guns and bombs, but with words that could kill by bringing the bullied to take their own lives. It is a plague that emotionally and psychologically damages and destroys. It is amazing how many types of bullying there are today. Schoolyard bullying was the only bullying that I experienced, but today, I fear for the youth because of all the social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) that allow kids to bully from wherever they are. Zero tolerance in schools and on the social networking sites needs to be implemented, so that people understand that it is not okay to make others feel like they are unimportant and that life is not worth living. Stop the hate. Stop the violence. Stop the bullying.
