Being Different Seen As A Crime | The Bully Project

There is a documentary I've been dying to watch for almost a year now. Ever since I watched the trailer for this highly acclaimed documentary I've been on the edge of my seat because this is the one that actually might get things moving towards a bigger change, desired across the world, not just US. From its very first seconds I felt all the weight that is was carrying, so many emotions, so much pain, and so such disgust towards some actions that shouldn't have been tolerated in the first place. It pains me to see people acting like certain things are normal to happen, so many bystanders who couldn't care less. I guess everyone is for himself, first they care for themselves, and if there is any time left they will consider thinking about other people.

Bully, tells the story of several kids, a drop in the ocean, who were abused verbally and physically, or the latest term - bullied, millions of kids fall victims to bullies, no matter how hard some of them fight for their lives some end up committing suicide and leave us, the living, suffering. I'm not condoning them, not blamming them, just wish somebody would've been there to have heard them so today they would be among us.

Among the first things that I got to notice is that they are all different, good different but they got treated like crap, they were pushed aside. It was told to them loud and clear that being different is not acceptable, nor tolerable.

Alex. Early in the morning when he was getting ready to go to school I felt his anxiety, felt it like it was chocking me and I realized it must have been hundred times worse for him. My schools days are over, I'm still bullied whenever I take a walk downtown, but it's not as bad as it was when I still was in school. Can't say I've survived bullying 'cause it still hurts, I have huge scars on my soul, I'll always remember how cruel some kids were and how they are the same even after five years since I've graduated high-school. Thing are different if we dare to compare my country and United States, yet still I am appalled that bullying is a phenomenon that got out of hands in the land where democracy knew its culmination. We would assume that something like shouldn't have happened and yet with some extreme carelessness it rose to some dangerous levels. It got out of hands and now it's time to unite and work all together to eradicate this once and for all. Alex and other kids should feel welcomed, safe and accepted for what they are. Seeing little kids telling that they heart are breaking when somebody is being mean, violent and really ugly to them it makes my heart break. It makes me feel powerless, useless, weak, unsafe and many other things that none of us should ever feel. "People think that I am different, that I am not normal. Most kids don't wanna be around me. I feel like I belong somewhere else" with extreme sadness and pain Alex tells us.

Kelby. With a smile on her face trying as hard as she can to cover deep scars and awful memories tells us "you can always count on it happening when you walk in hall at school, and in the classroom, after school when I am walking home, when I am walking to the parking lot, walking in the mornings to school, I wasn't welcomed to church, I am not welcomed to a lot of people's homes" it hurts bad. Nothing else to say. There aren't enough words in the whole world to express the sadness. But why is she treated that way? She lives in a small town where people happen to be really narrow minded, extremely judgmental and often cruel. Kelby (at the time of filming) was a 16 year-old transgender, something I can't understand but it doesn't mean I get to be cruel and act violently and make her feel miserable and sick and unwelcome. "We were walking back from launch and these guys, there was probably six older guys and they were driving in their mom's minivan. I was going to find out what the problem was so I kinda walked on the road and instead of slowing down or stopping they talked to me, spit up and I flew onto the windshield. I couldn't have got hit by you know something cool like a jeep or something I got hit by a minivan." I didn't know what to do, laugh or cry. I praise her for knowing to cope with that, a good defense mechanism but why should a child have defensive mechanisms? Why should a child feel unprotected?

Ja'meya. A 14 year-old girl bullied and pushed to her breaking points. One morning she took her mom's gun and went to the school , when on the school bus she finally snapped and the only way she could feel safe was to take that gun and scare her bullies away, scare them so they would never touch her again, never say things to her ever again. By a miracle no one was hurt, scared but not hurt. When her mom got the call she felt like the world was coming crashing down, her daughter made something unthinkable and was about to be charged with multiple counts of kidnapping and multiple counts of attempted aggravated assault. Ja'meya was sent to the hospital to be treated as she was deeply traumatized traumatized by the bullies who were picking on her on a daily basis and ho were abusing her making her feel like she wants to die.

Luckily the judge on her case was more than kind and dropped all charges but ordered for her to be hospitalized and again, he was kind of enough to leave it to doctors' discretion to decide the length of Ja'meya''s treatment. It's clear that it could've gone the other way and that would've have ended up on a permanent juvenile record. Hope her life changed after that, hope she's ok now. Best wishes to her and her family.

Alex, Kelby and Ja'meya are the really lucky ones.  

Tyler Long was a lot less lucky, he couldn't take it anymore. At the age of 17 he decided to leave this world. His parents promised to themselves that their voice will not fall silent, they will keep fighting until a difference is made. They will keep fighting so there wouldn't be other kids to suffer like Tyler did. Tyler's memory will live beyond the day he left and wherever he is now he's also fighting to make a change.

From ABC News: "On October 17th, 2009, 17-year-old Tyler Long had had enough. After years of alleged bullying at the hands of classmates in his Murray County, Ga., school system, Tyler had gone from a fun-loving child to what his parents say was just a shell of the boy they once knew.

"They took his pride from him," said his father, David Long. "He was a hollow person."

Tyler had Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism that his parents say left him with unique personality traits unpopular with his classmates. His mother, Tina Long, said Tyler was very rule oriented as a result of Asperger's and frequently reminded his classmates of the regulations they were violating.

"If someone was talking in class, I know that he would say, 'You know we're not supposed to be talking. That's the rule,'" Tina said. His parents said that irritated his classmates, that Tyler was different to them and thus a target. "They would take his things from him, spit in his food, call him 'gay, faggot'," Long said. "One day to the next, it was continuous harassment from the other kids in the classroom." His parents said they complained to school authorities about the pattern of bullying early on, but no action was taken. "'Boys will be boys'," was the response Long said he got from school officials. "'How can I stop every kid from saying things that shouldn't be said? What do you want me to do Mr. and Mrs. Long? I've done all I can.'"" Read the full story here.

I hope you all buy the DVD when it comes out in February of 2013. I hope you all watch this amazing documentary. It's a strong documentary meant to make a big impact, slow down this plague and eventually stop it for good. No parent should suffer the loss of their child. No parent should feel hopeless. On my last post about stopping this phenomenon I was saying "A life without bullying is a beautiful life, let’s make it happen. I won’t live that long to see the day when there won’t be any anguished souls, no pain caused by mean people, no tears, no screaming, no crying out for help in the middle of nowhere, no solitude, no desperation, no going crazy and no wishing to die. You don’t want to be bullied and if you never were bullied don’t let that happen to others, but if it’s happening give them a hand and take a stand against bullying, defend them and be their hero, everybody needs a hero in their lives, be theirs, protect them and take special care, and someday they’ll get to be somebody else’s hero."

I'll wrap it here and when I'll go to sleep I'll wish for less and less and less kids to be bullied so they all could stand a chance at living a full life without any regrets. Everybody deserve to live a decent life. Everybody deserves to be happy.

Take a stand, stop bullying.

Be kind to one another and someday you may get to change a life for the better.