I watched the 2011 film "Cyberbully" this morning. The movie had a happy ending, which often real life bullying situations do not.
I had a hard time getting through this one. I don't know if I would have survived if there had been this additional avenue of bullying when I was a teen. As it was, I was bullied. One guy from another school, whom I had gone on a date with once, spread a rumor that he got me pregnant and I had an abortion. I was only 15. I was still a virgin. I remember him trying to grope me and me saying no. He didn't even get in my pants, let alone get me pregnant. But the rumors that I was a "slut" persisted.
I was a big girl (who turned into a big woman.) At five foot seven, I weighed 180 pounds in a world where any female who weighs over 120 is considered "fat." I had broad shoulders, moderately large breasts, a big butt, and chunky thighs. I didn't have the kind of big breasts that push straight out in front, I had the kind that spread to the side. If I wore a pushup bra, I'd have had cleavage up to my chin. I was modest, however, and tended to wear baggy shirts to hide my breasts. It didn't help much.
I had friends among the stoner crowd. The popular kids picked on me for my less than fashionable attire. My family wasn't rich. I couldn't believe how shallow these morons were, but it hurt anyway.
When I tried to kill myself, I did not get support from my mother. As I lay there in the E.R. with my wrists bandaged, she railed at me about how stupid I was for doing something like that and told me to stop looking for attention. The counselor at school gave me no help when I told her what was going on with me. She basically told me I needed to toughen up.
I guess I was a lot smarter than I thought I was at the time, because I got through high school with mostly B's even though I was constantly ditching school.
While watching Cyberbully, there were times that I started breathing hard and my chest started to feel tight. I thought I was going to have a panic attack and felt like I might have to stop watching. I'm 45 years old, and all those feelings from those awful years came flooding back to me. In a way it felt like being raped (another thing that I have experienced) only on a psychological level. I remember feeling like trash, like I was worthless, like I deserved what happened to me.
To this day, I still have a lot of trouble believing in myself or my abilities. I still see myself as unattractive. I don't know if any of this will ever change.
I know that the filmmakers were trying to impart the message that violence does not solve anything, but the part of the movie where Lindsay the Bitch Queen and her Chief Bitch Crew are in the bathroom and Taylor (the bullying victim) comes in and they berate her for crying? I would have started swinging my shoulder bag at those cunts. None would have gotten away unscathed. I would have been suspended for school and I would suddenly have been the villain. But that is the way it would have gone down.
Bullying kills. Bullying also hurts many years after the fact. Bullying destroys lives. Isn't it time to put an end to this social evil?
