Pass it On

And so begins (or already has begun) another day in Lisaland! Things aren't too bad today. Last night turned out to be rather interesting and I even smiled a bit. Sad thing was....no one was around to see it. Oh well...hopefully there are more where that came from.

Tonight will be another karaoke night for our clan. I really like going to watch Z sing and it gives me an excuse to get out of the house. I have to take advantage while I can as Lindsay will be heading off to college soon and my babysitter will be gone!!! Arrrrggghhhh!!!!! Oh well, we all know that every good thing must come to an end. Speaking of coming to an end, apparently Davids non-seizure days have come to an end too. He has really had an amazing summer with no real health problems, but I noticed in the last week he has started grinding his teeth a lot more and Lindsay has reported some tantrums and combativeness....all signs that meds need changed and seizures are going to be breaking through. Then last night....they started again, so today we are off for blood work and a med levels check. I would imagine in his last growth spurt...he has once again out grown his current levels. Just want to get them back under control before school starts. I have really enjoyed our lack of ER visits this summer and hope to continue down this path. Just another one of life's little speed bumps.

So yesterday's soap box rant got me no comments on blogger but I had several on my facebook messaging. Not surprisingly most were from parents who have dealt with their child(ren) being bullied and one young girl who apparently has been bullied for quite some time. This young girl preferred to remain anonymous, but she did give me permission to use her message in today's blog. I thought it was quite compelling and feel anyone who has ever bullied should read it to know the damage they cause. Here is her message:

"Thank you for writing your blog about bullying. I hope lots of people read it because it did help me to think about the reasons people might bully. I never thought of them being unhappy and I only thought of how unhappy they make me. My story is this. I have gone to the same school my hole life. I have had a lot of friends until last year. When I started my freshman year I thought it was going to be great and the first few days were. I had friends and had fun. I even had a guy that I had a crush on ask me out. It was so fun and then I went to school the next day and the group of friends I had would not talk to me. The guy who asked me out wouldn't talk to me and I had no idea what was going on. Then I started getting shoved in the hall. During passing period I would be walking along and the girls who used to be my friends would shove me and then laugh. Like you said they were sneaky and no one who mattered ever saw them. It would have been my word against theres and in my school, my word would have meant nothing going up against them. Things also started getting written about me in various places in the school and it seemed like even teachers were treating me different. No one would sit next to me at lunch and people would fight in class not to have to sit next to me. Then it started happening outside of school. They started making mean posts about me on facebook and even went so far as to drive by my house and call me an f'ing bitch. All I could do was cry. I hated going to school and I tried to be sick every chance I got. I was so angry and sad that people were treating me this way and I had no idea why. I was angry at my mom and dad for not just letting me stay home from school but I couldn't tell them why because I was afraid they would do something and make it all worse. My grades started falling because I wasn't going to school regularly and when I did go  I was to upset to even pay attention. I spent so many hours hiding out in the bathroom, behind the school or anywhere that I didn't have to face these people who went out of their way to make me miserable. I tried everything I could to change things. I tried to dress better thinking that somehow if I did they would like me better. That only made things worse and got juice "accidentally" dumped down the front of my shirt. The office gave me a way to big t-shirt to wear the rest of the day and that got me teased more. I then decided to dress down to make myself invisible. That didn't work either. I got called ugly, tacky, disgusting and some other names that I am not going to write here. I couldn't win and I was getting in trouble at home because I didn't want to talk to anyone and I ignored or avoided everyone I could. I was afraid if I started talking about all of it that I would just fall apart. I also was really afraid that no one would believe me. As much as I was called names, pushed and shoved into lockers, written about, isolated, and made fun of at school no teacher ever seemed to see it. No other student ever stood up and said stop it and nothing I could do was making it better. I was so alone and everyone hated me and I still didn't know why. My parents started thinking I was on drugs and started going through my room and my purse and my back pack.  They threatened me with grounding  and they had no idea that I felt much worse than any grounding could make me feel. They were so disappointed with me because my grades had gone from almost straight A's to D's and F's. My teachers gave me daily lectures about how lazy I was and how I was probably going to fail school and I felt like I wanted to die. If I had done something wrong I just wanted to fix it. I wanted my friends back and my life back and my good grades back. I wanted my parents to look at me like they were proud of me not like they were always suspicious. I wanted to be happy again. One day I reached into my backpack to pull out my brush and brush my hair. Not looking I started brushing and looked down to realize that my hand was covered in ink. I ran to the bathroom and saw that I had black ink all over my blond hair. My backpack, my homework and all my books were covered in the ink. People walked through the halls laughing at me, pointing and saying really awful things. My once best friend just laughed and mimed Oops! I also got into trouble for having ink in my backpack and letting it ruin all my books. I just looked at the principal and wondered why she would think I would carry ink in my back pack. Once again I couldn't win. That night I remember looking at my moms medicine cabinet and wondering what it would be like to just take every pill she had and just to fall asleep and never wake up. I thought how nice it would be not to have see those people who hated me every day. How nice it would be not to have to have to here the names or see my parents be upset. I just wanted it all to go away and sleeping and never waking up felt like a good choice. I didn't do it  but the thought stayed with me for awhile. It was kind of my exit strategy. Long story short though after the ink situation my parents seemed to start figuring stuff out. They sat me down and started asking me questions and I couldn't hold it in any longer. It all came out. My mom cried when I told her everything that had been going on and my dad wanted to go after all the kids who were involved. After me crying and telling them that they could make life worse for me they decided to go to the principal. The principal had his doubts about my story and told my parents with my grades dropping and my not attending school like I should he thought that the problem was something deeper (I think he meant drugs) and that I was just using this story as an excuse. My dad asked mom and I leave and he and the principal talked for a while without us. After that the principal said he would see what he could do to get the situation stopped. I also started seeing a shrink. I wasn't happy about that but after I started talking about all of it and she made me see that I really hadn't done anything to cause it I started feeling better. She let me know that nothing that I did caused it and nothing I could do on my own would stop it. That is why I needed to turn to someone for help. When I really understood it was not my fault little by little I stopped caring what they did and started caring about the things I liked. My grades started coming up again and I started dressing like me again. One day out of no where one of the girls who used to be my friend came up to me. She acted really scared of me but told me she liked my sandals. I was really skeptical and I just looked at her. Then she shocked me and said she was sorry for all that she had done to me. She told me that they had turned on her too. She was now living the same life I had lived for the last six months. What did she do? She had worn the same shirt as another girl in the group on the same day and had most likely looked better in it. The next day no one would even look at her. She then told me why they had decided to hate me. That first week of school when the guy asked me out, one of the other girls wanted him to ask her out. When he asked me instead that put me on the hate list. They went to him and told him that if he even looked at me the rest of the year they would make his life miserable and then they set out to make mine miserable. It was nothing I had done just like my shrink had said. The new girl they hated, we are still not friends and she is suffering just like I did but I have picked her books up a time or two after they were knocked from her arms during passing period and she knows my table is always open at lunch. So everything you said makes sense and I would like to think that if some of the bullies read this they would think before hurting someone but the truth is most are self absorbed bitches who don't have the ability to feel bad about anything unless it is something that happens to them. Thank you for trying though and maybe this will help parents and teachers to understand what is going on right under there noses." 

All I could say after reading it was....WOW! I couldn't help but wonder if these girls who had once been friends with this girl had known how close she was to just ending it all over all of this or  if they would have even cared? It doesn't sound like our writer believes they would have. I found it tremendously sad. So I am asking something I don't normally ask. If you read my blog and you know teachers, parents or other kids that you feel could benefit from reading this young woman's message...please pass it on! There is damage going on in our schools and to our kids and we as parents need to be aware. Actions have consequences and not realizing what our kids are doing to one another is not going to be a good excuse if the unthinkable happens. 

So we just thought the soap box was put away. Now it is time for the 30 Day Song Challenge. Day 27: A song that you wish you could play. Well, since this is so similar to yesterdays...we will go with a song that I wish I could sing. If I could sing...I would have headed straight to Broadway. I love musicals and when the musical Wicked came out....I longed to see it. I have not yet gotten to live that dream, but if I could sing.....this song would be at the top of my list. Here is Idina Menzel singing Defying Gravity. 

Here's hoping that you have a fabulous Thursday!