Bullying is a huge issue and a lot of people don’t realize it. Over 3.2 million students are victims of bullying each year. It is such a big issue that around 160,000 children miss school every day fearing of being victimized. I once belonged to that group of kids. It was horrible to come to school, everyone would pick on me, they would threaten me and no one seemed to even notice or care. Fortunately, those kids got tired of bullying me and stopped after sometime. However not everyone is that fortunate. As a matter of fact, 1 in 10 students drop out of school because they are being bullied. Bullying is constant from Primary to High School and most times it is dismissed because it is not always physical. Physical bullying peaks mostly in Elementary and Middle School, after that it decreases immensely. However verbal abuse is constant without having age as a constraint.

Even though bullying happens everywhere and noticing it is inevitable, when it comes to identifying it, not many people have the ability to do so. Some teachers witness bullying but don’t recognize it. They think that it is just one student messing around with another. They don’t realize how hurtful a comment can be. 1 in 4 teachers don’t even find bullying wrong. They find it funny or even they consider it makes kids stronger. Teachers only stop it 4% of the time. It shocks me to think that teachers and students find other people’s misery funny, and that they can be so stupid as to how much damage it actually causes the person abused. I would have never believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but when I saw one of my teachers laugh at some mean pranks that one student was pulling on another, I was astonished. The teacher didn’t say anything, even after other students pointed out that the girl was getting hurt by the comments and pranks that the students were pulling on her. Finally, after a long time, the students that told the teacher to do something ended up defending the girl.

I have noticed that some people admit being bullies. They find it hilarious to make other peoples lives miserable, so they keep bullying others, and later wonder why everyone hates them so much. I don’t understand how they can laugh at someones pain, or how they find it so funny to tear someone down. I don’t find the purpose in destroying a person’s confidence, in making them feel worthless and alone. I can’t explain why they would feel happy by making others feel sad. Who are they? Are they really that horrible? Do they really have nothing better to do?

A victim of bullying takes time to understand why bullying is done to them. When I was bullied I wondered what I did to the kids who picked on me, or who was I to deserve their malicious treatment. I had never met them before, and I didn’t understand why they didn’t like me. I kept thinking that I must have done something terrible at some point, and what I was living was the outcome of karma. Later on I realized that I was wrong. Nevertheless, I still don’t know why they chose me, there were around 25 kids in the classroom, and I was the only one being bullied. Some bullies do it to make themselves feel better about themselves. I don’t understand how making others feel bad can bring some sort of satisfaction. What kind of people feel good by doing something so awful? They could focus on improving themselves: learning to love what they can’t change, and accepting what they are not able to love. I know a cause of bullying is the desire of attention, but honestly I don’t get it.

If they want attention so badly, why don’t they go do something positive? They could do some charity work, or play a sport and win tournaments. They could learn about a global issue and spread the word. They could even focus on their studies, raise their grades and get more attention that way. It would probably take the same amount of effort to do something positive that would later make them proud. Its better to be celebrated for something instead of being punished for something else. I realize that some bullies witness abuse at home, and thats why they do it. I still cannot understand how they could put someone else through the pain they were put through. I would never be able to make someone else feel as bad as others made me feel. No one ever said vengeance was the key to satisfaction. After abused, bullies must know bullying is wrong, they should not continue the cycle. They must feel bad it they are the ones being abused, or they must at least see how terribly it affects other people. There is no way my brain can comprehend how people think that its alright to make others feel destroyed.

Bibliography,
"Facts on Bullying." - Bullying Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.
"11 More Facts about Bullying." Crisis Text Line. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
"11 Facts About Bullying." DoSomething.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.