I HATE bullies.
Hate them with a passion. I think there is nothing so weak as to put someone down to make yourself feel better. Nothing so weak as to draw attention to others’ faults, lest someone notice yours. Nothing so weak as throwing rocks at someone. Calling them names. Spitting on them. Hitting them. Punching them. Telling them they are fat. They are worthless. They are ugly.
All of these things have happened to my youngest sister. She has had things thrown at her. She has been poked, prodded, pushed. Ridiculed. Teased and embarrassed. The school have “taken care of it”. But it still happens. She has just decided not to bother telling the teachers any more because that usually makes it worse. She has been called a slut, ugly, fat – by the girls in her year. She has cried countless tears.
She hates eating in front of people.
They have ruined the little sister I knew. My once happy, easy-going little sister has buried herself in a world of walls. Every word you say to her is automatically taken as an insult and she bites back over nothing. She hears taunts where there are none. She defends herself when we are only offering help. She has been attacked for so long that she doesn’t believe there is any other form of communication. She can’t see that someone would want to talk to her and spend time with her for her because these bullies have made her feel like nothing.
These bullies, who are pillars of their school community. The sports heroes. The “popular” kids. the ones all the other students look up to.
Her saving grace right now is that she is in the last year of high school.
Once it’s over, she will never have to see them again.
And she will go places because she is truly amazing.
And they will go nowhere.
But what if it doesn’t stop?
Another sister recently asked me to blog about something horrific that happened to a friend of hers.
She was a victim of workplace bullying.
She had her work colleagues fill her office toilet with shit and stand outside to laugh when they heard her find it.
She was held down and had so much boot polish rubbed in her hair that she had to get it cut out at the hairdressers.
She isn’t allowed to tell you these things because their identity needs to be protected. After all they did to her. they have threatened to sue if she tells people this. But I can tell you.
This isn’t right.
She has set up an organisation to support victims of workplace bullying and to raise funds to prevent it. You can view the edited promo video here. It contains other horrific stories of workplace bullying.
The website is mateday.org March 14 2013 will be Mate Day. There are wristbands and awareness ribbons for sale.
Please support this cause.
I am thankful. So thankful this wasn’t me that had to endure this – because honestly, I doubt I could have.
And I am thankful that someone is willing to stand up and do something about it.
tattoomummy 
WOW – how sad for your sister and your sister’s friend. I too don’t get why someone has to make another person feel worthless in order to make themselves feel better – it is just wrong. I hope that your sister can stick it out until the end of the year and then put it behind her and take back her power.
Have the best day that you can !
Me
I hate bullies too. It makes me sad that someone could be so cruel and uncaring about someone else. Your sisters have endured terrible things. Thanks for the link to Mateday The more who support their campaign the better.
Bullies are the epitomy of HORRID. Reading this post has made me so angry. I have had some work place bullying but NOTHING like the above. They deserve to be outted. You or someone else should anonymously rat them out, they cannot continue to do that. If its not her it will be someone else. And we all know what it can lead to.
And as for your sister, thats truely disgusting , the poor darling, she deserves a million hugs. Its so unfortunate that some soul less people can ruin someone so easily. I really hope that when she finishes she can blossom and grow and realise she is amazing and they are just pieces of dirt that were caught in her high school shoes. All the bullies at my high school are much much worse off now than the ones they bullied. because thats all they knew, they knew to be dominant in the school ground, but send them into the real world with people who actually have brains, and where brains actually do matter and they are little pipsqueaks with NO HOPE.
Sending love to everyone xxxxxxx
😦 Bullying is just unacceptable. Its dreadful that it happens in schools, dreadful! in the work place? it actually makes me feel sick. I’ll def check out Mate Day x
Bullying can scar for life it’s so awful that it happens amongst children and just disgusting that it happens with adults who should know better behaviour. We only have to look at society to know something is going wrong somewhere. Let’s care more about each other and live peacefully, lets just accept people without the need to bring them down and bully them. Everyone has the right to be safe x
oh thats terrible 😦 definitely supporting mates day!!!
Oh I don’t even know what to say here! This is true terrible!
I hope your sister can find the confidence she needs to finish school strongly, and take on the world.
Oh, that’s just awful. I’ve marked 14 March 2013 in my diary.
I saw this on twitter and here I am…and here it is…
Bullying in schools is a knife in your heart when you haven’t worked out how to take it off your sleeve yet. School is your world and you are so vulnerable to everything. I wanted to be a teacher primarily because I wanted to work with children every day to help them build resilience and see the amazing individuals they have the potential to be. But I can’t be a teacher any more. I can’t help any of the kids any more. Because my bullies, violators, true tormentors ARE teachers. My colleagues. One raped me. One witnessed it. Several started a pressure campaign of blame I didn’t think could still exist in this decade. I am desolate and broken that I cannot be that support, that educator for your children. I considered it a calling, much more than a job. But crimes committed and workplace harassment, by some of the very people charged with helping our kids learn how to function as a member of society, went so far that I scream through a blog because I can’t crash the PFA Meeting and name names. The shame of that weak feeling.
My heart feels your sister’s pain…and the all-encompassing grief. She will break free because she has people like you on her team. What a blessing 🙂
In the meantime, we need to make some noise! Make it clear that harassment, assault and torment are indeed criminal acts and won’t be tolerated, covered up or minimised. Thanks for letting me spew this out, for talking about this issue and reading this rant. I will spread the word across Australia, I promise you 🙂
Thank you for sharing your story.
I can’t believe how horrific that is and how terrible it would have been for you.
It saddens me immensely, because I know how important that teacher who wants to make a difference and cares, is to children’s education because I was lucky enough to have one.
There’s nothing else I can really say except keep fighting. x