About Me

Hello,

My name is Melissa. I wanted to write a blog about the affects of Bullying. I know that this is still a huge issue today and most people overlook it or believe that children and teens will simply work it out and that it is normal, that all people go through the phase of being bullied at one point or another in their lives.

I am here to tell you that YES Bullying still happens today and what made me want to write this blog was seeing my 7yr old niece being bullied by the kids in her apartment building. I also recently talked to someone who had a teenage daughter who was getting bullied and asked for people to comment on Facebook about if he as her parent should get involved in the bullying and try to stop his daughter from being bullied. I hear about this topic at least once a day and I see more and more movies and documentaries popping up about this issue and feel that it needs to be addressed and people need to be aware that this is still going on very frequently.

I have dealt with a lot of my own personal bullying from other people through my grade school-high school years. Memories that I wish I could forget, erase and not have to think about any longer or have triggered when I hear about this topic but that is just not the case. I have taken the higher road and never tried to commit suicide from bullying as I did not want to actually die, however, it caused me to have very low self-esteem about myself growing up; I began to become very guarded and distant from people and it became extremely hard for me to make friends.

To give you a bit of background about my life so you can kind of follow along, here are some things to know about my life growing up...

I have five people in my immediate family. My parents are married and have been married for 26yrs. I am a middle child and did experience the classic "Middle Child Syndrome" growing up. I have two sisters; one older (Miranda) and one younger (Heather). When I was growing up, both of my parents worked full-time to provide for us. They both worked in the morning during the week. Miranda was very hard to get up in the mornings and Heather who was only 6yrs was far too young to get herself up in the mornings for school. At the age of 10, I became responsible for getting both of my sisters up for school because both of my parents worked at 7am and left our house around 6:30am to get to work on time. This left me to make sure that both of my sisters were up and getting ready for school after my parents did the initial round of waking everyone up. Most of the time, my older sister did not wake up and I had to use tactics like hitting her with a pillow to get her out of bed otherwise she would not get up. Not the best way to wake her up, but when nothing else works, a pillow will, then you have to run for your life as she chases you down the stairs yelling at you for hitting her with the pillow to get her up...Even though she was angry, she was still up and out of bed...Mission accomplished. :)

Miranda and I would constantly fight over who was going to shower first as I had managed to eat breakfast even before getting her up, so naturally I would want to shower afterwards...It was a losing battle, so I decided to shower in the mornings before I attempted my awesome pillow "alarm" system that seemed to work with her.

Heather was almost always awake during this time once my dad woke us up initially but most of the time I would have to feed her breakfast (if my parents had not done that before they left) and get her dressed and ready for the bus (on the days my parents worked-which for my mom she I believe had maybe one day off during the week if that). Hard to say for sure as I do not remember exactly what they got done as far as that stuff before they left; I just know that I had to make sure that Heather was dressed, fed and out to the bus on time most of the days for school. So essentially at the age of 10, I took on the responsibilities that a parent has for their children. I never felt bad about having to do it, or felt angry for having to do it at that time because it was just how it was, and that's what needed to be done. I was the daughter who loved school and hardly ever missed school. My parents knew that I would be the responsible one and I was...I think that's why I was given so much responsibility was because they knew that I could do it and that I would make sure Heather was on the bus at the right time and that my older sister was at least a wake and had time to shower if she chose to...At that time, it was hard to "make" Miranda do anything she did not want to do, and especially coming from her younger sister, it was so not happening. But at least I was able to get her out of bed every morning for school even if it meant flying down the stairs unsure if I was going to get whacked for whacking her with a pillow to get her out of bed...Lesson learned for her...Get out of bed to either your alarm going off or dad waking you up so you don't have to get whacked with a pillow... :) We joke about it now, but she wanted to "kill" me then...Oops, oh, well. :)

I never made friends easily in school because I was shy and I was also picked on a lot. I came from a family who could not buy my sister's and I name brand clothes or things. Those things were just too expensive and my parents could not afford them. I rarely got "new clothes" as most of my wardrobe consisted of Miranda's hand-me-downs. We did get new shoes each school year but they were not name brand ones, but they looked just as nice and were just as cool. We grew up accustomed to not having the latest "in thing" and we were so happy with the things we had and on occasion when we would get those things for either our Birthday or Christmas as gifts.

All three of us grew up learning the value of a dollar and were taught that if we really wanted something, then we needed to work for it because it's not as rewarding or fulfilling if we get everything we want handed to us. For me, I thought my parents were trying to tell us in a sentimental way that we could not have those things because they could not afford it; which in a sense I know now that they were but I think the valuable lesson is that when you want something bad enough and you work hard enough to get it, you not only learn of the value of that thing you desire but also the value of hard work and the satisfaction that comes when you are able to finally obtain that desired thing.

Growing up, it was hard to not be envious of Miranda because she has a different dad than Heather and I do. My dad has been Miranda's "Father" since the age of 1 when my dad met my mom and stepped in to take care of Miranda as his own daughter. But around Miranda's pre-teen and teen years, her biological dad began coming back into her life a lot. Miranda's dad's family was well off and could buy her all these cool and fancy things. They bought her cool clothes, jewelry and took her on trips(something our family has never been able to do). So when she would come home from a week with her dad and her grandparents on her dad's side, it was hard not to get envious of all the cool and exciting things she came home with. I knew at some point the clothes she got would eventually be mine once she out-grew them, but by then they would probably be worn out or stained and not as cool. Growing up I was envious and wondered why Heather and I could not have those things too. I did not understand the concept of having money, I just thought that everyone got cool stuff and every family took family vacations, but not our family; not because my parents did not want to, it's because we could not afford to do things such as family vacations. A family "vacation" to us consisted of spending the weekend at my grandparents who live about an hour from us or the couple times we managed to make it up North to my Uncle Jimmy's Cabin...

Middle school marked the most horrid years of my life...I will get into that later as I will post each experience of bullying as a separate post unless if they go together, then they will go in the same blog post. During high school, teens are so anxious to grow up and move away from their parents, I was too. I moved out when I was 17yrs old (the summer of my 18th birthday but not yet 18). I did not have the opportunity to take Driver's Ed classes when I got into High school as I was a year behind Miranda and my freshmen year, the district took out Driver's Ed classes. This meant that I would have to pay for driving classes which costs roughly $250 at that time. I did not have that money and neither did my parents, so I had to wait until I got a job at the age of 16 so I could pay for the classes myself. I chose not to pay for the classes as you learn how to drive when you are behind the wheel, so I waited until I was 18 to get my license. My neighbor and dad were kind enough to teach me how to drive at 16-17 so I could get my permit. I bought and paid for my first car and each car I have ever owned.  I had learned very early on that I would have to work my tail off for whatever I wanted in my life. I began my first job at the age of 15 aside from babysitting jobs where I worked the concession stand at a race track during the summer months. My first paycheck job was when I was 16yrs old. I worked my first retail job after school. I have been working ever since.

Since I was so "dependable" and responsible, I was always asked a lot if my parents could borrow money from me. At the age of 17, my parents owed me 1k of their tax return money for money they had borrowed from me to make ends meet during that year...This had been something I could never grasp why they had to borrow money from me and could not manage their finances and because I was more of a push over and a people pleaser, I maintained the peace and gave them the money that they asked for...Something that as an adult today I know how to say no about that and no longer feel bad about saying no to people. I never understood why I had to borrow my parents money as don't get me wrong, they have helped me out financially through my college years; but back then when I had no bills and wanted to save my money, I was angry that I had to borrow them money and at times even today I still struggle with this anger. I did what needed to be done to help them get by as I felt that's what families do and did...

There are things in my life even at 28yrs old, that I still cannot grasp or understand about my past, but the experiences I went through with Bullying and being a push over are two of the things that I have learned a lot about and want to speak up about them and share my experiences as well as bring awareness to this huge issue that is affecting the lives of many people, young, old, all alike. Please feel free to comment and/or share your stories and I will respond back as well as you can read other's responses and respond back and I will post the comments in the comment section. Please no negative comments as they will be deleted and not posted. Please be respectful and know that you are not alone in this. These are my experiences with Bullying...