Today I was very lucky to be able to attend a special event at Mohawk.
The speaker was Jodee Blanco, and her story was extremely heartbreaking, extremely honest, and extremely inspiring.
Jodee was the victim of horrid bullying for the course of her entire elementary and high school career. During that time, she had snow forced down her throat to the point of losing oxygen, and was told multiple times that she was "God's biggest mistake" and that it was too bad she wasn't miscarried or aborted. An animal lover, when she refused to disect the fetal pig the rest of her grade 8 class was, she had one thrown at her face, some of which penetrated her mouth. When she stood up for a Down Syndrome peer of hers, who was having dirt thrown into his eyes, later that day Jodee's locker had old lunch meat and garbaged smeared on the inside of her locker with a note reading: "Everybody hates you... go to another school!". While waiting for her mother to pick her up from school one afternoon (her parents forbade her to ride the school bus anymore... she would come home with too many glue balls in her hair from the "elite tormentors" at the back of the bus), she was pushed to the ground and had her face cut with cement. And I am barely scratching the surface with what this woman experienced so early in her life...
I cried the entire time this woman was telling her story. I could not imagine experiencing such disgusting acts of violence and hatred so early in life. I wanted, so desperately, to believe this was all just for show... she was just to make a point. It wasn't at all for show. Her tears were real, and this really did happen to her. I felt so sick to my stomach that such cruelty exists in this world, and that it continues to exist in such abunance.
Jodee spoke of the immense pain the victims of peer abuse experience in such raw and honest terms that I wanted to apologize to her for anything and everything she went through, even though I had nothing to do with her life. She spoke of the victims of bullying in such cases as Columbine, and most recently the events in Germany. Yes, very sad what happened to the victims who were shot, no one denies this. But what about the gunnmen? What in their life brought them to such a point that they hated life so bad that they wanted both themselves and their tormentors to not exist anymore? If there was a person, a friend, a loving adult, ANYONE who could have shown these hurting youth that they were seen, that they were somebody, that they mattered, could it have been avoided? I believe this to be true.
So many young people have ended their lives far too early due to the scars inflicted upon them from peer abuse. When I got home from school today, I went on youtube (as I often do when I want to learn more or am inspired about a particlar topic) to search bullying. What came up were an endless amount of videos dedicated in the memory of those children and teens who had taken their own life because of bullying. I cried uncontrollably. To make any indivdual, let alone a child or teenager, feel so inadequate in their existance is, to me, the most dispicable thing anyone can do to any human being.
What's interesting is that, several times during her talk, Jodee admitted that her tormentor's honestly felt like they were "just joking around". But when a person goes home crying, everyday, with glue-covered spit balls in her hair, and with scars on her face from cement being slashed across it, it's not JUST joking around. It is real. And it can be lethal.
It impacts the lives of the victims forever.
What is the most dispicable is when these victims come to believe these lies.
When they come to see themselves as nothings and nobody's along with their tormentors.
It shatters my heart.
(I encourage you to take a look at the link posted at the beginning of this blog. It is just one clip from her amazing talk I heard today).
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