A rant on bullying

I typed this up on Twitlonger, but figured I'l post it here as well. Yes, I swore a few times in writing it.

Bullying starts at home when parents don't teach their kids tolerance and acceptance of people who are different from them. Am I blaming parents/poor parenting for all the bullying going on today? Yes, partly.

But SCHOOLS need BETTER anti-bullying policies too. My old high school had (and still has) the one of the WORST bullying problems of any of the schools in the county I live in. Possibly the worst, I'm not 100% sure. Would they (school teachers/employees/officials) ever admit that though? No. Because they all live in fucking perfect little worlds, and refuse to admit when there's a problem. Well, there IS a problem. Open your damn eyes to it, why don't you? It's RIDICULOUS. There's students, not just at my old high school, but all over the country and even the world, who commit suicide because they can't take it anymore. It becomes too much, and the only solution they can see is to end their lives.

Why do people find it necessary to verbally abuse their peers/fellow classmates? Why do people have to always put others down? Does it really make you feel better about yourself to treat another human being like they're nothing, like they're worth less than you are? And it's not even just bullying others for being LGBTQ. It's about bullying over anything. I read an article that said people get bullied over having food allergies. I mean, really? You really have to be an ass to someone because of they can't eat certain foods? And in that same article, it said that 20% of the kids they talked to reported being bullied/harassed by teachers or other school employees. Seriously? Fucking teachers, ADULTS who really should know better, find it necessary to pick on students? Do people not know the effect their words have on people?

Remember that old saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me"? Well it's a load of crap. Words can kill you. Words don't go away, and you can't ever take back what you say. The words you say to someone, those little words that you might think not mean anything, they'll stick in the person's mind. And the more that gets said to that person, the worse it gets. People need to grow up and stop being complete asses to each other. Would it really be so awful to be nice to other people, to saying something nice instead of a nasty remark?

To me, it seems like bullying is at the highest it's ever been. It's a scary thought, and things NEED to CHANGE. There's so much hatred, so much violence in this world, and I hate it. I hate the amount of hatred people feel for others. I don't understand how people can hate another person so badly as to really seriously want them dead. There's people in my life who've done me wrong, but do I HATE them? No. I don't. I don't hate them. I don't wish they were dead. I've moved on from them in my life.

But yeah. It's past time to #StopBullying. Your words, they have the power to kill another person. But they also have the power to save a life. I don't care how corny that sounds; it's true. Use your voice to speak up. To make a change. To stand up for something you believe in. To build someone up. To make a difference in someone's life.