Four years. That's all it takes. Four years of bullying to forever scar a person emotionally, and physically. That's what happened to me. In 2007, my family moved to a small town in the middle of Florida, and all it took from there was to not dress like everyone, or to be exceptionally smarter than everyone else to be singled out and be called “gay” every day for four years. The word gay is a very powerful word, it can mean happy, or it can mean liking a person of the same sex, so throwing this word around all willy-nilly is wrong. The thing was, 100% of everyone saying this slanderous word didn't even know me. If they did get to know me, they would have learned that I was not gay and probably would have felt bad, but the some people just can't do that.

As the years progressed, and the bullying became harsher and harsher due to age, I became depressed, started eating a lot, and I spent my weekends, and evenings after school watching T.V., and playing computer games. Doing stuff like that causes you to become unhealthy, and do things that could affect your health. So basically, the simple thing of not dressing like your peers or being smarter than everyone else can destroy your life, and future.

In those four years, someone I knew to fell a victim of bullying. They were bullied every day, just like me, and one day they killed them self from an intentional overdose of pain killer medicine. It's hard to think that that could have been me. After that event, the school board adopted a strict zero-tolerance policy for bullying. But it never stopped.

To this day I am still feeling the effects of those four years of my life. I'm terribly afraid about meeting new friends, and going to events like my freshman homecoming dance, and just being around a large group of people. Bullying to me is just a way for people that have their own troubles to take out their anger. I recently have just found out that some of the kids that were calling me gay turned out to become homo-sexual themselves. So they must have been using me to hide their true feelings. Bullying damages a person inside and out, and needs to be stopped!