Bullying: Sticks and Stones | Teen Ink

Bullying: Sticks and Stones

March 4, 2013
By Riah772 GOLD, Brooklyn, New York
Riah772 GOLD, Brooklyn, New York
11 articles 1 photo 2 comments

Have you ever heard of the phrase," sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me?" If not, well I'm sure you can already guess the meaning of this nursery rhyme. It explains to children the right thing to do, not to retaliate. When you are taunted and teased with verbal abuse, the right thing to do is to ignore it. Well, it's not as simple as many may think.

As a past victim of verbal bullying, I can say for many other out there that it’s hard to keep your composure. When you’re bullied almost every day for something that you have no control over, it causes you to feel alarmed. You want to retaliate. You want to shout incoherent thoughts back at them. You yearn for them to feel the same pain that you have constantly been going through. Will that stop the bullying? Will that show them how ignorant they are being? Most likely, it wouldn't. It might have the opposite effect.

Bullying is quite a complicated term to describe. I would say that it's a way of egging a person on. A way of getting your victim to be completely devoured by feelings of loneliness and depression. It might also be a way for the bully to blame someone else as a relaxing effect, to calm their anger or hate on someone who they know won't retaliate.

From what I have personally experienced, it's also based on jealousy or even the fact of hating someone just because they are different. Can you help being who you are? Did you have control over how you talk or even how you look? No, we don't. That's what makes it so ignorant and degrading that someone would stoop so low as to bully someone for something that they have no control over.

How can we change this? How can we make sure that bullying won’t be a problem in our lives for as long as we are on this earth? Sadly, we can’t. Bullying happens everywhere, anytime, and any place. It happens in our homes. It happens in different countries. We have no control over what comes out of someone's mouth. All we can do is pray, and try to make a change in our world before we plummet into disaster.


The author's comments:
Bullying is something that I have experienced throughout elementary school. As a high school student, I now can truly understand just how traumatizing it can be.

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