So, tonight I watched Britain's Got Talent and got a bit emotional at the two little boys who sang about bullying. It was so inspirational.
From High School until my admission to this Hospital, I was always ashamed to admit I'd been bullied at High School. In a way, I always felt it hadn't really bothered me because I had something much bigger going on at the same time. But I also felt that admitting it would make me appear weak and vulnerable and I worried that people would think I was an easy target and it would happen again.
Since coming to Hospital, I've met girls who will openly admit to being bullied because it's had such a massive impact on their mental health and I know there's been a lot in the media recently about online bullying contributing to teenagers taking their own lives. I guess it's all made me feel quite lucky that my experience of bullying didn't really affect me all that much. But I can't be sure if that's because it wasn't actually too bad or because I had the worse thing happening. I remember actually being a bit resentful of my bullying because when I began self-harming, people assumed that was why. And I still didn't have the courage to correct them. I remember having to wait for months to have an appointment with CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health) and by the time I went along I told the lady that the bullying was over anyway so it didn't matter. It had been my chance to tell her what was happening to me and I ignored it. I was too desperate to make sure people didn't think of me as a victim of bullying. I guess, as well, in a way I didn't want them to think that something like that would cause me to be acting the way I was. That's not to minimize bullying; I just mean that my experience of it wasn't too bad and I worried I'd look really weak if people thought that was enough to cause me to self-harm.
I know I've been lucky with my experience of bullying; I know that it can be very horrific for a lot of people and that for a lot of people, it is the reason they self-harm or do worse.
The irony with my experience now, is that when I finally announced to the world of Facebook that I was being hospitalised for a mental health disorder, some of my 'get-well-soon' and 'you're-so-brave' messages came from the bullies. I won't be cliché and sit here saying 'look at me now'; that wasn't the point of this post. The point, is to tell people not to be ashamed if you are being bullied, no matter how insignificant it might seem compared to what is covered in the media. If it affects you then that's all that matters. If you can't speak to a teacher or family member then try this website for advice: http://www.bullying.co.uk/
And, here's the video that inspired this post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Rf5qDuq7M
