October 2012 is Bullying Prevention Awareness Month. If you’ve been bullied — or if you’ve been a bully and realize you need to stop — there are more resources now then ever. Please find the help you need. One place to start is the PACER National Bullying Prevention Center.
* * *
If you are reading this, chances are you are a reader. And if you are a reader, there’s a fair to middlin’ chance you were bullied as a kid. There is apparently something irresistible to a bully about a kid with her nose in a book.
Nerd. Geek. Freak. Weirdo. The ever-popular Four-Eyes.*
Yeah. Guilty as charged, and proud of it. Proud now, anyway. At the time, I sat in the way back corner of the lunch room by myself with my sack lunch (no way would I risk standing in the line at the counter where I might have to talk to someone) and of course my book. I was lucky. My schools were mostly safe suburban places with mostly safe suburban kids. Plus, I had the advantage of being less a target (with a few exceptions) than a ghost. Most of the time, I was invisible. Books were a way to enhance and actually enjoy that invisibility.
Can you identify the future Jessa Slade?** It’s a little tricky because for once she doesn’t have a book. Horses were almost as good as books though. Actually, book + horse = girl dream.
When author and advice columnist Dan Savage founded the It Gets Better project, I thought it was a great message. Because it really DOES get better. With time, the insular, powerless world of the bullied does widen. You find your people and find your voice.
Today, some of the coolest people I know come from the bullied classes: the quiet ones, the smart ones, the weird ones. To get through the hard times, they read, they wrote, they made music, they drew and painted, they took photographs. They created new worlds for themselves. Maybe at first those new worlds only existed on paper, but eventually those worlds came to life. Creation as a way to escape became creation for passion’s sake, a passion that could never be slapped out of their hands and was too strong to be mocked.
I hope the new focus on anti-bullying helps those who need it. And I wish everyone could find the spark that turns negativity into creation.
Much thanks to Yasmine Galenorn and Mandy Roth for proposing and organizing this anti-bullying blog hop.
To read more from Authors Against Bullying, follow the blog hop with these authors and feel free to post a link to your blog in comments:
* Also, Giraffe. What sort of weak-minded bully uses Giraffe as an insult? First of all, there’s nothing wrong with being tall and quiet with admittedly knobby knees. And second, giraffes are awesome, as anybody could tell you.
** I’m the one in the pink pants with the oh-so-welcoming body language. I never liked photographs because they messed with my invisibility superpower.
Jessa Slade 
Pingback: » Authors Against Bullying – My Story Graylin Fox
Pingback: Authors Against Bullying— Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer « Lisa Whitefern
Pingback: Bullying-A Scary New World « Cyndi's World
Pingback: Bullying: Choose To Act |
Pingback: Jungle Madness Friday…with a cause | Plot Monkeys
Pingback: Screaming… A Musical Approach to Bullying :
Pingback: Authors Against Bullying | Lauren Dane
Pingback: Aaron Crocco » Stop Our Children from Killing Each Other – #AuthorsAgainstBullying
Pingback: R. F. Long » Blog Archive » Authors Against Bullying – 19th October
Pingback: » Don’t Give Up Demented Musings
Pingback: Authors Against Bullying » The Blog of Jess Haines
Pingback: Authors Against Bullying Blog Hop: Crowd Bullying, Stepping Up and Stepping In - Jax Garren
Awesome! Thanks for joining this!
Simply talking about things seems like a small effort, but awareness is such a big part of change. Here’s hoping!
Pingback: Authors Against Bullying | Karen Mahoney – Urban Fantasy Writer
Pingback: Bullies like the dark. |
Pingback: Down With Bullies! – Jax Cassidy
Pingback: Authors Against Bullying | Frost Light
Pingback: Guest Post: Authors Against Bullying by Mandy Roth
Pingback: Authors Against Bullying | Julie's Chick Lit
Jessa,
As one who also hid from the chaotic world of verbal bullying at school and alchoholic disfunction at home, I just wanna say ‘Hallelujah!’ for all of us who morphed our escape into a passion into a career. Go, Creative Ones!
Katherine Paterson, (Bridge to Terebithia) said (loose quote) ‘I think there’s an unwritten rule that every successful author had to have a difficult childhood.’ Obviously she was being a bit facetious, but she does remind us that the drive to commit to something day after day, hour after hour, does often come from an original need to escape one’s circumstances.
I hope that out of October as Anti-Bullying Month will come understanding and acceptance for many, many young people. And the courage to create and to let our light shine.
thanks for caring enough to share,
Cathryn Cade
http://cathryncadesblog.blogspot.com/
Sometimes I think of a world where there wasn’t any stress or difficulty, and I think that would probably be bad in its own way…but I’d like to try it, just for a little while!
Pingback: Authors Against Bullying | Michelle M. Pillow Blog
Pingback: Authors Against Bullying « Books Make Me Happy
Pingback: Bullies like the dark | Leigh Evans
I have a small page that I hope will help people being bullied right now. It’s called Affirmations For Bullying Victims. http://afbv.weebly.com/ My hope is someone will read it and think twice about hurting himself or herself. Every little bit helps.
That is a wonderful list and a great reminder. Thank you, Cyndi.
You’re welcome 🙂
I used to love finding the books in the HS library that hadn’t been checked out for nearly 30 some years. It’s how I fell in love with reading the classics. 🙂
I remember the old skool paper check-out cards so you could see exactly how long it had been since the book was read. Wow, that shows how long I’VE been checked out LOL!
Ha, I figured that was you because you were the tallest in the pic! 😉 You are gorgeous, darlin’. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel otherwise.
<3,
-J
My knees were VERY knobby. The fact that I grew up in the days of tube socks merely compounded the problem.
What a cute picture! I wish that there was anti-bullying awareness when I was in school. It would have made growing up so much less painful. Sadly, I was never invisible although I wished I were. I escaped into books and used the library as my sanctuary. No wonder I’m a writer!
Pingback: Sticks & Stones May Break My Bones, But ROCK Will Always Save Me - Lez Get Real
Pingback: Authors Against Bullying « Jackie Morse Kessler | Blog
Pingback: Authors Against Bullying – Lee McKenzie – Contemporary Romantic Fiction