Early Cyber Bullying

Cyber bullying is an awful thing. People, not just kids have been bullied in person for centuries. Now that we have the internet, most people are bullied online. Cyber bullying has only been made a big deal in the last ten years though. What people don’t know is cyberbullying has been going on a lot longer than that. Usually it wasn’t people you knew, it was people bullying others in chat rooms or via instant message. I have been online since I was in the fifth grade. I am now 33. That is a really long time considering the internet was not nearly as popular as it is now. I started on Prodigy when it was just message boards and you paid by the minute.  I didn’t know that, and got in trouble a few times for being on there a lot. I got AOL when I was in jr. high. They had chat rooms. Being a naïve girl who grew up in a really nice area, I was intrigued. I could talk instantly to strangers. I wasn’t stupid enough to give out my information or meet anyone but that’s when I started seeing cyber bullying.  People would talk about each other and say really hurtful things. 

When they introduced local chat rooms it just got worse. People would meet each other in the chat and become friends. They would gang up on others. Sometimes there were threats and people’s addresses and phone numbers were posted. AOL did nothing really. Unless someone was cussing they didn’t really do much. There was instances where people were scared to even leave their homes or didn’t feel safe at home. If AOL did something, they would just get a new screen name and come right back. They didn’t block IP addresses. If someone who knew you didn’t like you, they would go in to the chat and talk about you and then the whole chat room would be out to get you.

When I was in high school, the girl I thought was my best friend wrote me a very hateful email and sent it to me. To add assault to injury, she printed it off and had a bunch of kids write hateful things.  I was heartbroken because the email before that was us making plans to hang out. There was no such thing as “cyber bullying.” Looking back I should have turned everyone who wrote on that piece of paper to the school. She did get in trouble from her parents. I am not sure if it was more that her parents cared about the fact that their kid was a total jerk or because it was sent from her dad’s email address. Her mom has a daycare and has made fun of the kids by giving them mean nicknames like Alien. The boy was a toddler who happened to have a bigger head. He also had some developmental delays. If the child was different, the mom and her family would comment on it and assign a nickname. I felt so bad for the kids.  After my mom found out we went to her house to talk and I stupidly forgave her. That should have been the last straw, but I don’t talk to her anymore now.

Being online gives you a false sense of safety, you think that you can say whatever you want to whoever you want and nothing will happen. That’s not true anymore. Many states have cyber bullying laws that make people own up to their words.  It should have been around a long time ago though. I am sure there are people who could have benefited from cyber bullying laws. Sadly, I bet there are people who committed suicide because of early cyber bullying. People would impersonate people who their victim has a crush on and be extremely cruel. On AOL or Yahoo, it wasn’t like Facebook where you can tell if someone is fake. If someone IMed you and you said who is this? And they responded its George Glass, from Brooktown High, you would take their word for it back then. You would think that you were really talking to the object of your affection, when in reality you are talking to that mean girl who happened to know your screen name. You may share your deep dark secrets with this person thinking it was safe. It can be heartbreaking to find out you are being lied to and George Glass is none the wiser.  Thankfully now it is harder to pretend to be someone else, especially if you know that they have a Facebook account.  You can compare the accounts and the link.

Please don’t cyber bully anyone. If someone is cyber bullying you, tell someone. Don’t let them damage your self-esteem or your self-worth.  Don’t let anyone take your joy away.

The Long Term Effects of Bullying

When you are bullied as a child, it causes long term effects. Those names people call you, they cause long term effects.  You could carry it with you for a long time. It can play a huge part in decisions you make in your life.  It is something that could ruin your life when you are a child or even as an adult. When I was younger in elementary school, I was bullied; I was constantly called names, called weird, called crazy. I wasn’t crazy or weird. I was bullied by classmates and even by a couple family members. My own family members would call me crazy.  My dad’s mom and my aunt would tell my cousin I was crazy.  They would say oh you are in one of your moods.  It really hurt me and it still makes me want to cry to this day. I was just a kid going through a lot. My parents were divorcing and I was just trying to find my place.  I was treated like crap for no reason. I wasn’t a mean child, I was in fact the complete opposite, I was a sweet and loving little girl. 

When I was in jr. high I was made fun of. Everyone knew my name, not because I was popular, because it was some big joke. I am not sure what I did, or said to make everyone taunt me or whatever. I never knew. I was a sweet and loving girl. I had some friends who were nice to me when I was in elementary school and in jr. high, I just don’t know why I was the butt of some joke. I wasn’t doing anything crazy. It makes no sense. I wasn’t the most glamorous girl but I didn’t think I was too bad. I was average in my opinion. I think that bullying affected my life.  I made choices that weren’t smart. I chose toxic friends over and over again.  I just was so used to being made fun of and people being mean to me, that it was normal. I guess I allowed friends to be mean to me and hurt me over and over, because when you have nothing, anything seems better than that and you can take what you can get.

In high school, things got better. I had more friends, granted most of them were not the best choices. Especially my old best friend, she was so mean to me. I took it anyways. I wanted to have friends, so I looked the other way. Even when she and a bunch of people wrote a hateful note to me and it really hurt my feelings. There are many other times this girl has severely hurt my feelings, thankfully she is not in my life anymore. I have learned that there are good friends out there. 

I also think that the fact that I was bullied and called names had something to do with my relationship choices especially my ex-husband, who was abusive.  I am not saying it was my fault because no one deserves to be abused, physically, emotionally, mentally or verbally.  I just think it goes back to one of those things where when you are used to nothing you take what you can get.  I have completely changed my mind set when it comes to friends. I am no longer friends with anyone I deem toxic.  I am so blessed now to have so many great friends, who would never hurt me in the ways I have been hurt before. They love me for me, and I love them for them. We look past each other’s flaws and totally accept one another.

Those names you call others, those mean hurtful words, they do cause damage.  They are more than just words, there is a real human behind hearing them and you are crushing their spirit, self esteem and self worth. If you think that someone will forget about those mean things you said, chances are they still remember, and they probably are still hurt deep inside. They probably still think about you and how much you hurt them. I am sure you are thinking oh they need to get over it, or we were just kids, but really those are excuses. The words will linger for a long time.  You can steal their childhood, or part of their life, because of the turmoil and pain you caused.  You never know what someone is really going through, have some compassion. Teach your children compassion and empathy.  Teach your children to think before you speak or type you don’t want to be responsible for someone else’s pain or worse.

Online Mean Girls

I originally wrote this post in Summer or early Fall of 2011, I just hadn't posted it because I had the wrong year on my scheduled post.

Do you remember in high school all the cliques? There were jocks, nerds, Goths, skaters, gangtas etc. Then there were the mean girls. I don’t really remember there being a certain group of mean girls.  I mean there were people that were mean but they weren’t mean to everyone. High school is full of catty witches that cause all kinds of drama. There is a possibility there could have been, I went to a huge high school. I didn’t even know everyone in my class. There were over 4,000 kids in my school and over 800 in my class.  I bet you are wondering what I was.  I was me, I didn’t have a specific group, I was friends with all kinds of people. I didn’t discriminate. I would dress however I felt that day. It might have been something from Abercrombie, or a tie dyed shirt and corduroys ‘, or really baggy jeans. I really tried to just be myself.  I didn’t really care what anyone thought of me.  I was kind of weird I guess, but I have always been unique.

I had my moments where I was mean to others, I think we all do. I had been pretty mean in my past but it wasn’t a constant thing, I don’t think. Usually I was nice in school, for the most part; I am not going to say I was an angel because that would be a total lie. Now, that I am an adult, I decided not to be mean anymore, not to not like someone because someone else doesn’t and you feel that false sense of loyalty. I can definitely say that I have grown up, but then you have those cases where the meanness never really went away.

I want to tell you a story about a group of women I encountered.  I am not saying it was the whole group of them; I don’t want to label them all. I know that there are some really nice women in this group, but there are some that make me upset.  Many of the interactions with the select group were just like being in Jr. High again but with 30 and 40 year old women. Have you seen the Subway commercials where they have the adults with the kid voices, it was kind of like that. I originally joined the group because I started scrapbooking and I found it one night and decided to join. At first all the women were really nice, kind of maybe too nice.  I really enjoyed going there, until I started to notice the drama. Now I am not talking about drama where someone is “trolling” trying to start drama, but it seemed like if you didn’t really agree with the majority, it was a bad thing.  We are all entitled to our opinions you know.  It wasn’t even really anything major like world issues, it was like ridiculous things like things that didn’t even matter, something like fabric softener brands.  I can’t really remember a good example.  

Some of the moderators were horrible, and would say hurtful and mean things to the members. I was friends with a few of the moderators so I knew about what happened behind the scenes. I knew that they would talk crap about people on their super secret moderator board.  They shouldn’t be able to do that, it shouldn’t be allowed.  My understanding of a moderator is someone who is there to help and keep the peace, not add more fuel to the fire and egg the fights or arguments on.  I think that some of the moderators grossly abused their rights and responsibility.  Those who had issues, would private message one of the administrators, and no matter what the issue was they would always stand by their moderators, even if they said something like “if you don’t like it you can leave.”  I am not sure that is helpful or caring, or the way things should be run at all.

I felt like there were a lot of repeat discussions about topics that we already knew at least twice that it would start an argument.  It seemed like it was on a cycle for example, oh we haven’t talked about food stamps lately and so it’s time to do that and stir the pot.  It wasn’t as if it was a new member asking or bringing it up. It would be the moderators or the owner of the site.  If it were me I would try and nip things in the bud before it got bad, as it always had.  Another thing about the group is the moderators would talk about illegal activity, such as reusing stamps that were not properly canceled out off letters or packages.  Who steals stamps? It is ridiculous, and illegal and in my opinion wrong. Maybe that is why stamp prices keep going up.  Stamps are not that expensive, sure they might add up, but if you can’t afford to send something like scrapbooking supplies than it is ok to not participate.

I know with the scrapbooking, I felt like every other day they wanted money for something, which was weird for being a money saving group.  They called them “donations”. I am not sure if they pocketed most of the money and just gave out prizes of stuff they didn’t want from the clearance bin from the craft store. None of the prizes were ever anything really worth “winning”, it was usually just a few little items that were never useful.  I never donated. I didn’t know what would happen to my “donation.”  I didn’t really participate in the challenges though so, it doesn’t really matter. I would have preferred to take my $5 or $10 and buy some useful stuff instead of a couple paper flower cut outs and 6 inches of ribbon.

I know that there are some great women, that I am still friends with after leaving the group.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they were reprimanded by the leader of the group for it. I can be an outspoken person when it comes to issues that I believe in, if it involves children or anyone in general. I am known to speak my mind and not keep it to myself like a good little mindless drone.  I will express my feelings and say something, and if you didn’t fit in to that little cookie cutter, then well your opinions are not welcome. I actually had the co-admin tell me that my opinions were not welcome. I think the discussion was about welfare. I am sorry, but I have strong feelings that if someone is on welfare they are not lazy or on drugs and that their children deserve to be able to have an occasional treat.  You don’t know their situation.  I tried to ignore it. 

When I would talk to the leader I would normally receive an almost automated response: Thanks for your concern Sheila, I will look in to it. Thanks.  Even though, nothing was ever done. If it was someone who was a moderator or really good friends of the owner it was swept under the rug.  If it was someone else then they would get in “trouble.”  It was all such a headache and it reminded me of being in Jr. High school arguing about what boys you could like or who you can be friends with. I am so glad that I am not involved in that group anymore. There were so many toxic discussions on there.  Have you ever experienced anything like this?