Same skirt, different outfit.

One of my favorite mugs.

Let me preface this by saying we are all guilty of saying or doing something horrible or hurtful. If you deny this, that’s like telling me you have never masturbated before. Just don’t. Admit it, and embrace it.

I know I have done and said some pretty awful things before; it’s a very easy thing to do. It’s so much easier to ignore your own problems and pick on someone else’s – it helps you forget how awful you feel about whatever your issue is. Temporarily.

I know not all but most of you have probably experienced bullying at some point in your life, from verbal abuse to physical violence, and I know we have all felt excluded at least once in our lives.

It feels horrible; it absolutely crushes your spirit and drains away your confidence. I remember years of eating lunch in the bathroom, running to the nurse’s office to wait out panic attacks, crying myself to sleep every night and “feeling sick” the next day just so I could avoid all my peers who made me miserable.

Pretty naturally, I became a toxic person. I used to be obsessed with what I hated.  I remember once being interrupted by someone who said, “All you ever do is talk about what you hate. I am sick of being around you because it just drags everyone down.” I lost the few friends I had because they told me I was “too sad.”

It took me years of therapy to reach a simple conclusion: I have total control over how I feel. We all do, and we are all responsible for making ourselves happy.

I wasn’t happy until I decided to shrug off all the negative thoughts that weighed me down, including the hateful things people did and the hateful things I thought and said.

With bullying, nobody wins. You look like an asshole, and the victim feels awful.

Yes, sometimes people enter our lives and they are so different that it surprises us. Sometimes their differences offend us, and sometimes we just disagree with their personal taste. When your criticisms surface, it’s easy to indulge; what’s sometimes harder, but ultimately more rewarding, is to struggle against your instinct to judge.

I am telling you to make an effort to put yourself in that person’s place and imagine what they feel like when they do something you don’t like. Not everyone is as blessed or privileged as you are, and regardless of how many times you’ve heard it, you need to remember your own faults before pointing out others’.

I am not here to name names or make anyone feel threatened. You know who you are, and you know exactly what you are doing. I will never hate you for it, but as long as you indulge yourself in this vicious behavior, I will always be disappointed in you.

Do yourself and everyone else a favor and act like an adult. No, we can’t all get along, but we can at least try to be decent human beings. I’m no Mother Theresa but you can bet I will struggle every day to rise above the part of me that wants to prey on others’ misery. I am going to spend my life fighting to become the person I wish we all could be.