There is a project called “It Gets Better” It is where LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, BiSexual & Transgender) people record videos to teens telling them It gets Better.  What gets better?  Life does.  Life is not high school, life changes as you grow up.  This is all in response to the teen suicides that have been happening, caused by kids who are being bullied for being gay.  Not that these types of suicides haven’t happened before, but there is attention on them now and it is a good reason to send this positive message.

You can find many videos by going to http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject and there are lots of really neat videos there, including one from Rick Mercer which he aired on his show (RMR) as one of his rants, and a 30 second clip of Sarah Silverman saying how if adults are going to tell Gays they can’t marry or server their country then is it a shock that kids are bullying other kids for the “crime” of being gay?  I watched, perhaps 20 videos today in one sitting.  I watched a few more through the last few days.

I have been sitting on this post because the idea of “It Gets Better” is about LGBT telling the youth of today that it is OK and things will work out, I am not L, G, B or T.  I’m not even Q (Questioning).  I was however a bullied teen.  Heck I was bullied for many reasons and very often called a fag, called a dyke, a lesbian you name it.  I’m not, that didn’t matter.  My friends today say I am the gayest straight girl you will ever meet.  Perhaps this is true, perhaps the kids back then were grasping onto something evident then… truth is they were kids, they picked on me for everything.  They teased me for being fat, for being poor (which as an adult, looking back I realize I was far from it, but as a kid, I thought I was, partly due to the bullying.  Partly for other reasons not related to this post).  They teased me for my hair being oily, for my pimples, for my clothes, they teased me when I was flat chested, they teased me when my boobs grew.  If I had old dated clothes, they teased me, if I bought new hip clothes they teased me.  It didn’t matter what I did, they teased me.  Oddly I don’t have many memories of being teased for having ADD, one would think that would have been the easiest to make fun of, that I had an extra class to learn to study, or that I took my tests in a different room.  For me the worst part of childhood wasn’t high school because by then I knew, and hoped there was something else, there was an escape.  I knew, when I graduated I would never have to deal with these people again.  The worst part for me was between 6th and 9th grade I think.  Between when it was names, taunts and only mild physical bullying, to the time when I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and I had somehow got it in my head that what these people thought of me didn’t matter.  Those three years things got really harsh, it was when the insults were terribly personal and the bullies seemed to do research to figure out how to unhinge me.  When they would use other people to get to me, when they found ways to make me hate myself.  I wish I could say it was only in school I had this sort of unwanted attention.  Things also got pretty physical.  It could have gotten really out of hand too and I often attribute a moment of me losing control and letting my temper show in school… that and the bully not wanting anyone to know it was me that hurt him… but that was small.  This is when I learned that gum stuck in your hair needs to be frozen with an ice cube before you can begin to try and save any hair from it.  How hair spray can get paint and ink out of your clothes, because people put it on your chair when you went to the restroom and then pointed and laughed that you menstruated on yourself.  (Being a late bloomer it was just one more thing I was embarrassed about, and there really was no defense from that). I learned that when people give you compliments it is just them setting you up to make a bigger, meaner joke.  That one stuck with me for so long that it is hard to accept compliments.  I remember in college someone telling me I looked pretty and I bit his head off for it, because I expected it was a big joke.  I look back at photos and I wasn’t any of the things that they teased me for.  Sure I was weird, but I wasn’t the huge freak of nature I thought I was.  I cried myself to sleep thinking about how I made everyone’s life miserable… What I couldn’t see then was that it wasn’t me.

Bullying is never about the victim, it is about the bully.  Bulies bully because they are miserable, it is about them.  They are out there trying to make you feel as bad as they do.  Or, they are deflecting, they feel fat, ugly or weird and so they point out you are to keep the attention off them.  Some bullies bully because they are being bullied elsewhere.  They are getting hit at home, or something else, so they come into school and act out the same abuse they are receiving from the people who are supposed to take care of them.  Then there’s the worst one to come to terms with, the bully who doesn’t know they are bullying.  There was a kid in my school that no matter what I said, anytime I spoke up in class he would mock me to the whole class and continue for the next few days.  Much later, I was in college and he was working with my sister, when talking he told my sister that for some reason I hated him.  When she told me I was shocked, because his case in point for me hating him had nothing to do with anything.  It was a small little thing that happened once… I simply responded to him being an oaf (and a homophobe if I remember) and called him out on it.  One of the few times I spoke up for myself.  As anyone who knows me, you know I like to talk, I have the gift for gab, the fact that I almost never spoke in school should let you know how much I was conditioned to not speak up.  Point is, this guy didn’t know he was a bully to me, didn’t know that since grade school he had been making me the big joke, he was clueless.  Sadly, I think most of the kids who were my bullies, didn’t realize they were.  They just went with the crowd, everyone thought I was weird and picked on me, so everyone thought I was weird and picked on me.  I learned once from someone that when she first moved and came to school she was told to not be my friend, if she was she wouldn’t have any others.  In school I only had one “friend” who in truth wasn’t a friend and was using me.  Still, I had one.  Just one.  Suppose I might be lucky for that, who knows.

High School as I said was a changer for me.  First off, my niece was born, and that opened my eyes.  I saw the world in a different way, I could see that there was a lot more to life then what I was seeing.  Taking care of a little baby can do that to you, it changes everything.  I changed a lot of things thanks to my niece.  I got my temper in control thanks to her(long story) and I started looking towards the future.  By the time I graduated I had my eye on the prize, perhaps a little too much.  In college so much of what I was doing was all to make sure that as an adult I had everything I needed.  A degree, work skills, good references, you name it.  I might have missed out on some of the slacker behavior my peers did… course that didn’t mean I didn’t party and have fun.

After college though, it just got better and better.  College was great by showing me that my mind was not wrong, I was not a freak for reading all the time.  Liking star trek was not the end of the world.  By the time I was out and hanging out with metal bands and out with lots of friends I found that some of the coolest people were like me.  Weird.  Being weird is good.  Being a geek is good.  Thinking for yourself and coming up with your own opinions is good.

It gets better, and it is awesome.

I’m so glad I never fell as low as far too many kids do, I wish I could let kids today know that it does get better.  I wish they would believe me.