Bullying and Suicide prevention

Hello everyone, this is a serious issue that I feel needs to be discussed. At some point in your life you have either been a victim of bullying or have in fact bullied someone yourself. Tonight, a 13 year old girl committed suicide, her name was Isabella. She isn't the only case though, many people are taking their lives because they feel inadequate or because one simple word can bring them down completely.

I myself have been a victim of severe bullying because I didn't wear the right clothes, my hair was messy, I was "fat", too short, "punk", etc... It would get to the point where people would call me on my phone and tell me to end my life or push me down the stairs at school because they thought it was funny. It isn't funny. It hurts, and since kindergarten I was dealing with depression and afraid to go to school because of the things kids and even the teachers would say to me. It lasted until my parents finally agreed to let me change schools and even still I was bullied but not as bad and I had amazing friends to help back me up. High school was a different story. My parents had me go to a prep school, and because we couldn't afford the one I wanted to go to I had to settle for the private high school located down the hill from my old elem. school and under the same name etc.... The same kids who tortured me k-4 were still torturing me there, I had to figure out a way to get by and music was my escape. Dealing with life then wasn't easy, the confidence I had built up about myself quickly diminished and the sour feeling in my stomach quickly came back when I saw the leader of the my lynch mob from k-4. I never thought I did anything to provoke this behavior from my peers but there was something about me that they just did not like and they made it clear. I'm not going to say I was the popular kid, because I wasn't. I was in the marching band, ran cross country, and various other clubs and tried to get a long with everyone. Yes i had my group of friends, but that still didn't protect me from the bad memories and then the new way they could get to me without even getting in trouble and that was through cell phones and social networking.

One night after a jazz concert that I had just performed in I looked to see that I had a voicemail on my phone, which was strange because usually people never left a VM. When I listened the most evil voice came out of the other end saying "You f**king emo, no one likes you, no one wants you around you need to go and end your life because no one here wants you around anymore." That same year there had been a kid who had taken his life at my school because of being bullied. I assumed because of this that my school would take the right steps into stepping up the anti-bullying campaign measures. They didn't, and because the call was off grounds the school would not do a single thing. They said that is just kids being kids. The next step was the police, I had finally had enough of the fighting and was going to handle this. I went to the police station to only find that because the call was restricted that they couldn't do anything about it and that there wasn't any anti-bullying laws in place for them to do anything. Nothing ever happened to the kids who did it, but I knew who they were and they knew I was going after them with the cops. To protect the kids who were doing this to me their friends found me at a local festival and tripped me down a flight of stairs. I fortunately took the fall but they made sure the message was loud and clear that I would not mess with their boys. I made the message loud and clear that I don't give up and continued fighting it until graduation because no one would even help me. The only thing that was there was music and my group of friends. Music was there though. It never left my side, it understood me 100% and if it wasn't for Avril Lavigne I may have gone through with what they wanted me to do.

My message to you is that life will suck, people will kick you when you're down, they'll make you cry, and pour salt in already open wounds. You need to stand up, be strong, and screw what people think or say. Live your life the way you want too and never ever let someone influence you to take your life. Always know that there is a huge group of Fandys on AGN who love and support you. You know I always have your back and will always be here for you. Andy Grammer has saved my life as well with his music and I cannot thank him enough. Please stay strong, keep your heads up, because there is only rainbows after rain and the sun will always come again.

I am proud to announce an anti-bullying movement on AGN as well as working with fanbuff.com. We need to stop this, we need to speak up for the underdogs and let them know we care. Be strong, stay strong.

- Anthony -