Bullying.

I introduced myself a few days ago as the new writer on this blog and told you what I was going to be doing on Big Brother Stardoll. I think almost all of you know at this point that I'm going to be running a weekly advice column where all of you can ask me anything... I thought I'd break the ice by asking if you've ever been bullied or have you ever been a bully? 

Being bullied isn't something you should blame yourself for, be embarrassed to talk about nor try to ignore. I myself have both been a bully and been bullied which is why I won't judge any of you that say you've been a bully; I think, in all honesty, that everyone has been a bully at some point. We're all human and no ones perfect but we can try to better ourselves by learning from others; I most certainly have.

I was bullied in highschool up until towards the end of my highschool experience. Some of you may know that I have heterochromia which causes my eyes to be two different colors as I've incorporated it into my medoll. I'm obviously extremely proud of this fact, embrace it and am the face of AislinVictory's 2011 beauty week for this fact but there was a time where I wasn't proud of it.

In high school  I went to a school that wasn't very diverse. It was small, full of rich kids and no one was exactly different. My heterochromia sparked an interest in people as did my height and weight, i'm right in between 5'2 and 53 weighing only 103 pounds. These simple things about me that were different didn't exactly spark the type of interest I would have hoped that they had, in fact they made me a target. I was named called, harassed, had little friends and had a trick played on me that really effected who I am today. When I was a sophomore in High School this girl, let's call her Victoria for privacy sake, made a fake account online to talk to me. Victoria used pictures of a boy I liked who went to a different school and even used his name. She added me on all the social networking sites I had at the time and constantly flirt with me, shower me with compliments and tell me all sorts of sweet things.

 Victoria eventually got bored with the fact she wasn't really getting anything from me to use against me so she started adding my friends from other schools, turning them against me and eventually told me to do all sorts of vicious things to myself. Victoria however made a fatal mistake when she added some of the boys friends she was pretending to be. Later on that night I got a phone call while I had been crying my eyes out from the boy she was pretending to be. He confirmed that it had not been him that had done it and after a bit of investigating I found out who was behind it. I promptly told the office about it and Victoria was suspended for a few days, when she came back to school she dropped all the classes she had with me and bumped into me in the hallways not saying anything.

My highschool experience eventually got better as kids who hurt me transferred and new kids started attending my school who were accepting but it's something I couldn't block out. I'm not a fully innocent person when it comes to bullying, in fact I singled out a girl in eighth grade because she looked up to me.

In eighth grade there with this girl Hannah who was unusual. She was shy, rarely talked and was a year younger than everyone else because she had gotten bumped up a grade for being intelligent. Hannah always complimented my style and eventually she started copying it. Hannah would do her hair the same way as me, wear the same clothes or similar clothes that I did and even bought the same cotton candy perfume I wore. My friends noticed this fact and began to harass her, belittle her, call her things like copycat and tried to convince me to do it too. I was at first reluctant to do it but my friend convinced me to try it, so I did and for whatever reason it gave me a sort of high and mighty feeling. 

I singled out Hannah for weeks and weeks until one day she caught me in the girls bathroom alone and confronted me. "Why are you so mean to me?" She said teary eyed; Hannah had been crying in a stall when I came in. Hannahs question had caught me off guard, in fact I didn't have an answer.. here was this nice girl who looked up to me whos life I was making a living hell for it. I apologized to Hannah every day from that point and eventually we formed a friendship, in fact she's one of my best friends today. I still to this day can't answer why I was mean to her, why I blocked out feeling guilty and why it gave me such a powerful feeling but I know that it changed my perspective on being a bully to the point where I to this day try to stray away from it.

I want to hear the experiences of the viewers of this blog, I want to know if you're a bully, have been bullied or are both. If you don't feel comfortable posting with your blogger account leave an anonymous comment, I promise no one will think any less of you for it. If you have the courage to post on your blogger account just know that I won't judge you because I've both been a bully and been bullied. If you're being bullied please know that you're not alone and know that my guestbook, friend requests, dollmail and email is always open to people who just need someone to talk too. If you're a bully keep in mind that i'm not going to think any less of you for it, judge you or be angry with you. We're all human and none of us, no matter how hard we try, are not going to make bad decisions myself included.

I'm really interested in hearing your thoughts, experiences and what you think about this issue as a whole so please comment as I do read them plus I do care quite a bit.

Love, 

Audrey