An Open Letter To School Shooters

Dear teenager, 

I know how it feels to be picked on in school. My middle school years were horrendous. I suffered abuse from a tyrannical step-mother and then I was picked on at school for having my hair short, or not wearing the clothes that were in style, or basically for not being a "cool" kid. There were so many days that I tried to blend into the walls so no one could see me. 

It all started in about the fourth grade. I stole something that didn't belong to me. Of course everyone knew. What may surprise you is this was the 80's so it wasn't live streamed or put on facebook, it was strictly word of mouth. As you probably have learned by now, when something is spread by word of mouth, and it is negative, it spreads like wildfire. No one wanted to be my friend after that. Who could blame them? This incident happened in Elementary school so in my eyes it only plays a small part. 

Then came middle school. Yikes, those awkward preteen/becoming a teen years. See, I was different than the other girls. I wasn't allowed to wear make-up, shave my legs, or date until I was 16. That automatically made me a freak. You will never know the shame and embarrassment of a senile teacher actually thinking you are a boy and the whole class erupts into laughter. Writing and thinking about that day still makes me cringe and I am 43 years old and that happened when I was 13. Short hair and a flat chest....bad combo. I was teased relentlessly for stupid stuff.  

By the time I made to eighth grade, the bullying was too much. I couldn't take it anymore. Then one day my best friend decided we were not going to be friends anymore. She came into the locker room and actually pushed me down. I looked her in her eyes and told her that I was not going to fight her. See, I knew she had been hanging around one of my tormentors for a couple of weeks and that girl was trying to talk her against me. Well, after she knocked me down, I went into the locker room next door and another girl got in my face. This time, she had 10 other girls behind her. I completely snapped! I told her to bring it on and that I would whoop everybody's ass that day. I must have looked as crazy as I felt, because her and the other girls backed down and she pointed at me and said "you're crazy". After that day, nobody messed with me ever again.  

So the moral of this long drawn out story is this......

You can stand up for yourself without taking a gun and killing or wounding somebody. All it takes is for you to have some self-respect and let the bullies know you are not going to take their crap. Also, as cliched as it sounds.......nine times out of ten you will never see any of them again after you graduate.