Bullying

It really pains and upsets me to see how much prejudice there is in the world. Everyone is different. Coloured, white, gay, bi, straight, religious, atheist, fat, thin, short, tall, shy, outgoing, short sighted, brunette, blonde, red-haired, disabled, able-bodied... we're all here for a reason. We all have as much right to live a happy, safe life as everyone else. Who gave anyone the right to say that the way someone else lives their life? Who gave anyone the right to make someone else feel worthless and unwanted because they're different? Or commit hate crimes just because they can?

Almost on a weekly basis I read about someone who feels their life is worthless - not because it is, but because someone else has made them feel they're not worthy of anything because they were born a different way to the person who made them feel like that. It's even worse when there are suicides. Take, for example, Jamey Rodemeyer. Last year his story was all over the news - the story that a teenage boy had committed suicide because it became unbearable due to people bullying him because he was gay. Stories like that make me sick. He was fourteen - a child. A child. And the worst thing was that his case isn't isolated. I feel so ashamed to be a human when I know what other humans are doing.

I was bullied as a child and grew up believing I was disgusting, fat, ugly, worthless, and stupid. It destroyed my self confidence and any self worth I once had, and by the age of 13 I had retreated entirely into my shell. I hated speaking to people or being the centre of attention for fear of being judged by them. At 14 I was self harming and at 15 I wished I was dead, however I never tried to take my own life because I couldn't do it to my family. Throughout everything, my family have always been there for me, despite the way I blamed them for everything and even told them I hated them. I've never hated them - even though I thought I did - I was just blaming them for the way I felt because deep down I knew they were the only ones who would never leave me, whatever I said. And because I have them, I know I was one of the lucky ones. I'm not going to lie and say everything is okay now, because it isn't. I still suffer from a lack of confidence and bouts of depression, but I have brilliant friends, I have my family, I know I'm loved, I'm on my way to getting a university degree, and I'm still here.

When people bully others I din't think they know what they're doing. Particularly children. For them it's just a game, something to do that makes them feel better than others due to their own insecurities. But it's not a game, and it's not funny. They're taking away the one thing that a person needs to be happy - their own sense of self worth. The feeling that they deserve to be as happy as the next person. Without that you have nothing - believe me, I've been there. I know.

If anyone who's reading this is being bullied, or know someone who's being bullied - please do something. Don't suffer in silence. People care, and they'll listen to you, and help you. I wish I'd known that when I was bullied, before it was too late. For every person out there who thinks they're better than you, there are at least two who want to help you.

This is an old blog post that I started writing 6 months ago, but since then I've met a very influencial person and made some friends for life, who have helped with with my social anxiety and made my life worth living again without even trying. I know how it feels to go be bed with a smile on my face and wake up with it still in place. I just want to let everyone out there know that you are not worthless. You're a miracle. You're amazing. Don't give up, because, as Dolly Parton once said - If you want to see the sunshine, you've gotta put up with the rain.

Anti-Bullying Poem - "I am".

I am the person you bullied at school,

I am the person who didn't know how to be cool,

I am the person that alienated,

I am the person you ridiculed and hated.

I am the person who sat on her own,

I am the person who walked home alone,

I am the person you scared every day,

I am the person who had nothing to say.

I am the person with hurt in her eyes,

I am the person you never saw cry,

I am the person living alone with her fears,

I am the person destroyed by her peers.

I am the person who drowned in your scorn,

I am the person who wished she hadn't been born,

I am the person you destroyed for 'fun',

I am the person, but not the only one.

I am the person whose name you don't know,

I am the person who just can't let go,

I am the person who has feelings too,

And I was a person, just like you.

-Anon

Okay I admit it... [Contains some LOST spoilers]

I miss LOST. Everything about it. The online fandom was probably the first I'd ever got properly involved in, and I remember exactly how it happened. I became addicted to LOST during the 2nd season - the third episode if I remmeber correctly, as it was one of those things where everyone at school was raving about it, and seeing as I usually find 'popular' things very hard to like, I didn't bother for a while. But then I caved - and damn was it good! This was back in the wonderful days when it was on C4 in the UK, and I bought the first season (my first ever TV boxset) to catch up between watching episodes of S2 'live' on TV once a week. After it moved to Sky, I was forced to look up every episode online - getting up extra early on Friday mornings to watch before 6th form started - and it was while I was searching for the episode where it was exposed that Kate was looking after Aaron off the island that I came across the 'Secrets and Recaps' videos by Seanie B. Those videos eventually led me to a discussion forum set up for the recap vids, which I eagerly signed up to and lurked/posted on as frequently as I possibly could. Often to the detriment of my Uni assignments and lectures, but never mind. A few weeks later I was picked by the maker of the site - much to my surprise - to become a moderator, and settled into the role immediately.

I was always on there, discussing every little detail of every episode, making online friends, banning members, moderating threads, responding to alerts, deleting posts and the like. It was SO much fun. I loved the banter, the discussions, the power and also the respect that I often struggled to gain from others in other areas of my life. It was amazing. I even miss the day that I came back from Spain to find that Seanie B had been exposed as a plaigeriser, and the whole forum was in disarray. Strangely, I miss the abuse I would get from people with too much time on my hands. I miss the excitement of one of my theories ending up in one of Seanie B's vids. I miss the shipping wars of Jaters vs Skaters (I was a Jater). I miss staying up until 5am watching episodes live as they aired in the US and missing out on sleep and revision time because of it. I even failed an exam after staying up until 5:30 watching the S6 finale 2 days before it - worth it though. I miss getting together with a group of other mods and forum members on MSN to discuss episodes live. I miss spending days - weeks - speculating and discussing a painting on the wall of Widmore's office or the look in someone's eye or the numbers or an egyptian symbol, and of course the mystery of why Richard never aged. And the discussions of Tawaret (is it, is it not? What is the purpose of the statue? Did it getting knocked down cause the fertility problems on the island?) that went on for months. I miss the threads I made. I miss the posts that everyone else made. I really, really miss all the friends I made in Canada, the UK, Australia, America and Eastern Europe - people who I would have never met without Lost.

Why do all good things come to an end?

When S6 ended, I was at a bit of a loss over what to do with my life, and within 2 weeks of the final episode the site was closed. Connections were broken, that chapter of my life was closed, and that was that. So I finished my year at uni, got a job and eventually joined another fandom which I am still a part of, and love with all my heart.

But recently I've been rewatching Lost and it's all come flooding back to me. Everything that Lost once meant to me has faded away, and all I have left of my place in the fandom are my own memories. Life goes on, yes, but sometimes I wish it didn't. I miss everything from the build up of excitement before each episode of the show itself to deciphering heiroglyphics, deciphering whispers and multiplying, adding, subtracting and dividing numbers in a desperate attempt to end up with 4, 8, 15, 16, 32, 42 or 108. Lost wasn't just a show, it was a way of life. Even now, I still feel something is missing without it.

But what I find the worst of all is that until my rewatch, I rarely even thought about the show or the fandom. It means that everything that is important to me now could mean absolutely nothing to me by this time next year. And that thought terrifies me.

So that is why I'm writing this blog post, in this blog I never write in and probably no-one ever reads. To recapture the memories. Lost was a masterpiece, a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I was very lucky to be a part of. I will never, ever let myself forget it again.

Let's try this blogging thing!

Right, where to start... for some reason I've found everything three times as funny today as I normally would, so I decided to start a blog. Well, why not?
As per usual, my day started with an 'ooft' as my dog leapt onto my stomach and woke me up, before proceeding to steal most of my duvet and half of my bed and make himself comfortable on it. After half an hour of uncomfortable, interrupted sleep I decided to get up, pick my laptop up off the floor and see if I had any interesting emails. Surprise surprise, I didn't. As I absent-mindedly wandered over to the other side of the room, I heard a shuffle and a thud - and turned around to find my afore-mentioned dog sitting in a heap on the floor looking surprised. Bless. I still don't know what happened, but I'm guessing he rolled onto his back and rolled a bit far, onto the floor.

So, some time passed as I spent the morning on my laptop, half watching This Morning and half reading some incredibly amusing arguments on the internet. And then something horrifying happened. This Morning finished without me noticing... and Loose Women came on. Oh God. Their 'banter' reminded me of a bunch of drunken fools after a night out - and that was before 'Chaz' from Chaz & Dave and 'Minty' from EastEnders appeared as guests and started singing. Badly. Out of tune. Horrified, I quickly turned off the TV. Please remind me never to watch that again.

After a fairly uneventful walk with my dog I returned home to find an email containing a link to a Youtube video. Curious as I am, I opened it to find a video of a handicapped Korean man in a mobility scooter ramming into the doors of a lift repeatedly, until they smashed open and he toppled over into the lift shaft. Five minutes of hysterical, tears-running-down-your-face laughter I realised the poor man had died. Oh well... maybe it was just a modern form of Natural Selection. I'm not trying to be harsh here, the death of anyone is terrible, but come ON... what was he expecting to happen?

I then opened another email from Amazon to find that Michael McIntyre's autobiography, which I ordered a while ago, is going to be released earlier than I thought. YES!!! You know your life is sad when that kind of thing makes your day but ho-hum! And then back to the EastEnders discussion I went. Now, I like EastEnders, but some of it is so mind-numbingly boring and unrealistic that it's good to have a complain with fellow viewers. But one person on this site takes complaining to a whole new level, saying that we shouldn't post "spoilers" of what happens because he/she watches the 'onthebus' on Sundays. The onthebus??? Cue another round of hysterical laughter. I even snigger now when I think of it. Good times.

Speaking of EastEnders, Kim's wobbling bosom successfully put me off my dinner AGAIN... why do you do this to us, EE? Are we not allowed to watch it without feeling like we're going to throw up? And another Kalfie duff-duff, no surprise there!