Bullying

Hi Everyone

Yesterday I was well enough to go to school - praise God and thanks to all those who prayed. Sometimes I could actually feel the prayer and God's love and peace.

Anyway yesterday we had a guest speaker at our class who spoke about bullying. The statistics are awful - nearly everyone either gets bullied or is in a school or workplace where it happens.

In our class two people walked out - one had been bullied at school, the other in the workplace.

I must admit I was very lucky at school. There was a bit of bitching and teasing but nothing I could call bullying. The same could be said of the workplace really - there was one teacher who picked on all younger staff (including me) but, in the end, a lot of the staff stood up against it and he was transferred.

All this changed, however, when I became mentally ill. I was no longer normal. I was different. Difficult to understand. Hard to relate to. Scary.

Some of my friends left me because they couldn't cope. I appreciated their honesty but it was hard to lose them.

A lot of my acquaintances just stopped talking to me. They would walk straight past me. This was especially the case with the people I knew in the theatre. All in all the only theatre people who stood by me were Christians.

This is called 'covert' bullying - ie they don't actually do something active they just isolate you from the community you had once belonged to. And it hurts, it hurts really bad.

I still go to theatrical events because I love the theatre but every time I go I have to grit my teeth against this coldness, this stigma. I wonder what they say about me but I guess I'll never know.

But it has taught me one thing - always include people, even if they are difficult to understand etc, after all that's what Jesus did.

God Bless you all

Amber