Bullying takes the lives of around 7 teens a week. That’s one life a day! High school is hard enough on us as it is without all the torment and ridicule from peers. Most students don’t even feel safe walking down the hallways of their high school. You might think that what you say is funny or doesn’t hurt the other person just because they aren’t upset or crying. You’d be surprised what a smile and a laugh can hide. The ones who smile and laugh at school could be the ones that go home and think about hanging that rope, taking those pills, or cutting their wrists. You never really know how what you say affects someone until it’s too late. Bullying is unethical and should be stopped before it takes the lives of anymore teens.

Amy is just a normal girl, or so it appears to everyone else. She dresses in baggy sweaters and avoids eye contact with almost everyone that speaks to her. She sits alone at the lunch table and doesn’t eat. When people ask her why, she simply replies that she “isn’t hungry” or that she will “eat when she gets home.” Little do they know, there isn’t going to be any food when she gets home, not for Amy. When she gets home she lays on her bed, holding her stomach, and crying with the words of her classmates ringing in her head. Her mother calls her downstairs for dinner, “Great,” she thinks, “just what I need.” She looks in the mirror, disgusted by what she sees. Amy wipes her tears and reapplies her makeup and walks downstairs for dinner. “You just have to pretend a little longer,” she thinks as she puts on a fake smile and walks into the dining room. Her parents ask her and her siblings how their day went, and she tells them that it went well like she always does, though she knows that she is lying. It went horrible as always. As she walked down the hallways of her high school people called her a “fat pig” and told her that no one would care if she killed herself. When Amy entered high school, she was a healthy 110 pounds; when Amy died just months later, she weighed a measly 73 pounds. She starved herself to death because of the constant ridicule of her peers.

Zane was the star athlete and the most popular guy at his high school, that was until he came out as being gay. Now no one wants anything to do with him, unfortunately, that also includes his family. He walks down the hallways of his school and everyone looks at him like he has some deadly disease. The people that used to be his best friends now call him a “fag” and tell him that he is going to hell. Everyday after school he goes to the bridge over the freeway and considers jumping off, just letting his body plummets to the cars below, but then he thinks better of it. One day he is sitting at the lunch table eating and the football team, the people that he used to call his friends, is taking turns spitting in his food. He looks up at their laughing faces, grabs his things, and sprints out of the school. He throws his things into the nearest garbage and continues walking. “I don’t need them,” he thinks, “I’m never going back there.” Zane knows exactly where he was going. When he gets to the bridge, he looks down at the cars whizzing by underneath him. He takes a deep breath as he climbs over the rails. He closes his eyes, exhales slowly and releases his grip on the rails, and on life. All Zane wanted was to be left alone to love who he wanted, but that was too much to ask. He was 16 when he took his own life because of the daily torment of his peers.

Some people might argue that “bullying toughens up” the kids that it happens to, or some people even sum it up to “kids will be kids”. They don’t realize that “kids being kids” could cost someone their son/daughter, or that “kids being kids” literally ruins someone’s life. Bullying affects many people, and how it affects them is entirely different from someone else being bullied. Everyone deals with it differently. What you say today, could be the reason someone takes their life tomorrow. Words hurt in different ways. If you make someone so upset that they think that there is no way out but to end their own life, what does that give you? Does it make you feel better about yourself to terrorize other people? Bullying puts thoughts in people’s heads, thoughts that cannot be ignored. No matter how hard you try, they never go away. The words you say just repeat over and over again in the heads of those that you said them to or about, eating them alive until they can’t stand it anymore, thus, ending their own life.

All I’m trying to say is, size is a number, age is a number, height is a number, but you are not a number. You are a collection of memories and stories. You’re the yawns and sneezes of your life. You’re the sun and the moon that changes everyday. You’re not a number on a tag, birthday, ruler, or a scale. You’re you and someone loves you even if you don’t love yourself. Bullying is something that needs to stop. It causes way too much death and mental destruction. Don’t be the reason that someone takes their life tonight, and don’t let someone else be the reason that you take your own life.