I think the most important advice I could give to anyone is to stay true to who they are, no matter what everyone else is saying.

I was thrilled when he called me, over the moon, heart pounding, breathless, ecstatic. It didn’t matter that he was my friend’s ex-boyfriend, in fact that almost made it better, like he was choosing me over her. My entire life I had been the weird one, even in my own family. As a child I was awkward, I had glasses, I wasn’t “pretty,” I wasn’t thin, I wasn’t rich, I didn’t fit in at the private school I attended. As I got older it only got worse, somewhere along the way I got labeled a dyke and I was never sure why. All I wanted was to be wanted, to be liked, by anyone, by everyone, and definitely by a boy. As teenagers and even as adults, we all want to be accepted by our peers. No one wants to feel the hurt and isolation of rejection. Unfortunately, at some point in our lives it happens to everyone. I think the most important advice I could give to anyone is to stay true to who they are, no matter what everyone else is saying. No one knows you better than you do and changing what you look like, how you act around other people won’t really make a difference. You are who you are, and that is all you need to be. Grade school, high school, even college, these are only tools to help you figure out what you want your life to be and sometimes tools have sharp edges. It is up to you to figure out how to use them to your advantage. I thought that when that boy called me it was a blessing from God. I jumped at the chance to “hang out” with him. I thought that finally I had been noticed, I had been accepted, I was good enough. When he kissed me I thought I was in heaven, I never wanted the moment to end. When he started to “fool around” and touch me I didn’t think it was a big deal. When he started trying to take off my clothes I wasn’t comfortable and tried to stop him. When he pushed me down and forced himself on me and said the thing that every TV or movie date rapist says, all I could do was scream "NO!! GET OFF ME!!" And when I felt the searing pain as he entered me and stole my virginity all I could do was lay there with tears streaming down my face. I cried the whole way home, totally shocked and trying to digest that he had just raped me. Was it my fault? What do I do now? Would anyone believe me? Do I tell my parents? Will they be mad? Will THEY blame me? After two years I was able to confide in my best friend and another year later I was finally able to tell my parents, even if it was in a letter. We all want so badly to fit in, to be noticed. After that experience, all I wanted was to disappear into the background of this thing called my life. After 26 years this day still haunts me. But I am sharing this story in the hopes that someone out there will read it and recognize that being bullied damages your self-worth, sometimes to the point that you put yourself in dangerous positions just to be liked. If there is one lesson that you take from this, I hope that it is that you and you alone should determine your self-worth. And when you are being cut down and bullied know that it is not because of anything that you did or are doing, it is because that bully hasn’t realized that hurting someone else doesn’t make them worth more, it makes them worth less. - Sara