On a brighter note…

Yeah… so last night’s (although it didn’t post till this morning, I wrote it last night) blog post was very emotional to write – I don’t know how it was to read – and I hope no-one is angry at me for posting it, but as you could probably tell, I am sick of this idea that the victims of bullying should hide away and be ashamed to talk about it, and the same goes for people who’ve self-harmed in the past – it shouldn’t be the taboo subject it is today; that’s why it happens to so many people – they’re scared to get the help they need before it’s too late because it IS such a taboo subject and it isn’t spoken about, and it should be.

Which is what’s got me thinking. We aren’t taught about self-harm or depression at school – it just doesn’t happen. It’s hidden away and, yet again, treated as something to be ashamed of. In many schools, the victims of bullying aren’t encouraged to speak out – many schools don’t even have bullying policies; as far as the teachers are concerned, “there is no bullying”, even though so many people have experienced it. It’s this “out of sight, out of mind” culture that’s made it socially acceptable to bully. We’re getting to the stage where aduls are saying “it’s character building”, “it’s just a bit of fun” – maybe for the bully, but for the victim it’s life-destroying, it’s the furthest possible thing away from fun you’ll ever find.

We study theatre in education as part of my course, and apparently we’re encouraged to come up with our own ideas and possibly even start small companies as we progress through the course. I’ve only been on the course for two weeks now, but I already know what I want to do. I want to start a very small TIE-type group, just three or four people who go around local schools and hold workshops encouraging kids to look at the way they treat others. When I was at school, we had a couple of TIE groups who just came, preached to us under the guise of acting, and left, and I don’t want mine to be like that – I want to involve the kids, I want to get them role-playing – I want people to see things through the eyes of the bully and see how small-minded they are, and I want people to see things through the eyes of the victim, and maybe we can change a few attitudes.

I want to create action packs for schools and campaign for a law, to ensure that all schools – be they nursery, primary, secondary, sixth form, college, whatever – have a rigorous bullying policy, and that this is enforced. There should be penalties for schools that don’t enforce punishments for bullying, and we need PSHE lessons in every school from primary onwards, introducing children to the notion of everyone respecting each other. I don’t expect everyone to be friends with everyone else and never argue – arguments happen, but bullying is too far.

It’s going to take a lot of hard work, and a lot of planning and possibly a fair bit of money, but I’m determined that I’m going to make it happen. Bullying needs to be stamped out. I’ve seen the power that just a little bit of local campaigning – some letter-writing, a few messages to newspapers and councils – can do. We reached people in Australia and Denmark with the campaign for the plaque for Harold Lowe. I don’t care whether this one goes local, or nationwide, or international, or only works in one tiny school – if we can change one child’s life, that’s good enough for me.

Amanda Todd.

It’s twenty to ten at night, and I should be happy. I’ve had a great day today, I’m at uni, I’m doing all these great things, I’m making something of myself – my fiance is coming to see me tomorrow and we’re going to have a great weekend. So why am I sitting here in tears? Because tonight I’ve read something that’s shown me just how easily it could all have been so very, horribly different.

On October 10th, Amanda Todd died. If you haven’t heard about her, you’re probably thinking “Oh – well, it’s sad, but why is she blogging about it?”. I’m blogging about it because Amanda Todd was 15 years old, and she committed suicide after relentless bullying.

Why is there still bullying? Why haven’t people learned that it’s easier, and nicer for everyone to get along – and if that’s too hard, to at least have the decency and respect to keep any negative opinions to themselves? Is there something inside some people that means they’re programmed to bully? Why is it present in some kids from the age of three or four – is that because of their parents, or are some people always meant to be bullies, and others always meant to be victims?

I don’t understand what pleasure people can get from putting others down and making them feel bad about themselves. Do they not feel overwhelmed with guilt? I really fail to understand it. I don’t buy the whole “bullies need sympathy” spiel – yeah, they may be having some hardship in their life, but do you know what – a lot of people have to go through hardship BECAUSE of those people, and you don’t see the majority of them continuing the cycle. Bullying is inexcusable – I don’t care what the reason is. If you wake up in the morning and think “I’m having a bad time… on the bright side, I can criticize _____’s weight/hair/clothes later, that’ll make me feel better”, GO BACK TO SLEEP. Stay in bed, stay in your house until you feel like you can be a decent human being as opposed to a disgusting excuse for a person.

Back to Amanda Todd. She posted a video in September about the bullying she was going through – she didn’t speak or show her full face, but she explained her story, the mistakes she’d made – small, nothing-y mistakes in the big picture – and the constant, unyielding barrage of hate she’s received in return. The thing is – teenagers make mistakes, humans make mistakes. We learn from them and move on. The people with real problems are the ones who can’t move on, the ones who feel the need to bring it up again and again, years after it’s happened. Surely it shows there’s something missing in their lives?

Normally I don’t really like people who post pictures of their scars from self harming online – it can sometimes seem like silly attention-seeking as opposed to a cry for help, especially when it’s all Picasa-edited and put on Tumblr with depressing song quotes accompanying it. However, at the end of her video, Amanda included a picture of what we assume is her arm, with some really nasty cuts on it, and I think it’s a good thing that she put it on there. Maybe anyone found to be bullying should be sat in a room and forced to look at pictures like that one (it’s pretty graphic so I won’t be posting a link to the video on here, I’m sure that if you Google search “Amanda Todd”, you’ll find it – I definitely recommend watching it, but I won’t put it in the post just in case anyone who doesn’t want to see it, sees something they don’t like), and maybe then it’ll make those bullies realize the damage they can cause.

I was bullied, and I self-harmed – pretty badly at times. I never took pictures, but the scars still show up sometimes – I went swimming today, and I don’t know if it was the chlorine or the water in general, but they do show up on my arm. I still feel self-conscious about them, but at the same time, they’re a sign that I survived. Unfortunately, there are so many young people out there who aren’t as lucky as I am. They aren’t lucky enough to have understanding parents, or a sympathetic doctor, or access to counselling and above all, a wonderful person who changes your life for the better in so many ways. They’re left alone, without anyone to help – and that’s why things like this happen. That’s why girls like Amanda Todd do things like drink bleach and slit their wrists. Take boys like Cade Poulos (the 13-year old boy who killed himself in Oklahoma at the end of September) and Jack Reese, a 17-year-old from Utah who killed himself in April – and bullying is the reason why they also both committed suicide.

Bullying kills – so why aren’t bullies ever arrested in these situations, for murder or at least manslaughter? Why are they allowed to get away with it, to live their lives normally when they’ve shattered so many others. Maybe some of them regret their actions, but I’m guessing the majority of them like to pretend it never happened, to act like they had nothing to do with it. They are the ones who take the easy way out. Before anyone says “suicide is the coward’s easy way out”, you’re wrong. The bully has it easy – they get to carry on living their life, and if they’re cold-hearted enough to push someone into taking their own life, I doubt they’ll lose much sleep over it. The victim has to make an enormous choice, fighting their emotions, feeling lost and worst of all, alone.

So this evening’s  been a tough one. I’ve cried a fair bit and right now, all I want is a cuddle – and to know I only have to wait until tomorrow helps, but in the mean time, I needed to get it out – so I made a video. Call me self-indulgent, call me emo, call me whatever you want – this is my call to anyone who’s been bullied, who’s been made to feel worthless thanks to the words and actions of others – we need to stand up. We can’t sit there in silence anymore – the world needs to hear our story, and they need to change their preconceptions about us.

So yeah… here’s my story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCu74K5s3pY

Last-Minute Nerves!

The memorial to Harold Lowe will be unveiled on Sunday, and I’m getting quite nervous. I don’t know why – it’s not as if I even have to do anything, I’m just going to stand there and watch them unveil it – but it’s like, this is the product of almost two years of campaigning and work on and off, and it’s taken off in a way I never could have imagined. When I started it, I hoped that a letter to the newspaper and a facebook group might warrant, at best, a letter from the council saying they’d erect a memorial, which was all I really wanted – that’s the whole reason why I started the campaign. It was hard at times, especially when people used to ask me why I wasn’t campaigning for something “a little more worthwhile” (kind of ignoring the fact that I’ve been too busy with this for two years but once it’s done I’m going to work on fundraising for charities that are close to my heart if I can squish it in around university and stuff), but I stuck with it because I think that it is a worthwhile cause – it will be worth it for his family, who have waited for generations to see him remembered, and for people who will go to Barmouth and learn about him.

But back to the reason why I’m nervous. It seems to have grown into a big thing – people are travelling a fair distance to come and see it unveiled, including members of his family, and there’s going to be a samba band, the air cadets doing a guard, the lifeboat crew and a choir there. There’s nothing really for me to be nervous about – I know what I’m wearing, how I’m going to have my hair and everything, so there’s nothing about me that I’m worried about – I just really hope it goes well! I want the weather to be great, I want people to be there, I want people to be happy that it’s there and I want it to be something that Barmouth can be proud of.

My Titanic Connection.

It hit me today that I haven’t fully explained my connection to the Titanic, even though I’ve told you all I’ve been on television and radio about it (more on that later). So, with the centenary of the ship setting sail today, and the centenary of the sinking on Sunday, I think it’s time I explained my personal connection to the Titanic.

For most people, their connection begins a hundred years ago, when their ancestors set sail on the Titanic on its fated maiden voyage. For me, it’s slightly different. I don’t have a familial connection to the ship – my story starts over ten years ago at my Nan’s house. She had the James Cameron film “Titanic” on video, and whenever we went to stay at her house, I’d sit and watch it, sometimes twice, at night. The story itself was rather lost on me – I was only six years old and didn’t really understand the romance between Jack and Rose, but the historical side interested me. I’d already decided, by this point, that I wanted to be a historian (of course, that isn’t my aspiration anymore, but I was fairly set on it at the time), so I devoured any information about the Titanic that I could find. I remember badgering my Mom for a book at a school book fair one year, called “My Story: Voyage on the Great Titanic”. She was convinced that I only wanted it for the little blue necklace that came with it, but in all honesty, I wanted to read the book. I absolutely loved it, and I think I only took it off my bookshelf last year, having read it many times.

I noticed, even that first time when I watched the film, that there was a character who did something very brave, and he had a Welsh accent, although I didn’t think much of it at the time. As time progressed, I kept watching it at my Nan’s house, and eventually my curiosity got the better of me, and I went on the internet and looked up the Welshman whom I’d seen rescuing another character in the film. I had no idea of his connection to my local area of Wales, but I was interested nonetheless. Still,  I found that he was Fifth Officer Harold Godfrey Lowe, and although he had been born in Eglwys Rhos, he spent some of his childhood in Barmouth, the nearest town to my village, just down the coast. I was only eleven, and although I was very interested, I still didn’t think much of it.

Two years ago, I was in a local cafe when I heard a man talking about the Titanic, and a man from Barmouth who had been on it, with my dad. I joined in the conversation, and we got talking about how it was surprising that there was nothing in Barmouth to commemorate Harold Lowe – so, when I went home, I wrote a letter to a local newspaper and started a facebook campaign, and it all started from there. Two years later, a plaque to him has been unveiled today in Deganwy, the town to which he eventually retired and where his grandson now lives, and a plaque will be unveiled this Sunday, the product of two years of this campaign, at the harbour in Barmouth. I feel immensely proud to have been a part of the campaign, but more than that, I am pleased that he’ll finally be commemorated in Barmouth and people will learn about him for years to come.

So, that’s basically what this campaign has all been about. The newspaper articles, the radio, the television – it’s all been leading up to this Sunday, but it doesn’t end on Sunday – the plaque will mean that, for decades to come, there will be a lasting memorial to the local hero many people didn’t know about until recently. You can find the television programme I filmed for last year, “Titanic With Len Goodman”, on BBC iPlayer, and I am on Episode Two.