Love is louder.

I just watched the movie "Cyberbully" and honestly, it was way more than I expected.
I figured it would be a stereotypical, cheesy movie, but it wasn't in the slightest.
The acting was well done, the story line was great, and the way it was laid out was perfect.
Honestly, it left me with a heavy heart.
When I was in highschool, all the internet stuff was still fairly new. Bullying on there was done, but not nearly as common as it is now. And knowing how I felt with all the hate shot at me, I can't imagine how much more difficult it is now.
I had people tell me I was nothing, I had people tell me I was a hypocrite. I had people I thought were my best friends turn their back on me. I was left completely dejected and alone, and as I stared at the pieces in my hands, I was so confused as to what I did for life to get to that point. I just came to a new school, with hopes that it would be a great experience. Why was I finding myself like this? I tried my hardest to be the best person I could, and still people walked all over me and tried to shoot me down. I tried my best to just stay out of everyone's way, but still they found me. Nonchalantly telling me how I'm a loser, and how I'm never going to go anywhere or be anything with the way I am choosing to live life. It went around the school 4 times in 3 years that I was a lesbian, simply because I didn't date anyone and I hugged people.
People from my own church kept me at a distance, uncertain of what I really was, and if what these people said was true.
So what did I do? I became a cutter. I took knife or thumb tack, or screw, or safety pin, or razor piece, or screwdriver to skin and plastered the smile on my face again so no one would know anything was wrong.
After all, the only people I had let in to see that inside I was really broken were the people who kept turning against me.
Maybe I'm just too messed up for people, right?
No one knew. My sister read my journals and told my mom, who was in too much of a shock and hurting too much after losing her dad to believe her. After all, I told a pretty convincing story that I was just fine. I was in theater, I was an actress, of course I could convince people. It's what I did.
I made it through high school, bruised and very messed up, but I made it.
And now that it's been 8 years since I walked across that stage, do you know what I've learned?
I'm not too messed up.
In fact, it's not me whose messed up at all.
Those people who said and did such hurtful things, those people I thought were my friends, those people who made me feel that there was nothing else to do about it except slide blade across skin time and time and time again, only stopping short of ending my own life because I couldn't go back on the promise I made my dad after we left the funeral of my friend who had hung himself in his bathroom when I was just thirteen years old.
That there is hope. That I am going to make it and I am going to be successful. That those people who were causing me pain were really just in exponential pain themselves, so all they knew to do was what was done to them.
Sadly, most of them never grow up past what they were in high school. Some do. And some still have no idea that what they even did was hurtful. They just go with the flow of what's going on around them, thinking it's just a joke and not another lash on the back of someone whose already been beaten down.
So what can you do about it?
Live on purpose.
Make sure every move you make is one that you are willing to own up to if it came down to it. Pay attention to your actions, to how it affects people. Say and do kind things. You never know how badly someone is really hurting, even if it's the one who seems to be the strongest. Even if you would get made fun of for talking to that person. Do it anyway.
People need love, and sadly most are being starved of it.
Be that bread they so desperately need.
Live the difference that you want to see.
Keep a level head. Realize that you are no better than the person next to you, but that you have the potential to make a difference.
Even if you don't see it in the 13 years you have in the education system as a student, people see and feel and remember far more than you realize.
Leave a good taste in their mouth.
Love on purpose. You won't regret it.

Love is louder than hate, than rejection, than fear, than hurt, than painful words...
Love is louder.