I Can’t Just Get Over It (A Personal Story)

Nick’s story so parallels my own battle with the long-term effects of bullying. The “get over it” syndrome has got to end. It is not so easy and for some, as I have written recently, “getting over it” is suicide or bullycide if you prefer. It has to stop…we have to find ways to make it stop. As adults, that pain does haunt our thoughts and we have to work so hard to recover. Some aren’t willing and I certainly hope Nick’s words help him lead to further recovery. ~Alan Eisenberg

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My name is Nick. I recently read this story on the National Public Radio (NPR) website, “Mental And Physical Toll Of Bullying Persists For Decades”. I can verify that everything in the story is very true since I was a victim of bullying. I am now 55 years old and the effects of it are still with me. Like Angela I suffer from a constant state of fear, depression, anxiety, and PTSD.

My bullying experience is different from the usual scenario of being bullied at school only. My bully was my next store neighbor, supposedly my best friend. He was about the same age as me around six months older. He started abusing me at around six years old and it continued until I joined the military at 18. The abuse was physical and mental, no sexual abuse occurred. I was very afraid of him and he knew it. He knew he had power over me and that gave him satisfaction. I had to endure abuse during school and after school. I remember summer breaks as being a time of terror, since he always came by and I was too sacred to do anything. My mother who was a homemaker was oblivious to what was going on. She knew he was hurting me but kept calling me when he knocked on the door. I don’t know how she couldn’t sense the fear I was in. If she seen me getting beat up by him she would call me to the house and beat me again, yelling at me, calling me a fool, weak and others things. She never talked to me about anything, so I was never able to tell her or anyone else what was going on. My father was always at work, he would leave the house at 6:00 am and not return until around 7:00 pm or later. Then while at home he rarely spoke to me or my brother or even my mother. My brother two years younger than me stayed to himself and we hardly spoke or did anything together. He knew I was being abused and I believe he sided with my mother that I was weak and a fool. To this day we are not close and do not speak much.

The abuse consisted of him finding a reason to get mad at me and then having to “punish” me. Sometimes he would grab me by my hair and drag me in his backyard to a shed where he would punch and slap me. I would be crying asking what I did wrong and to leave me alone. Other times he would blow up in front of other kids and punch me and humiliate me in front of them. If I tried to make friends with other kids he would harass them until they didn’t come around anymore. One time when I was around 10 years old I made a friend in school. After school we were going to go to his house. While walking from school the bully comes flying up in a rage and starts punching me in the face. He punched the books out of my hand that I was using to shield myself. All this with other kids and my new friend looking on and of course doing nothing. Then he just walks away. We continued to walk to my friend’s house. On the way he asks me why I didn’t fight back, and all I could say was I didn’t know. I was so humiliated and embarrassed. This new friend didn’t last long. He came to my house one day and the bully comes flying out of nowhere and starts attacking him. He left and never returned. The bully succeeded in isolating me from others. I felt like I was trapped. He was always after me so I would be stuck in my house most of the time, anxious and alone. I couldn’t walk to school like the other kids. I had to cut through backyards, jumping fences hoping he wouldn’t catch me. After school I would stay around the back school yard waiting for the kids and him to clear out while I made a run for it to my house, again cutting through yards and jumping fences. During school I would be so worried I would go to the nurses office complaining of chest pains hoping they would send me home, which they always did. My mother would come and pick me up, and no one questioned why I was having these pains. I was so nervous and worried that I developed severe tics, shaking my head and blinking my eyes. I would get severe migraine headaches that sometimes caused me to vomit. I also had skin problems on my hands and feet where the skin would break out with an ooze and become very itchy and I would scratch it raw. My mother took me to a couple of doctors who gave me creams and ointments which did no good. Years later I would realize these conditions were from the stress I was dealing with. The tics have stayed with me but not as bad.

The abuse continued into my teenage years. The bully would humiliate and assault me in front of others and I was too frightened to do anything. I had no friends and was always trying to get away from him but he was always there looking for me. He got me to start smoking, drinking and doing drugs which made matters worse. People in the neighborhood would not speak to me looking at me like they knew I was being abused but didn’t want to get involved. My parents continued seeing the abuse and did nothing. So I had no help whatsoever, I suffered alone.

Why my Mother could never figure out how much pain I was in baffles me. I have been angry with her ever since, up until she passed away last year. There was never any closure to this. She knew what was going on but refused to act, instead she blamed me. In a phone call around six or seven years ago she said that “he ruined you”. I didn’t respond since she was up in age and I would have gotten very emotional. The rage I have built up in me would have exploded and I would have said among other things, “no you ruined me by not doing anything”. I should have told her and my father that years ago but I decided to let it be then.

Now at 55 years of age I have suffered with anxiety, depression, substance abuse, over eating with excessive weight gain, social isolation and PTSD. I’m married and have no children and I have begun to worry who will help me as I age. I have never told my wife or anyone else about this because I feel they would not understand. This letter is the first time I’m getting this out. I’m a subscriber to the Bullying Stories web site, and I have seen stories like mine, especially from people my age. They make me feel like I’m not so alone and I feel justified in how I’m feeling so many years later. I won’t have to hear I should have gotten over it.

~ Nick

Shane Koyczan: To This Day Project

Haven’t heard of Shane Koyczan? I think you will hear more from this amazing person. He is a slam poet that has created one of the most beautiful and honest portrayals of  the life of a bullying victim and how it affected him. He does it with the grace and beautiful words that only a modern day poet can do.

I think he is brilliant at conveying the message through his slam poetry. If you don’t know him, I give you Shane Koyczan’s To This Day project.

Everyone Can Be An Ally (A Personal Story)

Amy Kaufman Burk contacted me through our twitter accounts as mutual fellow anti-bullying advocates. Dr. Burk has a Doctorate of Mental Health from the University of California and has vast experience as a Psychotherapist and is also an author. Her first book is “Hollywood High: Achieve the Honorable“. I am truly thankful to share her inspirational story below and her site with you. ~Alan Eisenberg

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I was born in 1958, to heterosexual parents.  I grew up in a home where gay and straight folks sat side by side at dinner parties.  Friendships formed around personal and intellectual connections.  There was no Great Divide between homosexuals and heterosexuals.

I never gave it a thought, until third grade.

In a kickball game, a girl I’ll call “Susannah” crushed the ball and drove in three runs.  “Cory,” admired even by the fifth graders for his spectacular use of profanity, shouted a new insult.  I asked my mother what it meant; “It’s a rude, ignorant word for a gay man.”  I looked up, puzzled; “What’s gay?”  My parents never categorized people by sexuality, but that day, my vocabulary expanded to include “gay,” “straight,” “lesbian,” “homosexual” and “heterosexual.”

High school was an eye-opener.  The atmosphere radiated an edgy tension, with gang violence always ready to erupt.  The gay boys were targeted continuously.  One day, a girl nudged me as a tall, thin boy walked by, frothy blond hair down his back.  “The jocks beat him up last week,” she whispered.  “He was in the hospital for three days.”  She skipped off to class.  A month later, she again took my elbow.  “Remember the blond guy?  I heard he died.  Beaten to death.  The jocks.”  She smiled sweetly, and shrugged.  “Who cares, one less—“ and she used the word I learned in third grade.

I cried that night.  I had no words to explain my tears for a boy I never knew, the possible victim of a piece of gossip that might not be true.  I promised myself that some day, I would write a book about that boy.  I would not allow my readers to be indifferent.  I would name the book after my high school, and its motto.

Years later, my husband and I were raising our children in Mill Valley, CA, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, and I began to write.  I created gay and lesbian characters.  I surrounded them with supporters who rallied for them, shoulder to shoulder, triumphing over a judgmental world.

I completed the final edits in 2008, and prepared to publish.

A few months later, I voted on the losing side of Prop 8, which banned same-sex marriage. My reaction to the election was odd: I stopped publication of my book.  Something was wrong, and I was still figuring it out three years later, when my family moved to Chapel Hill, NC.  I was pleased to live in a beautiful area, with such respect for education.  Then with a nauseating sense of déjà vu, I found myself voting on the losing side of Amendment 1, which prohibited gay marriages and civil unions.

The next morning, I knew how to fix my novel.  I had portrayed the road to full acceptance for the LGBTQ characters as much too smooth.  I rewrote the story, rebuilt the road, offered avenues for people of differing mindsets to become Allies.  As I promised myself back in 1973, I wrote about that blond boy, whose name I never knew.  I called my novel, Hollywood High: Achieve The Honorable.

I hope my book will be read by people who feel ready to question their own beliefs, who want to become more accepting but don’t know how.  There’s a path for everyone to become an Ally.

All you have to do is take the first step. You’ll find me waiting for you.

~Amy Kaufman Burk

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“Everyone Can Be An Ally” was first published in September, 2013, by the Chapel Hill News. Hollywood High: Achieve The Honorable, a novel by Amy Kaufman Burk Follow Amy on her website at http://amykaufmanburk.wordpress.com/ and her twitter feed at @AmyKaufmanBurk

The Bully and Me – A Reunion

Sleep Sleep tonight
And may your dreams Be realized
If the thunder cloud Passes rain
So let it rain
Rain down on him
Mmm, mmm, mmm
So let it be
Mmm, mmm, mmm
So let it be

“MLK” – lyrics and song by U2

My life has moved in many ways I never predicted since I decided seven years ago to start writing and dedicate my free time to try to help solve the problem of bullying in our country and now (as I find who reads this and where they are from) around the world. If you have been along for the ride with me for these years, know that I am much appreciative. If you are new, welcome and I hope you find help in the stories and writings on this site.

I have shared quite freely on the site what it has taken for me to get past the long-term effects that youth bullying had on me. In fact I was never more surprised than I have been over the last year to discover the anxiety, phobias, and of course depression that comes as part of the PTSD process or now as I have discovered C-PTSD (Complex post-traumatic stress disorder) that is the new term for those that deal with the psychological injury from social and/or interpersonal trauma.

I like that the word injury is part of the definition, because as we come to realize that these are injuries of the mind, much like injuries that are more obvious, like a broken bone, then we can focus on how to mend and fix these so life can return to normal. In the seven years since I started this site, the bullying issue has exploded to front page news every single day. It is now an issue that we all want to solve and that is great. The recovery from the injury of bullying and other mental illness needs to be the next item to fix. That is my new dedication that I am calling “Bully Recovery”. More on that later. But studies have already started and psychologists and social workers are both working toward solutions.

Having recently decided last year that, even with my awareness, I needed the mending help of professionals, I can honestly say that, from my vantage point, you can’t go it alone. Just like a broken bone needs to be set by a professional doctor, so does a broken mind. We can’t ignore this issue.

But that is not what I am writing about today. Today is yet another day to share a new story of my bullying life with you. Although, I must say that it is not an unhappy story, but one of continued recovery and that is why I shared that in the first part. A few months ago, as part of my own recovery, I decided to look up and contact Bob, the first bully I had so many years ago that haunted my mind. If you read my stories on my site here, he plays a prominent role in three of them. He was easy to find on Facebook, the magic tool to find everyone now. I sent him a message, but did not reveal why I wanted to call him, and he wrote back. I asked for his phone number and he gave it to me. Now the hard part. Pick up the phone and tell him why I wanted to talk to him. He was still the scary monster from my youth who was so cruel in my mind, so I thought maybe he would be that scary monster. But I want to get better, face my demons and defeat them, so now would be the time. And that monster is now from 36 years ago. Talk about C-PTSD!

I called the number.

“Hello This Is Bob”, my old bully replied. I recognized the voice with the heavy Massachusetts accent right away.

“Hi Bob, this is Alan. Do you remember me from our days at Franklin Elementary?” I said, shaking and trying to figure out how to say what needed to be said.

Bob replied, “You know I don’t have much memory of my youth, but your name is familiar. I just don’t remember that much from when I was young. But it’s good to reconnect.”

“This is why I wanted to call you.” I said. Now was the time to reveal why I wanted to call him. I wasn’t sure if I could do it. “I am calling you and wanted to talk to you, because you were my bully.”

A moment of silence and then Bob just said the words as I find many I confront later do.

“Oh, I am so sorry. Oh G-d, I am sorry about that. I don’t remember it, but I am sorry.”

It is amazing when those words release after so many years. Why can’t we say them when we are young. Because we don’t understand yet, that’s why. He was just flowing with remorse. I stopped him somewhere along the way and explained that I just wanted to contact him for me to release the memory of him I had when I was a youth. Then, the other thing that often happens in these re-connections, Bob started sharing with me the why from his end.

The Bob I was talking to now was remorseful, honest, and dealing with his own set of demons that he had in his life. We shared about ourselves openly and honestly. He came from an abusive home. His young life was not easy either and he dealt with his own self-esteem issues. It was a textbook case of what makes someone a youth bully. I listened, learning more than I expected as he shared more with me.

He shared that he has been dealing with his own demons in life and that he is working to overcome the ones he had. Drinking, drugs, tough teen and adult years, and finally that he also looks to find the positives in life now to overcome what he has been through. We were kindred spirits from different sides of the bully spectrum. The studies are right, the bully and victim are more similar than different.

Bob and I talked for probably an hour that day. I told him about my work on trying to solve the bullying issue. He was so supportive and also said that he councils prisoners at a jail to help them and help himself. He has not had the “easy” life as much as I have and has had to deal with many things that I could tell he tries to still suppress in his mind to this day. I could tell as the conversation continued that he was getting his ability to release his demons to me as well. It was truly amazing to me to have this closure with the person I had demonized all these years. Bob is an adult, with adult struggles and now an understanding of where he comes from and why that is. We are both working toward recovery of the same things.

After about an hour of pouring our hearts out to each other (remember that we hadn’t even seen each other in 33 years or so), we had to end the conversation. Bob closed out his end by shocking me again. He said, “I can’t wait to share this conversation with the men at the prison that I meet with. This has been something I needed and am so glad we talked. Can I call you again tomorrow?”

WHAT!!!

Bob needed me more than I needed him. I am now not the victim, not the bully, but the helper and listener. I can’t begin to explain how that made me feel.

“Of course,” I replied. “You can call me anytime and let’s friend each other on Facebook if you want”.

He did and now I had a bigger view of his life and he mine. He posts lots of positive thoughts on FB as I do. We always put a like on those for each other. We’ve talked many times on the phone as well and he has offered to do anything to help with my cause. I have asked him to write his own article here from his perspective. I hope and believe he will, because he gets it. He gets that we all feel alone, but no one is alone. He gets that the demons we have to live with within our mind can be undone through help and sharing like this. He has suffered as I have, and we are both looking to help ourselves by taking action, like my calling him.

Bob had no recollection of the bullying that he did to me in the end. But he was going home and dealing with the demons he had in his home life. Bob is slowly sharing more and more with me, but I get the feeling that there is a darkness in his past that he still hasn’t told me about. He may never share that. Or one day, he may decide to pick up the phone and release his demons to me as I did to him.

For now, the damage of the Bob demon is repaired for me and I now move on. It can get better. It’s never too late to decide to stop fighting and put your demons in your mind behind you. I never thought that so many years later, I would be. But I am feeling 100%, no make that 1000% better these days. Something must be working and I think it’s my decision to stop running or hiding from my demons, but confronting them and letting them go. I have been blessed with the ability and strength to continue to fight these long-term effects. I now sleep better at night with dreams of the future instead of nightmares about the past (had to tie to the song lyrics somehow, right)? We can all do the same.

In many cases, help is but a phone call away and you will find that sometimes…just sometimes, the demon is an angel in disguise.

~Alan Eisenberg

Impact of Social Media on Civil Agitation

It’s no exaggeration to say that the social media revolution has impacted millions of people all over the world, changing lives and even altering the course of history. Social media have changed the way individuals, organizations, and governments interact. They have fostered a new openness and transparency, and have made it easier for advocacy and activist groups to organize for change. Just in the past few years, social media have been credited with…

• overthrowing totalitarian regimes during the Arab Spring
• spotlighting social and economic injustice via the Occupy movements (which began on Wall Street and spread all over the world)
• exposing one of the worst dictators in modern history, the African cult/militia leader and indicted war criminal Joseph Kony, through KONY2012
Social media have also been used to rapidly spread news and updates during natural disasters, such as earthquakes and catastrophic storms, as well as to organize disaster relief.

A global survey taken last year by the think tank Havas Worldwide found that 70% of young people believe that social media is a strong force for change. (https://blogs.worldbank.org/youthink/social-media-and-social-change-how-young-people-are-tapping-technology) And millennials aren’t the only ones who have embraced social media; Gen-X’ers, baby boomers and their elders have also taken to Facebook, Twitter and other social media in a big way – not just for socializing, but also for political participation and working to create social change.

There’s no denying that social media have been a disruptive force and an instrument for civil agitation. They have turned our lives upside down and inside out, reshaping the way we think about the world and about ourselves. That’s very often a good thing, but sometimes it isn’t so good.

The dark side
Social media’s popularity is a two-edged sword, and social media have been abused in ways that painfully remind us that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Despite this wonderful new tool we have at our disposal, humans are still… well, human, and there is a dark side to human nature, which social media sometimes bring out in disturbing ways. Social media have been used not only as tools to build community, but also as weapons to tear down: to stalk, harass, threaten and bully.

The Internet itself has been blamed for the decline in civility over the past couple of decades, as it has provided a means of anonymous bullying and threatening behavior. However, in recent years social media have provided even more efficient methods for cyberstalking, cyberthreatening, and cyberbullying.

Sometimes there’s a fine line between agitating and antagonizing. We all know people who like to stir the pot just for the fun of it, intending no harm. But we also know those who habitually carry it too far, becoming antagonists rather than mere agitators.

Sometimes people simply get caught up in passionate disagreements that escalate into fights. In many of those cases, the worst that happens is that one or both parties to the disagreement get banned from the forum in question, again, with no real harm done.

But sometimes antagonizing takes a dark turn, and social media sites in particular are uniquely structured to make it easy for ill-willed individuals to target others. We’ve all seen the tragic stories of young people who were bullied, harassed, and humiliated online, to the point that they took their own lives. Countless others have sustained deep emotional wounds that take years to heal. This isn’t mere “agitation,” and it is anything but civil.

A force for good
The good news is that social media can also be used to reverse the damage done by abusers. Social media sites, online communities, and blogs can be wonderful resources to help the wounded find their way to healing.

In spite of the down sides, social media remain, as social media and brand strategist Kim Garst wrote in a May 2013 HuffPost piece, “the greatest tool ever invented to mobilize resources in times of need and…a catalyst to galvanize seemingly unrelated people behind a common cause or issue.” What we can do – as individuals and as members of groups trying to create change – is make a pledge to always use social media as a force for good, to help build each other up rather than tear each other down. We can disrupt without destroying; we can agitate without antagonizing.

After all, we’re all in this together.
~Daphne

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Author:

Daphne Holmes contributed this guest post. She is a writer from http://www.ArrestRecords.com and you can reach her at daphneholmes9@gmail.com

Civil Disobedience – Breaking the law (A Personal Story)

I received this wonderful story from Vivi from the band Mental Monky Ballet from Sweden. It shows how we have to think hard about how far we have to go to deal with bullying issues. Thanks to Vivi for the submission. ~ Alan

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Civil Disobedience – Breaking the law

Would you ever stand up in a group of people and say; I know we have rules, but they don’t seem to work. Maybe they work for you and some other people, but not for me and these other guys here.

How far are you prepared to go to make the rules work better? Would you risk losing friends, losing benefits, losing your job or even get hurt physically?

My name is Vivi and I’m the songwriter and lead vocalist of the Swedish alternative/rock/pop band Mental Monky Ballet. When I wrote our song “Breaking The Law” from our most recent EP of the same name in November last year, despite what it might sound like, I didn’t feel like a rebel at all. I just felt fresh air in my lungs. We breathe in and out and the air changes every time. Nothing is ever the same the next moment, and the question is: in what way do we want this change to happen?

To me, the song title refers to a form of civil disobedience, but maybe not as much as the one that most of us are thinking about when the expression is used.

Most of the time, I believe, we think of events performed in public and in front of the world media such as Ghandi’s non-violent, revolutionary civil disobedience in India a long time ago. A more recent example is Pussy Riot in Russia screaming out their message in a sacred church, maybe in an effort to make their message louder. One other perfect example is the civil rights movement in the USA showing incredible bravery against racial issues, just some decades ago. They were all making a strong statement towards their government which they thought were unjust.

This is what you read about when you Google civil disobedience.

What if we put exactly the same actions in a much smaller context, like a school for instance.

This is a true story and a beautiful example of fighting injustice against a stronger power.

The story took place in a school of very young kids, located in a suburb of Sweden’s second largest City called Göteborg (Gothenburg). As it often happens, one girl in one of the classes couldn’t play with the other children, simply because they wouldn’t let her. Why? Because she was a bit chubby and acted a bit different.

However, there was another little girl who wasn’t bullied, and she strongly felt that this was wrong. Ironically, she was equally chubby but had somehow gained some kind of status with the other kids. She deliberately and happily started to play with the bullied girl and she also, on several occasions, asked the others why they exclude her. Anna was the girl who stood up for her classmate, and now plays keys and guitar in our band. She was seven years old at the time, and this trait of hers still burns bright today.

This is a very common, and for some people quite insignificant story, and not really food for media. It’s something that would completely drown in the stream of horrible news of rape, shootings and incest.

Yet, these incidents, often taking place over a long period of time, could completely ruin a person’s whole life. We’re looking at years of panic attacks, self loathing, eating disorders and all kinds of psychological and physiological issues that often occur. Sometimes they are carefully hidden but still extremely painful, and sometimes they are out in the open needing all sorts of treatments, successful or not, not to mention the increased risk of suicide for teenagers and beyond.

For a kid, the class is the government, the schoolyard is the battlefield, and the corridor is the supreme court. Imagine what it means to have at least one person taking the risk standing up for you.

I believe there are innumerable amounts of heroes out there, visible or not. I also believe that we all should break the law or change the rules once in a while, when we feel that they don’t work anymore – in society as well as in the small group.

~Vivi

Learn more about Vivi’s band at http://www.cyberpr.biz/clients/3300

 

Giving New Meaning to the Word Beautiful

Laura sent me her story and is also trying to raise funds to share her new book on bullying. Many times I think the same thing. There are so many great stories yet to be told that can help so many. I hope Laura has the opportunity to share the rest of hers as she shares a story here with you. ~Alan Eisenberg

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When I was a young girl the other kids made fun of me because I wore large hearing aids and had a large under bit. They called me names Flat Face, Stupid and Ugly Girl on a daily basic. This caused me to shy away from other kids.

In my teen years my body grew faster than the other girls making me once again the target of harassment. I was an over achiever in art which created jealousy which turned into bullying. This one boy spit on me as I was siting in my class getting ready for History. He would say sexual things to me and tell me how ugly I was. He burned my hand by slamming a very hot cheese pizza face down on my hand burning it. He once opened my car door and started punching me and scratched me over and over again, just because I ignored him. He talk about my body and how odd-looking it was.

I would go home and cry in my room never saying a word to mom and dad. I was ashamed and confused. My 17 years old mind could not understand what was taking place, Also a virgin at the time I was confused by the sexual remarks.

When I was in college I would replay events in my mind, it was like watching a movie, only it was the same movie over and over again. No matter how hard I tried I was unable to stop thinking about the events that took place. Do to the years of being told I was ugly, I believed it which made it hard to interact with boys and made me become extreme shy.

In 2005 I sign up for MySpace and that same boy from high school found me. He wrote me an email to say how sorry he was for treating the way he did. I excepted his apology and thought it might bring me closers. However he started to bullied me online and making fun of things I wrote or photos I had posted. He would writing me emails telling me how stupid I was. At this time I was 23, He started to contact old high school friends and telling them I was talking about them in a negative light, this of course never happened. He also hosted a party just to make fun of me and later posting images online from his event. I started getting hate e-mail from people I did not know. He started a full-blown hate campaign for me. Leaving me helpless.

The only good thing to happen was I heard from some old friend who did not understand why someone would say such hurtful things about me. This back fired on him because I was able to reconnect with old friend who knew the real me.However still during this time after college I fell into a full blow depression and having low self confident. I never lifted the house and it made it almost impossible to find work. This went on for two years.

I went on to have bully bosses and had to leave my last job because of it. Four other of my friends had to leave for the same reason. Unfortunately there is nothing in the law that says they can’t bully us. People need to understand that bullies grow up into bully bosses.

Just in 2011 I had to start going through therapy to work though all the harassment that had taken place over the years. I was suffering from flashbacks, sleep disorder, depression, anxiety, fear, sham, guilt, and trauma. I had to go through EMDR therapy to process these memories, reducing their lingering effects. This type of therapy has stop the events playing over and over again in my mind. Just this year I started going to yoga as another form of therapy.

These bullies had affected my self-confident, personal relationships and self-worth. Just this year I have sign up for Facebook. I know I will be dealing with the effect of these bullies the rest of my life. I hope now to share my story and my art in hope of spreading awareness and making a change. No little girl or boy should believe they are something there not, but as I stated before If something is repeated said to you we all start to believe it.

My Book Giving New Meaning To The Word Beautiful is inspired by my abuse and fighting back saying everyone beautiful regardless of you age, sex, race, size or disability. Don’t let anyone make you feel you are less than BEAUTIFUL.

My book will be self published and sold as an ebook.

book online and digital copy will be available.

Please click the link below to view my page. This book will not happen with out you support.

Thank You! and Best Laura Jones