Today I logged on the internet to find stories of “coming out” and marriages spurred by the repeal of DADT. It was wonderful; to see people so happy to be able to finally be themselves really hit a soft spot for me. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to not be able to be how you…well…are. That would be like me pretending I never had an opinion, except I could imagine sexuality is obviously about 100X’s more serious than that and a lot more painful. Sadly following these stories I came upon an article about a 14 year old boy who had taken his own life. It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen a story like this, he had been bullied and just couldn’t deal with the pain despite him actively seeking help. He had submitted a video for the “It gets Better Project” sometime prior to his death which is what gave this story a particularly heartbreaking edge. The It Gets Better Project aims to help struggling LGBT adolescence and let them know that there is life after high school that it gets better. 14 years old. Life is hard enough at that age without adding the isolation that someone who was constantly being verbally attacked must feel. We hear all the time how cruel children are. Indeed they can be heartless little monsters and at one point every single one of us was that age and some may have even been like the bullies that lead to this child’s untimely death. I can remember being picked on for being small very early on. That hurt. Hell when someone criticizes my size now it still hurts. We are the way God (or genetics if you’re an atheist) made us.
Every single one of us has flaws. I’m too skinny. My nose is too big. My toes are too long and my teeth aren’t perfectly straight. The abuse I endured was nothing compared to what the kids who gets called “Gay” go through, every, single, day. There are so many homophobic, racist and just plain mean people out there. Some are open about it and others keep it to themselves. Some people are just flat out hateful and it doesn’t matter if you’re gay, a certain race, religion or gender, they’re going to be as malicious as possible. They feed off other people’s pain. People like that baffle me; people who hate someone who is in no way hurting them or even affecting their lives. Baseless hatred. Now I know that I’ve said unnecessary things to people that have hurt them and in the heat of the moment I felt like a jab in the most tender spot was more than enough to bring the argument to an end, leaving my opponent wounded and what I can only assume is feeling pretty low. Chances are at some point you’ve done it too. Call them fat. Call them stupid. Call them anything in the book you know will hurt. I hate that I’ve done it. In my particular case do I take it back? Not at all. But…it had circumstances. I do feel bad about stooping that low and at this point I’d apologize if I ever felt inclined but chances are I’ll leave it in the past and it was not a common or repetitive thing. Right now I want you to think about something, think about every time you called someone a name. Even if you said it to a friend or thought it to yourself. Think about every time you stared at someone who was impaired in some way.
Got the memories good and tuned up? Now think about a baby. A helpless newborn baby. Every person you have ever been mean to because of something that they can’t help was once someone’s child. At one point that kid you just called a fag was a curious toddler, completely innocent just wanting to be held and loved just like you were at that age. A child that a parent only wanted the best for. Now imagine that that was your baby. How would you feel if a person called your sweet innocent child fat? Or ugly? Or GAY? Imagine someone making your child feel like they were worthless because they weren’t societies “norm”. Now think about it like this: you once made someone’s baby feel insignificant, like they weren’t good enough because in your eyes they were flawed. We all start out the same, with hopes and dreams and as we become our own people we are faced with judgment every single day, but chances are that someone out there is dealing with it on a much worse level; a level where they feel there is no hope and it hurts worse to be told how blasphemous their existence is than it does to pull the trigger of a loaded gun. Remember that Baby at the beginning of the paragraph? So does the Mother now planning its funeral. Parents who once held a baby in their arms looking at it with wonder and hope are now looking at pictures of that same beautiful baby to put on a remembrance slide show. Trying to figure out how someone could be so hateful to a child that in their eyes was perfect. How could someone call the kid that they once read bed time stories to and colored pictures with “weird”. How could someone call the child that they sang playfully in the car with “gay”. How could another child make the child that was so full of joy and excitement on his birthday or Christmas morning feel like he wasn’t good enough to live on this earth. Imagine how helpless that must make a parent feel. How bad that must hurt. In this case a suicide is just a Murder by proxy. Something that was 100% preventable if only tolerance was taught and not hate. If only everyone put themselves in the shoes of a parent or even a child struggling with being different.
Sure, this article isn’t going to change the world. It may not even change the minds of people but I just want to ask one thing of individuals: put yourself in the person you hurts shoes. Put yourself in their siblings shoes, in their parents shoes. In their best friends shoes. Hell, in their dog’s shoes if you need to. When you hurt someone, you’re not just hurting them, you’re hurting the people that love them. People that are human just like you. Now, the most important and impressionable thing, teach your children the right thing. Show them that just because someone is different does not mean that they don’t have feelings. Let them know how serious bullying can be, how words really DO hurt contrary to childhood rhymes. Don’t let your child be the reason a mother is crying about her own. Treat others how you’d want to be treated really is a golden rule and it’s never too late to start.
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