Messages By: tanyab

I watched this show today and it brought up so many memories of middle school and the rumors that had been spread about myself then. 

Like Hanna I was also a girl who developed earlier than the rest and shortly after the school year started rumors spread throughout the school of my being loose a slut and how I would sleep with anyone who would ask.Not long after I started to endure physical abuse by the boys in that school because they got it in their heads to trap me in corners in the classrooms and feel me up and mistreat me in that sort of way because if I was that loose in their minds it was OK. 

The whole thing started to spiral out of control leaving me afraid to be alone in the school without a teacher near by. I was forced to not show up to class until the teacher was in the room, it was all becoming more than I could handle. I had even pinched some of my mothers nerve medication and took a handful of it one night because I just didn't feel I could go on any longer. 

I think what hurt the most was I was a virgin who had never as much as gone on a date. In our home the rule was no dating until you were 17 and I just couldn't figure out why these girls and boys were saying such things about me.Thankfully I still had some friends who I had been in public school with previously and who still believed I was the same girl I always was but they weren't in my classes and some of them weren't even in that school. 

As I said it all became too much for me and after I tried to stop it myself I was at my Grandparents house, like we were every Sunday and my grandfather sat me down and asked me what was going on and why was I so unhappy. I told him about the rumors and what it was doing to me and my grandpa said something that I've carried with me the rest of my life. He asked me was there anything I did to make these rumors true and I told him no. He then said to me, "As long as you know what you do and who you are, you know the truth like no one else ever can. Hold your head high and know you've done nothing wrong and they will soon realize they have nothing more to say because other people will no longer believe the lies due to the fact they can only see the truth in your actions." 

I now took this with me in my daily life to school and else where and I couldn't believe he was right. It didn't take long before some of the girls who had joined in on the attacks were apologizing and it just continued to get better. 

I never had fought back before that but I feel my hanging my head and hiding was making them enjoy my pain and helping them to continue to torment me. When I stopped letting them see it hurt as much as it did they seemed to not be interested in me any longer. 

After that experience I became a person who stood up to others for their treatment of the ones who had followed me and now people listened because I was back with my original friends and back in the in crowd but always ready to stick up for the under dog.  

I can't say people since haven't tried to spread stuff about me since but because of my grandfathers advice, it never mattered to me again.I now had the tool to stop it in it's tracks and I could now understand when my mother said if they have to spend so much time making up stories about you they must not have enough to do themselves or not interesting enough lives to keep them happy and occupied. 

I so hope the two girls can come together  and become friends again because some of the girls who jumped on the band wagon and picked on me became some of the better friends I had in middle school. 

Good for you for seeing it for what it is. Good for your parents for arming you with the tools to know the truth of it all in your heart. I have to agree with you, the world does need more people willing to be different and stand up and shout out the truth not for themselves but for those they see falling prey to injustices of a sometimes cruel society. After experiencing rumours and abuse in middle scholl I became a self imposed 'freak' by becoming a punk rocker before most in north america had heard of them. I found my standing out by my own choice and always giving injustice a run for it's money in my vocal way, I never was pushed out of my peer group for my new appearance.  

acceptance continued and people started to respect me for standing and being counted and having the courage to maybe not be liked but no longer being concerned by that. 

My deapest sympathies go out to this familly and many others like them. How courageous you are to bring this to every ones attention at this time. 

It is sad that our justice systems are failing us more and more as time goes by. It seems more and more apparent we as people need to write to and push for a judicial system which protects us from violent crimes far more than it has or is at this time. Only the common people can push for and achieve a change so this may not happen to more people on such a regular basis. If this happens once, it's happened too often. 

This problem isn't only in your country of the United States but in so many other countries as well. It happens here in Canada far too often as well. I can't help but feel that so many criminal types are more willing to complain about their loss of rights, and we have forgotten to stand up and be counted ourselves. We need to show our legal system, (the courts, and the lawyers), that we deserve to be protected from violent criminals as much as they deserve to feel they have their rights recognised. 

I'm not one to take away all the rights of those in the trongs of the legal system, for I realize there are many who do find themselves accused while innocent, but the laws and the judicial system are supposed to protect the innocent victims, and they are starting to fail us all drasticcally. 

I hope with hearing tragedies such as this we can do what it takes to speak out and give our respective legal systems a message that those who die from violence such as this daughter has, cannot be without a result of cause. 

When violence is so obvious to reoccur as it was in this case our judges on the benches have to put some of their false pride aside and listen to the police and the public a little more before they so rashly make a decision to release these people to possably do what they already failed to do the first time. 

Once again I'm so sorry for your loss and the pains it has caused you. 

Tanya