This article contains potentially triggering topics:  suicide, depression, and self-harm.
Please be aware of your mental state before reading and reach out to the appropriate source linked below the article.

What is bullying? A bully is a person who seeks to harm or intimidate those they perceive as weak. Bullying has a psychological effect on the victim.  People who experience bullying are more likely to have anxiety and depression. Being bullied can cause issues with eating, sleeping, work or school, exercising, and engaging in interesting hobbies. People who are bullied are not able to focus on their studies. Victims of bullying are more likely to skip school to avoid the bully. In my experience, when I was being bullied I would go as far as to fake being sick or even force myself to purge just to avoid seeing the bully in school. I would also cope with the anxiety and stress by binge eating to avoid feeling anything and comfort my feelings of unease. I went as far as harming myself—cutting—a couple times out of fear—I was so terrified of the bullies.

Bullying increases the chance of suicide and suicide thoughts. There are some emotional and behavioral signs of bully victims. The signs are change in sleep patterns, change in eating patterns, frequent tears or anger, mood swings, feels ill in the morning, becomes withdrawn or starts stammering, becomes aggressive and unreasonable, refusing to talk about what is wrong, continually loses money or starts stealing. There are also the more obvious physical signs of bullying: unexplained bruises, cuts, scratches, comes home with missing or damaged belongings or clothing, coming home hungry from missing meals. There are also signs to tell if someone is a victim of bullying by evaluting their environment—especially school—if they are not wanting to go to school, changing route to school, doesn’t want to go to school on a bus, train, and/or if grades begin to decrease and they start to fail. Other signs of bullying involve the victim being a frequent target for teasing, mimicking or ridicule at school. They are also unable to speak up in class they seem insincere or frightened. I write this article because I know what bullying can do to the mental health of the victim. I was the victim before it was awful to go through at such a young age. There are ways to stop the bully. You can talk to a trusted adult, someone you trust, and you can report them. If you see someone getting bullied, help the victim and stand up to the bully and tell them it’s not cool.

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• If you’re being bullied or see someone being bullied you can go to https://www.fcps.org/student-services/forms.
• You can talk to a teacher, guidance, counselor, administrator, or a parent/guardian you trust.

Depression is common and treatable. If you think you have depression or any other triggers, seek treatment from your health care provider as soon as possible or the resources below.

• Crisis Services: Dial 211 – Help when you feel really anxious or really depressed and need someone to talk with so that you can stay safe.
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741
• Suicide Prevention Hotline:  1-800-273-8255 – Help if you are thinking about suicide.
• Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255